MINI-PREVIEW: STARS VS. BLUES
In the second half of a weekend home-and-home set, Lindy Ruff's Dallas Stars (26-7-3) play host to Ken Hitchcock's St. Louis Blues (22-11-4) on Sunday evening. Game time at the American Airlines Center is 5:00 p.m. CT. The game will be televised locally on Fox Sports Southwest.
This is the third of five meetings this season between the teams and the first of two in Dallas. On Saturday night in St. Louis, the teams played to a 2-2 tie through 65 minutes before the Blues won via a marathon nine-round shootout. On Dec. 12, the Blues blanked the Stars in regulation, 3-0. After this game, the Central Division clubs will play again on Feb. 16 in St. Louis and March 12 in Dallas.
In the front end of the home-and-home, the Stars took a 2-1 lead into the third period but fell one minute and 50 seconds short of nailing down a regulation win as Robby Fabbri scored his eighth goal of the season to force OT. After a scoreless 3-on-3 frame, the Blues' won in the skills competition as David Backes scored the winning goal in the ninth round to bring to an end a shootout goalfest that saw St. Louis convert five of its attempts and the Stars' shooters convert four.
Antti Niemi stopped 35 of 37 shots during the hockey game and four of nine in the shootout. Winning goaltender Jake Allen made 22 saves in regulation and overtime before making just enough (five of nine, three of the final four) shootout stops to get his team the bonus point.
During regulation, Alexander Steen broke a scoreless deadlock with a power play goal at 6:18 of the second period. Despite being outshot in the middle stanza by an 18-11 margin, the Stars struck back for goals by Colton Sceviour (third) and Tyler Seguin (20th) to take a 2-1 lead to the second intermssion. Outshot 11-5 in the third period, the Stars yielded Fabbri's game-tying goal at the 18:50 mark. In overtime, Patrick Sharp came within a whisker of scoring the winning goal but Blues defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk made a spectacular last-ditch effort to swat the puck out of midair near the goal line.
Dallas generated only one power play for the game, and failed to score. The Blues went 1-for-4 on the man advantage. On the flip side, the Stars won 34 of the game's 60 faceoffs (57 percent).
With the teams playing on back-to-back nights and with Saturday's game running so long, Kari Lehtonen and Brian Elliott could get the starts in net for their respective teams on Sunday.