The Dallas Stars have had a lot of trouble against the St. Louis Blues. In their shutout loss, the Blues slowed the game down, and won a grimy Hitchcockian affair. Yesterday, the Blues slowed the game down, and won a grimy Hitchcockian affair. Eventually Dallas will have to either a) beat the Blues at their own game or b) force the Blues to play Dallas’ game.
1st Period
In the first period, Dallas forced them to play their game. The forwards hounded the puck to the tune of 29 shot attempts to St Louis’ 13. Once again the Antoine Roussel-Cody Eakin-Colton Sceviour line did a ton of yeoman’s work. Enough to almost earn their (bull)dog tags back. But more importantly, the Stars’ best players were their best players.
Jamie Benn broke through the neutral zone on the PP with some brilliant maneuvering, and Patrick Sharp was able to finish off an Alex Goligoski pass on a snazzy second effort to beat Elliot.
2nd Period
Right away, the second period started off with some knuckle chucking. First Antoine Roussel squared off with Troy Brouwer, doing a much better job against Troy than his teammate Brenden Dillon. Then Travis Moen ignored Ryan Reaves to get at Robert Bortuzzo after Bortuzzo’s after the whistle antics on Benn. There was more twirling than punching, but it sparked the period with a heavy dose of testosterone.
As the dust settled, the Stars continued more of what they began in the first. They administered some neutral zone justice over the Blues and again kept them neutered. The final shot attempt tally would be 30 to 15 in favor of the Stars as Jamie Benn in particular broke through his own skin to activate beast mode.
We’ll be counting stars, yeah we’ll be counting stars #STLvsDAL https://t.co/eNQIj9c8Fd pic.twitter.com/6P7Ixf2Dsp
— hockeystats.ca (@HockeyStatsCa) December 28, 2015
Story of the period was Brian Elliot though. Because of sorcery like this:
Elliott save on Hemsky pic.twitter.com/2SIqaaFGc6
— Stephanie (@myregularface) December 28, 2015
3rd Period
Right away the Stars get on board for the 2-0 lead after Jamie Benn scored with a crosscheck according to Darren Pang.
The Blues would push pretty hard in the 3rd but still couldn’t get much going. Brian Elliot continued to shield himself against Dallas with Dominik Hasek’s revenant. And eventually the penalty differential from last game sort of evened itself out as Dallas would take a few penalties, and them kill them with some masterful PK’ing. Eventually Cody Eakin (quietly playing an improved game with the aid of Sceviour at his wing) would net another curling type empty netter off the boards from below his own dot (!).
It was a fantastic effort from the Stars over a team that seemed to have their number this season. More importantly, Dallas is quietly getting solid goaltending while also playing a lot better at home.