Thursday, November 27, 2008

Dallas Stars 4, Minnesota Wild 3

By Mark Stepneski of Andrew's Stars Page

The Dallas Stars put themselves in another hole Wednesday night, but this time they found a way dig out of it. After falling behind 3-1 to the Minnesota Wild, the Stars rattled off three unanswered goals to pull out a 4-3 win at the Xcel Energy Center. And there were some interesting twists along the way.

James Neal scored a pair of goals and Loui Eriksson scored the game winning goal and added two assists for the Stars, who snapped a three-game winless streak and won for just the second time in their last eight games.

"Maybe this is a tide-turner," said Stars coach Dave Tippett, whose team won for the first time this season when trailing after two periods. "Neal really played a heck of a game for us."

It was the first multi-goal game of Neal's just beginning NHL career.

"It feels great, especially with the win. It couldn't have come at a better time," Neal said. "It was a good team win and something we really needed. ... We've got to build off this win and put some wins together."

The Stars got a couple of breaks on this night. After taking a 1-0 lead on Neal's first goal of the game the Stars found themselves down 3-1 in the second period. That's when they got what might be considered their first break of the night.

That one came when it appeared the Wild's Mikko Koivu scored to give his team 4-1 lead with a power play goal 6:13 into the second period. An overhead replay view made it clear that the puck didn't cross the goal line, but the review lasted a long time and that irked Wild head coach Jacques Lemaire, who felt his team's momentum was taken away by the lengthy delay.

"It takes 10 minutes to decide a goal is not in, which we knew a long time before that, it wasn't in, but we waited and waited," Lemaire said. "You have the momentum you want to play. When you have the momentum, you don't want to go for coffee."

The Stars killed off the remaining 1:48 of Minnesota's power play and the game stayed 3-1. Then the Stars made their own break much later in the period. Just after the Stars killed off another Minnesota power play, Neal led a rush up ice and scored off the rebound of his own shot to cut Minnesota's lead to 3-2 late in the second period.

Then another break that went the Stars' way. The Wild appeared to make it a 4-2 game in the third when they fired a puck past a scrambling Turco, but there was a no goal call again that went against the Wild. This time the net was off its moorings. Again, Lemaire was not happy, saying Turco had knocked it off intentionally.

"It's the third time that Turco does that, just against us," Lemaire said. "He goes like he's going to stumble and he just lays on the post. That's what he does. It's a trick, but now they'll know."

Turco said plays like that happen in games and it goes both ways.

"Those are unfortunate. It's happened to us. Those situations should be discretionary," Turco said. "But I don't give a crap right now. We needed it, we got it and found a way."

As for him to doing it on purpose, he denied it.

"I had no clue," Turco said. "You saw me afterward diving around like an idiot. I would prefer not to do that. ... I don't know what really happened."

That kept it a one goal game and the Stars were able to tie the game 3-3 later on a Brad Richards goal at the 8:30 mark of the third period.

When a Stephane Robidas shot from the right point deflected off Eriksson and into the net as he battled for position in the slot the Stars had the lead for good.

The Wild made one last push in the final minute but had a shot go off the post, another bounce that went the Stars' way on this night.

“We need points and wins and sometimes you need a little luck," said Turco.

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