Jamie Benn picked a great time to score his first two goals of the pre-season.
With the Stars clinging to a 2-1 lead and trying to kill off a Jeff Woywitka high sticking penalty, Benn came up huge by stripping former Dallas Stars defenseman Darryl Sydor of the puck before backhanding the puck through Chris Mason‘s 5-hole to give the Stars a 3-1 lead at the 12:06 mark of the third period. And after a Keith Tkachuk blast had cut the lead to 3-2, Benn salted the game away with an empty netter with 49 seconds left.
Tom Wandell got Dallas on the board first when his slap shot found it’s way through traffic in front of Mason four minutes in. They made it 2-0 when Loui Eriksson‘s backhander from Brad Richards beat Mason just 22 seconds into the second period.
St. Louis’ first score of the game came courtesy of a David Backes breakaway at the 16:43 mark of the second period after both teams had combined for seven fighting and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties to heat things up on the physicality side.
Statistical quick hits after the jump
Loui Eriksson and Brad Richards continued to prove their chemistry early in the preseason as both players led the team with 4 shots tonight.
Karlis Skrastins led all skaters in even strength ice time with 17:51 and in overall ice time with 22:07.
Brad Richards led all skaters in power play ice time with 6:17.
For the first time in the preseason, Marty Turco went the entire way in net, stopping 24 out of 26 Blues‘ shots.
Both teams were on the power play 5 times and did not score with it as St. Louis enjoyed the man advantage for 7:14 while Dallas had it for 8:55. Ironically enough, however, each team’s penalty killing unit scored a shorthanded goal.
Some of the notable Stars scratches tonight included Stephane Robidas, Mike Modano, Breden Morrow, Jere Lehtinen, Ivan Vishnevskiy, Mike Ribeiro, and Fabian Brunnstrom. The Blues notables include Barret Jackman, Erik Johnson, Andy McDonald, Brad Boyes, and T.J. Oshie.