Game 12 Colorado @ Dallas: The Matt Duchene Shooting Percentage Correction Game

When is the last time you saw so many weak goals allowed in one game?

That was the most beautiful ugly game I've watched in a long time, but we're probably better off not analyzing it too much. The powerplay was a positive, but everything else was frightening. The goaltending was bad on both sides, the defense was bad on both sides, and the penalty killing units on both sides decided to stay at home.

I watch these games on delay to try to limit my recording errors. Tonight I think it's safe to say I could have watched it live with no delay and you wouldn't be able to recognize my report as the report of the first meeting of the season between Dallas and Colorado. After watching 60 minutes of hockey over a two hour period I finally finished the scoring chances report.

After a marathon of recording chances I am pretty confident that the Avs out-chanced the Stars 20-14, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Gabriel Landeskog and Matt Duchene combined for 15 of the Avs chances. This was an ugly win, but as they say...no one asks how you won them. They just ask you how many you won. If you do want to know how they won follow the jump to see the carnage.

DBD Glossary

There isn't much to say about this game. It's the type of game that brings the casual fan closer to the inner circle of Stars fans, gives the fans already hooked on Stars hockey a night of entertainment, and puts NHL coaches in an early grave. The period breakdown chart is below, per usual. The Stars came out of the gate completely flat footed giving the Avs a +8 scoring chance advantage after one period. After the Stars generated the first chance I recorded that they allowed the Avs to generate 9 in a row. Needless to say, that was easily the worst start to a game of the season for the Stars.

Miraculously though, the Stars left the second period tied 4-4. You are definitely reading the chart correctly. The Stars did, in fact, score four goals in the second period on only three scoring chances. In the normal context of a game that would really stand out, but I only recorded nine of the 13 goals as chances. Of those nine I was probably a little generous with three of them.

I'm not going to try to draw too many conclusions from the player chart from the what have you. It's just bad. 75% of the roster was in the red. Your biggest positive players tonight were Krys Barch, Toby Petersen, and Jake Dowell at +1 at five on five. They clearly didn't play any minutes against Duchene or Landeskog.

There are two data points from the game that I can't get over. Jamie Benn was a -4 scoring chances at even strength. Benn's biggest negative of the season comes with Steve Ott out of the lineup. Coincidence? I don't know, but Ott has been my1/8th season MVP for the Stars so the team's performance without Ott at least catches my eye. I will be interested to see how they respond Sunday with Ott still presumably out.

The other note that I'm very amused by is the line of Nicklas Grossman. He has had a pretty rough season so far. Giving up five to six chances a night has been a common occurence, and tonight continued the trend. However, Grossman was also on the ice for six positive chances for the Stars also. As a point of reference, Grossman had been on the ice for only ten positive chances all year coming into the game.

Mind = blown.

I'm always open to answering any questions about scoring decisions, but for this game I'm going to be honest. I don't know what I can tell you. There were probably ten different instances where you could argue convincingly either way about the validity of the recorded or unrecorded chance. This specific report might not be 100% with someone else recording the game, but the same conclusion will inevitably be drawn. This was ugly from the start,and the Stars were lucky to get out of there with two points.

The only thing left to be said is let's just pound some Budweiser's and get 'em Sunday.