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Star Gazing: Run-and-Gun Hockey Fails Dallas in 7-5 Loss to Isles |
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Heading into last night's game on Long Island, the Dallas Stars were on a 4-0-1 run in which the team outscored its defensive mistakes in several games to come away with one or two points from the game. The team pressed its luck a little too far against the much improved New York Islanders on Saturday night, losing 7-5.
Turnovers, blown coverages, odd man rushes and mediocre goaltending (short side goals and suspect rebound control) was the order of the night for both teams. The Stars trailed by scores of 1-0 and 3-1 before rallying to take a very short-lived 4-3 lead. With the game tied at 4-4 heading into the third period, Frans Nielsen took over to score three times in the final 20 minutes. His final goal was an empty-net buzzer beater that restored a two-goal margin after the Stars made a late push and cut the gap back to a single goal.
This was not a goaltender-friendly game with all the loose defensive play, but the goalies themselves weren't stellar. Making his second start of the 2014-15 season, Anders Lindbäck was unable to make timely saves and looked bad on two of the six goals he allowed on 28 shots. At the other end of the ice, winning goaltender Chad Johnson (26 saves on 31 shots) gave up one flat angle goal and both he and Lindbäck were unable to contain some juicy rebounds in scoring areas.
Preceding Nielsen's third-period hat trick, the Islanders got goals from Anders Lee, Nikolay Kulemin, Brock Nelson and Lubomir Visnovsky. Lee's goal was a deflection of a Thomas Hickey point shot. Kulemin's shorthanded goal came off a Dallas turnover in their own end. Nelson's tally was a rebound goal off a line rush. Visnovsky's marker was right circle slapshot goal to the long side on what started as a seemingly routine rush.
Nielsen's first goal, which gave the Islanders a 5-4 lead at 9:39 of the third period came on a 2-on-1 rush with Kulemin. His second tally, at 15:09, was scored on the opposite (left) side of the ice off a 2-on-1 rush with Mikhail Grabovsky. The coup de grace empty netter came with one-tenth of a second remaining on the game clock.
At the other end of the ice, Vernon Fiddler, Tyler Seguin, Jason Spezza (power play), Antoine Roussel and Shawn Horcoff all scored single tallies for Dallas. The Stars outshot the Islanders 10-8 in the first period, got outshot 13-9 in the middle frame and held a pyrrhic
12-8 shot advantage in the third period.
Stars head coach Lindy Ruff, who described a similar team performance last Saturday as "garbage hockey" wasn't much happier with what he saw defensively and in goal in this tilt.
"We created more than enough chances, but we didn't adjust well enough," he said in his postgame press conference. "We did some good things and played hard, but we were inconsistent."
In describing Lindbäck's performance, Ruff took note of the fact that the goalie hadn't played since the second game of the season (Oct. 11) and was victimized a few times by subpar team defense, but did not sugar-coat his assessment that the goaltender was not part of the solution on this night.
"It was quite a while between games, and he had a tough night. We gave them some pretty good opportunities, but we've got to get some saves," said Ruff.
Fiddler's goal, which tied the game at 1-1 at 13:25 of the first period, was a rebound put-in of a Patrick Eaves shot that Johnson was unable to find at his feet. After Kulemin's late second period shorty and Nelson's early second period even strength goal built a 3-1 lead for the Islanders, the Stars waged a three-goal rally.
At 5:25 of the middle period, Stars captain Jamie Benn forced a turnover near the bench. Spezza passed the puck to Seguin in the right circle and the high-scoring center wristed home a flat angle shot past Johnson to cut the gap to 3-2.
Spezza tied the game at 3-3 with a power play goal at 6:50. The goal was a howitzer of a slap shot from the right circle, beating Johnson high to the long side. Seguin and Alex Goligoski got the assists. The power play was set up by Colton Sceviour forcing Casey Cizikas into a hooking penalty 30 seconds before the goal was scored.
Dallas took a 4-3 lead at 15:50, capping off a hard-working forechecking shift by the Cody Eakin line. Ryan Garbutt turned in some especially strong work down low and got the puck back to Goligoski at the point. Roussel potted the rebound on a skilled put-in as Johnson seemed in position to handle the second-chance opportunity.
The lead lasted just 30 seconds before Visnovsky re-tied the game at 4-4 heading into the second intermission. After Nielsen scored his two odd-man rush goals to forge a 6-4 lead, Horcoff brought the Stars back within a goal with 4:28 remaining in the third period. The Islanders were unable to clear their zone and Dallas claimed a bouncing puck up high in the zone. Horcoff finished it off, moving his right near the goal mouth and sliding the puck into the cage. Erik Cole and Sceviour got the assists.
The Stars never found another equalizer.
Despite the Seguin even-strength goal and Spezza's power play tally, the game was a bit of a rough night for the top Dallas line. Both Jamie Benn and Spezza finished the night at minus-four, while Seguin was minus three.
Dallas defenseman Jyrki Jokipakka made his NHL debut in this game, finishing with a bit of a hard-luck minus-three in 12:29 of ice time. While he had a few issues of his own, it is worth noting that the Finnish rookie was the lone defender on a couple of odd-man rush goals. On the first New York goal, Jokipakka was a little indecisive in deciding whether to come out from his defensive position down low to challenge up high -- really, a forward should have been there -- but he couldn't be faulted for Lee's deflection goal.
The Stars return to action on Tuesday night. Stanley Cup-winning former Stars coach Ken Hitchcock will bring his St. Louis Blues to Big D for a 7:30 p.m. CDT tilt at the American Airlines Center.
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