Thursday, March 19, 2009

Calgary Flames 2, Dallas Stars 1

By Mark Stepneski of Andrew's Stars Page

The injuries continue to mount for the Dallas Stars and so do the losses. The Stars lost for the fourth in the last six games and for the tenth time in their last 14, falling 2-1 to the Calgary Flames at the Pengrowth Saddledome Wednesday night.

"We had lots of effort, but were a little short," said Stars coach Dave Tippett. "We're in a situation where we try to limit mistakes as much as we can and try to find your opportunities to capitalize. We hung around the game for a while and in the end we couldn't get the extra one we needed."

Calgary capitalized on a Stars turnover with 8:14 left in the game to break a 1-1 tie and leave the Stars 0-2-0 on their current three-game road trip. The Stars, who are 4-9-1 in their last 14 games, dropped to tenth place in the Western Conference standings.

"We're not doing ourselves any favors and we're going to need some to get in," said Stars goalie Marty Turco, who stopped 29 of 31 shots on the night. "You'd like to have things under your own control and control your own destiny. That why it's disheartening not to get any points on back-to-back nights. It's just frustrating losing, that's the overall sentiment."

The injury situation got worse for the Stars, who have lost 299 man-game to injury this season. Mike Modano (groin) and Steve Begin (upper body) both missed Wednesday night's game and are listed as day-to-day. Center Brian Sutherby left the game early in the third period with what looked like a lower body injury.

Those players joined Brad Richards (wrist), Brenden Morrow (knee), Sergei Zubov (hip) and Toby Petersen (foot) on the Stars' list of injured players.

Despite the injuries, the Stars were in the game until the very end thanks to a strong commitment to defense. Turco was solid in net and the Stars as a team blocked 23 shots. The penalty kill, which had struggled recently, killed off all five Calgary power plays.

But the Flames, who have struggled in the goals against department lately, had a strong commitment to defense as well, limiting the Stars to just 19 shots on goal and keeping Dallas' struggling power play from cashing in on any of its three chances.

"We focused on the good things, got back to basics and that was the key to the game," said Flames forward Eric Nystrom, who scored the game-winning goal. "We give up one goal and score one more than the other guys. That's what it comes down to."

What it came down to in this game was one play that snapped a 1-1 tie in the third period. Stars forward Fabian Brunnstrom lost the puck just inside his own blue line and Flames forward Dustin Boyd made a slick one-handed play to keep the puck in the zone and then slip it to Nystrom, who skated in on net and ripped a shot past Turco.

"He made a one-handed pass and I just tried to fly in there and get a quick shot," said Nystrom. "It slipped through his pads."

That's the way Turco saw it.

"Yeah, it snuck through me," Turco said.

Brunnstrom was obviously disappointed with his role in the play.

"I lost my balance a little bit and I was trying to pass to the other side but I just missed the puck and it became a bad pass," said Brunnstrom. "I would try to make a harder pass next time or hang onto it".

The Stars scored first when Brendan Morrison beat Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff with a backhand shot 1:10 into the second period.

The Flames bounced back to tie a little more than four minutes later when Jamie Lundmark finished off a two-on-one break at the 5:39 mark of the period.

The Stars get a couple days off before concluding their road trip in San Jose on Saturday afternoon. With just 11 games left in the season, the Stars need to turn things around quickly.

"We need to win hockey games," said Turco. "We don't care how it gets done, we just need to get it done. We're running out of things to say. We've got to throw the hammer down and start winning hockey games."

Notes: Fabian Brunnstrom (upper body) and Mark Parrish (head) both returned to the lineup for the Stars. Krys Barch was a healthy scratch and Joel Lundqvist, who had been a healthy scratch in six of the last eight games, was back in the lineup.

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