Dallas Stars Daily Links: Brenden Morrow Snap Goal Drought In Loss To Red Wings

by Erin Bolen on Jan 18, 2012 6:01 AM CST in Dallas Stars Daily Links

It's been a hard year for Brenden Morrow.

After tweaking an already-touchy knee in the preseason and dealing with some chronic back problems, the Dallas Stars captain hasn't seemed like himself at times this season. He has been guilty of trying to do too much at times and has gone through long goal-less droughts.

He snapped one of those droughts in Tuesday's 3-2 shootout loss to the Detroit Red Wings, scoring his first goal in 12 games and sparking the Stars struggling power play with a leaping deflection off of his shinpad.

"It's a huge part of my job, so I think about it a lot," he said. "But the thing is you can't push too hard or the frustration gets even worse. You have to just play your game and play relaxed and do the right things."

It was a step in the right direction for the power play and the team. But a bad bounce that ended up in the back of the Stars net and two of the shootout regulars being sidelined by injures were too much to overcome for the full two points.

"These ones are always tough,," Morrow said. "You're looking for a result, and we worked really hard both last night and tonight. This is probably our best back-to-back effort all year, and we were involved in the game, but one out of four isn't going to get it done for us. We're happy with our work, but we need to start getting some results."

After the jump, more on the shootout loss to the Red Wings, Taylor Hall has a nasty adventure with a teammate's skate and interesting times in Texas minor league and junior hockey.

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The "loss" pushed a winless streak to three, but even so, the Stars actually played a pretty solid team game. [ESPN Dallas]
Rookie Richard Bachman had another solid night, helping silence several late Red Wings power plays, and in this paywalled story, Mike Heika takes a look at how he's established himself with the big club. [DallasNews.com]
Seriously, does anyone in the league know that Loui Eriksson did this exact same shootout move in the win over the Los Angeles Kings last week? Cause while it definitely seems to be a Swedish (or at least Scandanavian) thing, it certainly isn't limited to the Wings. [MLive.com]
Our friends over at Winging it in Motown know it wasn't the prettiest hockey game ever put on ice, thanks to a very competitive night from an undermanned Stars team. [Winging it in Motown]
Jamie Benn could be back as soon as next Tuesday against the Anaheim Ducks? God bless his doctors and whoever invented laproscopic appendectomies. [DallasNews.com]
Taylor Hall combined several Dallas Stars injury-causing facepalms into one on Tuesday. He fell in warmups and was cut badly around the eye by teammate Corey Potter's skate. To me at least, it imemdiately brought to mind a.) Nicklas Grossman and his 60-stick cheek cut and b.) the unfortunate collision of Matt Niskanen and the late Karlis Skrastins in warmups which left Skrastins with a concussion and Niskanen with a nasty cut on his hand. [Backhand Shelf]
Is goalie Ryan Miller the problem that ails the Buffalo Sabres? Is it coach Lindy Ruff? Well, Ruff doesn't think things were all that bad in Monday's 5-0 loss. Um, right. [Buffalo News]
Meet the enemy: Whatever Marty St. Louis said to the Tampa Bay Lightning before their game with the Boston Bruins obviously worked, as the Lightning went out and defeated the defending Stanley Cup champs 5-3. [Tampa Bay Times]
Around the Pacific Division, the awesome: Dustin Penner has been an awful good sport about his back-breaking love of delicious pancakes, and the Los Angeles Kings forward was apparently so inspired by a unique Vancouver Canucks fan motivation technique that he went out and scored his third goal of the season in a 3-2 shootout win. [Puck Daddy]
Around the Pacific Division, the mundane: Shootouts were apparently all the rage in the division as the San Jose Sharks also went to the skills contest with the Calgary Flames, picking up a 2-1 victory as Michal Handzus and Brent Burns both converted. [San Jose Mercury News]
It's a very interesting time to be a minor or junior team in the state of Texas. On one hand, the Texas Brahmas are going to attempt to set three world records on Friday night. On the other hand, the Texas Tornado were involved in a massive line brawl with Corpus Christi after a sucker punch off the faceoff. Oh boys... [Puck Daddy/Puck Daddy]
Richard Bachman is officially the smallest player and lightest on the Stars roster at 5-foot-10, 178 pounds (though if Mike Ribeiro is really 6-0, 179, I'll eat my socks). But he played a big, big game on Tuesday and talked about it with the media.

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I was happy with our performance last night

we worked hard and did what we had to do, if it wasn’t for some bad luck on the second goal we could very easily have won. In the end it went to a shoot out and we lost on a coin flip, i’m feeling much more positive about the team today than i was yesterday, i also hop that Morrows shin and in goal will wake him up offensively, we’re going to need it.

by ukstar on Jan 18, 2012 6:26 AM CST reply actions

Agreed. the last 2 games have been very encouraging.

If they can play like that consistently, they’re going to start winning a lot more. Especially once Benn and Ribs come back.

"He punched the highlights out of her hair.... He punched the HIGHLIGHTS out of her hair!!!" -- Young Neil

by Tsudbury on Jan 18, 2012 7:56 AM CST up reply actions

They did play well.

And so did Bachman, event though he didn’t see many shots to start the game.I haven’t looked at the standings lately since I’ve been upset about the Stars not picking up points, but I looked today and they are in an ok spot.

"The Dallas Cowboys announced they have released Jerry Jones."

by T-rom on Jan 18, 2012 8:09 AM CST up reply actions

they're not eve close to out of it.

the only thing right now is that they are on the edge of not having control over their own destiny. But with 37 games left to go, that’s not a big deal.

But winning the next 3 games would sure go a long way towards making me feel better.

"He punched the highlights out of her hair.... He punched the HIGHLIGHTS out of her hair!!!" -- Young Neil

by Tsudbury on Jan 18, 2012 8:14 AM CST up reply actions

When the Stars play teams like Calgary, Edmonton and Phoenix, they HAVE to win

There are way too many teams in the running for those 8 spots and some teams need to be pushed down to the bottom with Columbus

"The Dallas Cowboys announced they have released Jerry Jones."

by T-rom on Jan 18, 2012 8:18 AM CST up reply actions

the game against the Wild on saturday is a big one.

It needs to be a statement win.

"He punched the highlights out of her hair.... He punched the HIGHLIGHTS out of her hair!!!" -- Young Neil

by Tsudbury on Jan 18, 2012 8:25 AM CST up reply actions

Exactly!

“the only thing right now is that they are on the edge of not having control over their own destiny. But with 37 games left to go, that’s not a big deal.”

Precisely.

by MurrayW on Jan 18, 2012 10:49 AM CST up reply actions

They're treading water.

They aren’t picking up the points that would move them into playoff position, but they’re only a couple points out and still have games in hand against the Avs and Wild.

If they get through this stretch before the all star break still hovering only a couple points out of 8th, I’ll actually feel pretty good about things.

by cms1171 on Jan 18, 2012 9:49 AM CST up reply actions

Very encouraged by these last two games.

But we’ve seen this before, we have tended to play to the opposition level. We must maintain this level and pick up 5-6 points before the break against teams that are not at the level of the Blues/Wings.

On player size … is the seat between Ludwig and Rads for the post game interview a really short one? I know Robi isn’t that big, but he looked like a little kid between Luds and Rads last night.

by 1paniolo on Jan 18, 2012 9:07 AM CST reply actions