Dallas Stars Daily Links: Looking for a Complete Game

Happy Friday, everyone! While most of the country focuses on NCAA hoops, the Dallas Stars take on the Ottawa Senators tonight at 6:30 p.m. Central and hopefully pick up a couple of crucial points.

Wednesday night’s game was a pretty spot-on microcosm of the Stars’ season. They faltered early, giving up two quick goals in the first period while not exactly inspiring much confidence. Then, they looked unbeatable for a stretch in the middle, scoring four unanswered goals and entering the final frame with a 4-2 lead. However, they yet again froze up in the third, scrambling on defense and getting very little done offensively to allow the Toronto Maple Leafs to come back and tie the score twice. The icing on the cake would have been if they had allowed a goal in the last 10 seconds of the period, which seems to happen every third game:

During a stretch in January and February, the Stars ran through teams with a precision that had onlookers saying they might well be a contender for the Stanley Cup...

And then it all fell apart. You could point to a 6-0 loss Feb. 11 against Vancouver or poor performances against the Jets, Lightning and Predators, but the bottom line is this team has gone 5-7-3 and fallen into a visible funk.

According to the team, not all is lost, and in fact, some positives can be taken from that dominant middle stretch of the game on Wednesday:

“We wake up in the morning and see if we can keep building on this,” Hitchcock said of facing Ottawa on Friday as the next step on this six-game road trip. “I thought the way our lines looked, we looked more in sync. We looked like we had four lines that could play.”

Here’s to hoping that the Stars seen in the second period in Toronto are who we see moving forward. See more from Mike Heika at the usual spot. [SportsDayDFW]

Stars News

Mama Seguin had a nice little chat with Scott Burnside:

Scott Burnside also has Five Takeaways from Wednesday night’s loss:

Do you think Klingberg has 10 more helpers in him before the end of the season?:

League Stuff

Greg Wyshynski’s weekly Power Rankings highlight which player is most likely to be playing his last season with his current team. If he’s right, the Stars may need a new backup goalie:

As we all saw firsthand on Wednesday night:

Jared Clinton takes a quick look at some stories in the Wild West:

This kid really loved his team:

Maybe they could take it easy today though, right?:

Some bad news for the Predators. Also, their fans are just a little upset that there was no discipline for the hit that caused the injury:

This article slightly annoyed me, as thinking about the Jets is wont to do:

USA! USA!:

In case you need a laugh to start your weekend off on the right foot, this is for you. This guy is an exceedingly better athlete than all of us: