The Stars went into Philadelphia for their 3rd straight road game and played their most complete game in some time, maybe all season. The defense stood tall, despite having four rookies in the line-up, and Kari Lehtonen had a stellar night in between the pipes. Were it not for the heroics of Lehtonen and opposing netminder Steve Mason, this game would have been a much higher scoring affair.
A quick look at things, reveals the Stars outplayed the Flyers in all phases of the game.
In these posts, I will also be including a chart that shows scoring chances. Scoring chances are loosely defined as shots generated from inside the black outlined area below.
In these posts, you will also see a few abbreviations and terms used.
CF, CA, C+/- and CF% are Corsi For, Corsi Against, and Corsi For Percentage. They are defined as follows,
Corsi For: The number of on-ice shot attempts (on goal, missed, or blocked) taken by the player’s team.
Corsi Against: The number of on-ice shot attempts (on goal, missed, or blocked) taken by the opposing team.
Corsi%: The percentage of on-ice shot attempts (on goal, missed, or blocked) taken by the player’s team; also known as CF%.
The Stars were led by rookie defenseman Jyrkki Jokipakka and Jamie Oleksiak. The only Stars players to fall below 50% on the night were Patrik Nemeth, Brett Ritchie, John Klingberg, Curtis McKenzie, and Shawn Horcoff. Interestingly enough, I thought the McKenzie-Horcoff-Ritchie line was pretty good most of the night.
This late in the season it’s hard to play back all the games in your head, but I am having a hard time remembering one that was as much fun to watch as this one. It might be too little too late, but I could sure use a few more games like this one. Stick tap to the 4 rookie D-men and to Kari for making the big saves when his team needed them.
Graphs and numbers taken from War-on-Ice and hockeystats.ca