Boy, Thursday was a kick in the pants to fans of Metroplex-based sports teams, wasn't it?
While there isn't much good that can be said about that.... other game that was lost, the coaches and players of the Dallas Stars were more-or-less pleased with the game they played against the Los Angeles Kings, even if the 5-3 loss wasn't quite what they were looking for.
After all, they battled back against a very tough Kings squad and put themselves in a position to get at least a point out of the game before an empty-netter put it away.
Most of the post-game comments were fairly upbeat, which is a nice change from some of the downers even after wins earlier this season. It's a good sign, at least to me, that this team is being evaluated on the process as much or more than the results.
"I thought for coming back from a road swing I thought we played a pretty good game," said Stars coach Glen Gulutzan. "We had a chance to win with ten minutes left in the third. You always want to put yourself in those positions. We did, we battled back, showed some character, but in the end another seeing eye single that goes through and finds its way to the back of the net."
After the jump, more on the Stars 5-3 loss to the Kings, catching up with Brandon Segal and Marc Crawford and more NHL fun with Halloween costumes. Can it be October forever?
- For your daily paywall frustration, I give you Mike Heika's take on the game. The headline makes me think it's about something like "just being satisfied with the effort won't necessarily get you results." [DallasNews.com]
- The Los Angeles Times is one of the newspapers that doesn't routinely travel with its NHL teams any more, so here's what they ran about the game instead. [Los Angeles Times]
- A quick-but-free article from the DMN about some of the line shuffling Gulutzan is doing with the fourth line. Of particular in interest to me was the quote about Krys Barch, who I've never considered a good skater until I saw the skills of Eric Godard. [DallasNews.com]
- Around the time all the fun with the IRS was breaking Thursday, this annual survey from Team Marketing Report came out reporting that the Stars have the cheapest average ticket in the NHL. Now, there are a lot of things to know about this report, one of which is that it is incredibly flawed in its methodology (in that "premium seats" like most seats with admittance to the Old No. 7 Club and the Platinum Level are not included in the average ticket cost), but it is equally flawed across all 30 teams. Translation: No, the average ticket price to a Stars game is not $29.95, but I think it's pretty fair to say they have among the cheapest tickets in the league this season. [ESPN Dallas]
- My favorite mostly sarcastic Stars column takes on what, exactly, has been so different about the team this year. Look for the photo of the many faces of Gulutzan - the captions and photo humor are a always a great bonus with this weekly feature. [Thursday Morning Cupcheck]
- Former Stars grinder Brandon Segal is still toiling in the AHL in the Chicago Blackhawks organization, but he was named team captain for the Rockford IceHogs on Thursday, a nice little honor for him. [icehogs.com]
- And speaking of former Stars, what is former coach Marc Crawford up to these days? Well, he's been named coach of the Canadian National Team that will play in the Spengler Cup later this winter. Does this mean there will be much line shuffling? [The Globe and Mail]
- This doesn't directly affect the big club but might bring some significant changes for our friends in Austin. The far-western NHL teams (of which Dallas is not a part, are you listening NHL division drawers?) got together recently with the league brass to discuss changes to the AHL alignment in an attempt to bring their minor-league clubs closer to home. [TSN]
- Scouting the enemy: The usually defensively sound New Jersey Devils allowed the Phoenix Coyotes to score four consecutive goals in the second and third periods of a 5-3 loss in the desert. [In Lou We Trust]
- Around the Pacific Division: As if you needed any more of a kick to your DFW sports pants, all of the other Pacific Division teams who played on Thursday evening won. As stated, the Yotes beat the Devils while the Anaheim Ducks beat the Minnesota Wild 3-2. The San Jose Sharks had the night off but play the reeling Detroit Red Wings today. [Chicago Sun-Times]
- Now that you've seen more of Mike Modano than you probably wanted and are having nightmares from the Zdeno Chara rabbit, I bring you the Ottawa Senators take on Halloween costumes. [The 6th Sens]
- I'm not going to say this is the most informative or compelling post-game interview in the history of the NHL (but really, most players other than Adam Burish, Steve Ott and occasionally Mike Ribeiro on this team are kind of boring interviews after games), but Jamie Benn manages to look precisely his young age in this post-game session with the media. I always forget that kid is still, well, a kid.