There wasn’t really any hope that the Stars might actually be putting together a winning streak of substance, was there?
After all, they haven’t done it this season in 61 games. That’s enough time to establish trends, and the trend this season has been that of inconsistency marked by more losing than Stars fans would have liked to have seen.
It’s quite possible the last game we’ll ever see guys like Patrick Sharp, Johnny Oduya, and even Lauri Korpikoski was today’s matinee. The Stars play one more game prior to the trade deadline – Tuesday versus the Pittsburgh Penguins – and the loss today should cement the fact that Dallas will miss the playoffs this season. They’ll look to sell off what assets they can to begin the re-tool the roster needs to be in contention next season.
FIRST PERIOD
In case you had forgotten, David Backes no longer plays in St. Louis. He plays in Boston. Jamie Benn had not forgotten this. They two continued their recent history of fights with one right off the opening faceoff – two seconds into the game, and the Captain of the Dallas Stars sequestered himself in the penalty box for the first five minutes of playing time basically.
It was the most entertaining two seconds by the Stars that period.
Boston would find the net twice in the period. The first was a play behind the net by David Pastrnak that sent a pass out to Patrice Bergeron, who is an excellent passer. He sent the puck right through the Stars in front of the net to Brad Marchand, who buried it on a wide open net when Kari Lehtonen could not get across the net fast enough to close the gaping hole he had open there. Several Stars were caught down on the goal line puck staring, and that allowed the pass to happen for the eventual goal.
The second goal came shortly after off of an offensive zone faceoff. A Torey Krug shot was redirected by David Krejci up over Lehtonen’s head. It was just the first kind of deflected shot that would find its way past Lehtonen today.
Throughout the first period, Dallas was struggling to make any kind of controlled zone entry. They would too often play a dump and chase style if they could even get past the neutral zone. Quite often, they were hemmed into their own zone by an inability to clear the puck out when they did manage to possess it. There weren’t many quality scoring drives by the Stars in the first frame.
SECOND PERIOD
The Stars carried the puck better to start the second period. It would eventually lead to John Klingberg’s second goal in as many games, one very similar to the Saturday night game in which a shot from the point has a seeing eye and finds its way into the back of the net.
That goal seemed to energize the Stars. Not long after, Curtis McKenzie and Kevan Miller would square off. With as many post-whistle scrums and aggressive play towards one another, you’d think that they saw each other more than twice a season at times.
On the first power play of the game, Dallas would find the equalizer thanks to Jiri Hudler. He took a pass in the slot and had just enough of an edge on his skate to leverage a shot and wrist one right past Tuukka Rask.
The momentum shift in Dallas’ favor only lasted a short six or so minutes.
Boston would deflect yet another puck past Lehtonen’s head to regain the lead. As they had done in the first period, they scored very quickly again after that goal on yet another deflection. Just like that, Dallas found themselves staring at another two goal deficit – something that they’ve struggled to overcome quite a bit this season.
THIRD PERIOD
The adjustment of the Bruins in the second period continued into the last 20 minutes. They were able to again and again find the back of the net by taking advantage of the defensive breakdowns of the Stars in front of Lehtonen and Lehtonen’s poor positioning at times.
At least Tyler Seguin scored a nice goal in the third period.