John Klingberg and Joe Pavelski scored six points between them in the Dallas Stars’ first road win last night. Stunning, yes – but it’s becoming a routine as well as a highlight.
The pair have been on the ice for 13 of the Stars’ 29 goals this season. The pattern is unmistakeable, writes The Dallas Morning News’ Matthew DeFranks. It’s also a direct product of how these two elite players become even more elite together:
Klingberg is one of the league’s best at moving laterally in the offensive zone, shimmying his way to space to unleash a wrist shot. Teams know about his presence on the power play and how he can drive offense with such an effective shot. It’s these skills that make his third-period turnover that led to a Columbus goal worth it. Welcome the good, accept the bad….
Pavelski is one of the league’s best around the net, savvy enough to find pockets of space and quick-twitched enough to deflect pucks when they arrive. It’s how the 36-year-old has survived in the NHL as a seventh-round pick who doesn’t scrape 6-feet tall.
And for reasons that are all too apparent to Stars fans, this kind of consistent scoring couldn’t come at a better time:
The offense from Klingberg and Pavelski has been welcome in the early going with the plethora of injuries Dallas has endured in the season’s first two weeks. [Jamie] Benn and Blake Comeau each missed four games. Roope Hintz missed two. Joel Kiviranta has missed five (and counting). Tyler Seguin won’t play for another two months.
Dallas needed offense from somewhere. And Klingberg and Pavelski are happily obliging, and making it look effortless along the way.
Matt has more. [SportsDayDFW]
Stars Stuff
“Joe and John have got a pretty good thing going,” and head coach Rick Bowness couldn’t be more pleased with the results.
🎥 Rick Bowness: “The mindset going into the game was to be aggressive. That first game in Carolina, we kind of sat back and waited to see what they could do. Well, we took the opposite approach today.”@ATT | #GoStars pic.twitter.com/rgipw0lNRp
— Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) February 3, 2021
Klinger thinks he should shoot more pucks, and with 300 career NHL points, it’s hard to argue with him.
“We didn’t, you know, beat ourselves tonight. That was a big thing.” So Captain America has noticed that, too.
Around The Leagues
#Disco Jazz
- The Carolina Hurricanes got it done in a 4-3 shootout, again, this time over the Chicago Blackhawks in United Center. [Canes Country]/
Thoughts and prayers.
“I’ve just got to shoot more,” Patrik Laine said after being held without a point in his Blue Jackets debut, a 6-3 loss to the Stars that was his first game in 19 days. “I think I was just passing it too much. I think that’s just being on a new team.”https://t.co/XFsf6jjZGk
— NHL.com (@NHLdotcom) February 3, 2021
Nice: The Stars sit among the top 10 in NBC’s Pro Hockey Talk power rankings.
For the second week in a row the @CanadiensMTL sit atop the @ProHockeyTalk Power Rankings.
NBC Sports | @GNCLiveWell pic.twitter.com/IhdVoOcWKc
— NHL on NBC Sports (@NHLonNBCSports) February 2, 2021
Sometimes the politics get on your sports no matter what you do. Belarus’ ongoing election upheaval will leave Latvia to host the Men’s Worlds alone.
Latvia was picked to stage the men’s world championship alone by the IIHF on Tuesday after Belarus was removed as co-host last month amid political turmoil https://t.co/Ri0xZ9jaNg
— Hockey Night in Canada (@hockeynight) February 2, 2021
And Shea Weber celebrated a big, big milestone with a 5-3 Montreal Canadiens win over the Vancouver Canucks.
Congrats on 1,000 games, Shea Weber! @CanadiensMTL pic.twitter.com/luphSKoou8
— NHL GIFs (@NHLGIFs) February 3, 2021
Finally
One more time for tomorrow.
Can we get a #GoStars
— Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) February 2, 2021