Photo Courtesy Dominic Ceraldi
The Stars have another successful week winning two out of three, including overcoming a three goal deficit, Saturday in the 4-3 win against the Wild.
This week, the Stars played the Ottawa Senators before playing two conference opponents in the Canucks and the Wild.
At home against Ottawa, the Stars allowed seven goals, the most so far this season. Antti Niemi was hooked with the loss, but in his defense most of the goals were given up by the defense. Nearly all of the goals were scored directly off of giveaways in the Stars own zone. Kari Lehtonen injured his back on a collision with John Klingberg setting up Niemi to mind the net. Lehtonen was placed on injured reserved and the Stars called up goalie Jack Campbell from the Texas Stars. There is no timetable set for Lehtonen’s injury.
The Stars played their second overtime game in as many games against the Canucks on Friday. This game was decided in the Stars first shootout of the season in which Tyler Seguin scored the winner and Niemi saved all three shots faced. The difference in this game was the special teams as the Stars scored twice on five power play opportunities as the Canucks were one out of seven. Lindy Ruff talked about the play of his goaltender (Niemi) in the special teams filled game.
“I thought he was excellent,” Ruff said. He really did a good job, made some big saves…obviously a big part of the win for us.”
The Stars had a quick turnaround as they traveled to Minnesota for the second game of their back-to-back. The Wild scored three goals and were ahead 3-0 entering the third period. The Stars scored three early, halfway through and late in the period to force the second straight overtime game. Seguin scored from a pass behind the net from Benn as the Wild goaltender, Darcy Kuemper, was scrambling to get back in net.
The Stars still sit on top of the Western Conference (19-5-0, 38 points), five points ahead of second place St. Louis Blues. They face three more Western Conference teams this week, (Flames, Canucks and Oilers) including another back-to-back involving the Canucks.
Upcoming Schedule – All Times Central
12/1 @Flames 8:00pm
12/3 @Canucks 9:00pm
12/4 @Oilers 8:00pm
