WESTERN CONFERENCE QUARTERFINAL GAME 6: STARS VS. DUCKS
Needing their third home win of the series to stave off playoff elimination and force a deciding seventh game of the series on Tuesday night, the Dallas Stars play host to the Anaheim Ducks in Game Six of their Western Conference Quarterfinal series. Game time tonight is 7:00 p.m. CDT. The match will be televised locally on Fox Sports Southwest, nationally in the U.S. on NBC Sports Network and across Canada on TSN2.
After near-miss rallies from multi-goal deficits in Anaheim in Games One and Two, the Stars came up big on home ice in Games Three and Four. Dallas shut out the Ducks by a 3-0 count in Game Three. Two nights later, the Stars from a 2-0 deficit in Game Four to score four unanswered goals and skate off with a 4-2 win. Goals by Jamie Benn, Vernon Fiddler, Cody Eakin and Alex Goligoski led the way as the Stars knotted the series at two games apiece.
On Friday night, the Stars hung close to Anaheim for two periods, trailing 3-2 at the second intermission. A spectacular shorthanded goal by Jamie Benn gave Dallas life, although the Stars were otherwise punished the Ducks (four power play goals in six opportunities) every time they took a penalty. Anaheim pulled away in the third period, scoring three unanswered goals to turn the game into a 6-2 blowout.
Making his return to the lineup after missing Game Four, Ryan Getzlaf notched a goal and two assists. So did linemate Corey Perry. The Ducks also got goals from Mathieu Perrault, Jakob Silfverberg, Rickard Rakell and Nick Bonino. Teemu Selà¤nne returned to the lineup after sitting out Game Four as a healthy scratch from Bruce Boudreau's lineup.
Frederik Andersen had a solid bounceback game in net for Anaheim in Game Five after some up-and-down play in the two games in Dallas. Kari Lehtonen has also fared much better on home ice than in the road games this series. On Friday, Lehtonen stopped just 16 of 21 shots before giving way to Tim Thomas (one save on two shots) in the third period. Thomas mopped up the final 14:38 of the game.
If Dallas loses this series, special teams failures will be one of the big reasons. Entering Game Six, the Stars are just 2-for-24 (8.3 percent) on the power play in the series. That ranks 15th among the 16 teams that made the Stanley Cup Playoffs. In the meantime, the Dallas penalty kill was porous in Games One and Five and perfect in between. All six of Anaheim's power play goals in the series were scored in Games Ones and Five.
Dallas coach Lindy Ruff said he planned to make personnel changes on the power play units in Game Six, as well as some strategic tweaks to better attack the Anaheim penalty killing box.
Stars forward Ryan Garbutt has not been suspended by the NHL for the first-period spearing incident in Game Five that led to him receiving a major penalty and a game misconduct. Instead, he was fined by the League. This was not a surprise because there have been three other spearing incidents around the NHL in the last few weeks and all have been handled the same way by the Department of Player Safety.
The Stars welcomed Brenden Dillon back to the lineup in Game Five after missing the first four games with a lower body injury. He skated 20:18 of ice time, registering three hits, two shots on goal and one block. Dillon ended up a minus-one for the game (minus-two, plus-one) and was out for Bonino's power play goal that opened the scoring Anaheim.
Dallas has shown throughout the series that it will not quietly fade into the night. They have become a formidable team on home ice this season. Including Games Three and Four of the playoffs, the Stars sport a 25-11-7 record at the American Airlines Center since the start of the 2013-14 regular season.