Sunday, October 7, 2007

Nashville Predators 5, Dallas Stars 1

By Mark Stepneski of Andrew's Stars Page

The Dallas Stars aren't off to the start they wanted in 2007-08. They've dropped two of their first three games and Saturday's 5-1 loss in Nashville wasn't pretty.

The Stars gave up their second hat trick in three games. This time it was Nashville's David Legwand. The Stars' power play, which had scored three times in the first two games, was 0-8 on this night. And outside of a Krys Barch breakaway goal late in the third period, the Stars had no answer for Nashville goalie Chris Mason, who stopped 28 of 29 shots and has stopped 63 of 64 shots this season. The Stars did end his shutout streak to open the season at 114:13.

"Every game has a different opportunity to win, and you have to find a way to win," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "We didn't find a way to win."

Mike Smith got his first start of the season in net for the Stars and allowed four goals on 21 shots.

"I got outplayed,'' said Smith, who allowed four goals on 21 shots. "You've got to make big saves at the right times in the game and I didn't do it."

Nashville improved to 2-0 on the season and has outscored its opponents 9-1 in doing so.

"It's a different game for us when we score early like we have in the first two games,'' Captain Jason Arnott said. "If it doesn't happen we have to be able to stick to our game plan. For the most part it is going pretty well. We can't be too high on ourselves though. It is only two games.''

The game got off to a raucous start just 2:44 in as Stars forward Krys Barch dropped the gloves with Predators pest Jordin Tootoo, who knocked Dallas defenseman Stephane Robidas unconscious with a sucker punch last season. On the ensuing faceoff Dallas' Brad Winchester went at it with Nashville's Darcy Hordichuk. There was also a chorus of boos from the Nashville crowd every time Dallas center Mike Modano touched the puck.

There were little fireworks, however, surrounding the Stars' power play on this night. The Stars had three power plays and a 6-4 shots advantage in the first period, but Nashville led 1-0 after the first 20 minutes. After the Stars' first power play expired, Martin Erat skated down the wing, recovered his own blocked pass, skated behind the net and had his centering pass bounce off the skate of Legwand and into the net at the 6:37 mark.

Mason wasn't tested often in the period, but he came up with a couple of nice stops on Stars forward Antti Miettinen, including one on a Stars' power play opportunity.

The Predators made the most of their first power play opportunity, which came early in the second period, cashing in to make it 2-0 at the 5:22 mark. Dumont took a cross-ice pass from Marek Zidlicky and roofed a shot over Smith from the right circle.

A little more than four minutes later it was a 3-0 game as Erat set up Legwand's second goal of the night on a two-on-rush.

The Stars had a chance to get back in it when they went on a five-on-three power play for 48 seconds late in the second, but they were unable to take advantage.

Dallas finally broke through when Barch scored on a breakaway with 6:47 left in the game to make it a 3-1 game. But Nashville's Martin Gelinas score into an empty net with 1:14 left and Legwand scored with Smith back in the net 15 seconds later to make it a 5-1 final.

Andrew's Dallas Stars Page has been online since 1996

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