Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Dallas Stars 8, Toronto Maple Leafs 2

By Mark Stepneski of Andrew's Stars Page

Despite all the struggles this season, the Dallas Stars head into the holiday break on a high. Behind a hat trick from rookie James Neal, the Stars blew away the Toronto Maple Leafs 8-2 Tuesday night for their seventh win in their last eleven games.

The win pushed the Stars, who hit the break on a 7-3-1 run, to the .500 mark on the season (14-14-5), moved them to 13th in the Western Conference and pulled them to within three points of eighth place as the league takes a short break for the holidays.

"It was a fine performance for some of our young guys," Dallas coach Dave Tippett said. "It was a thrill for some of our guys from this area to come back and play."

Fifteen different Dallas players, including goalie Marty Turco, registered points in the game. Eight players had multi-point games.

But the man of the night was Neal, another Toronto area native, who staked the Stars to a 1-0 lead early in the game, scored again in the second period to make it 7-0 and then rounded out the scoring with a power play goal to make it an 8-2 game.

"Everything was clicking and the points were big tonight," Neal said. "It helps when you're playing with guys like [Jere] Lehtinen and [Mike] Modano - it makes scoring easy. I was just going to the net and taking any shots I could get.

"It's a dream come true playing here because of watched them my whole life as a Leaf fan. I had a lot of family and friends here, so it's something special that I'll never forget."

Trevor Daley, a Toronto native, had two assists and a plus-three rating on the night helped set up the first goal of the game, joining the rush and putting a hard shot on net that created a rebound that Neal put into the net.

"We were great tonight and it's something to build on," Daley said. "It show that we can do it. We looked good out there."

Steve Ott, Fabian Brunnstrom and Brad Richards also scored in the first period to help the Stars build a 4-0 lead after the first 20 minutes.

"It's pretty obvious they were a team that traveled late last night," said Tippett. "We wanted to jump on top of them and put them away early - it's pretty hard to come back when you're a tired team."

Krys Barch and Mike Ribeiro scored in the second to make it 6-0 before Neal's second goal made it a 7-0 game. Toronto got a pair of goals before Neal scored with 1:26 remaining to finish the scoring on the night.

"We had a tough overtime loss against Ottawa, so it's really great to get these points," Neal said. "We really needed them."

The Leafs, who lost for just the second time in their last seven games, were playing their fifth game in the last eight days and had played in Atlanta Monday night. Leafs coach Ron Wilson said his team looked like it was out of gas.

"We couldn't even generate a shot tonight. The tank was completely empty. We were on fumes," Wilson said. "We couldn't forecheck. One of the things is Marty Turco handles the puck really well. If you are mentally into the game you'll do your darndest to keep the puck away from him and we just couldn't execute that at all.

"If you are going to beat Dallas you need your legs and you need to keep the puck away from Marty."

Turco ended up with 20 saves and an assist on the night.

"I can't remember too many bad shifts tonight," said Turco. "Incredible sign for our team, with guys blocking shots in the second, taking hits in the third and playing a full 60 minutes despite being up so big."

Notes: Joel Lundqvist (sore shoulder) did not play for the Stars. ... Brian Sutherby made his debut for the Stars, centering the fourth line with Krys Barch and Landon Wilson.

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