Los Angeles Kings 4, Dallas Stars 1

by Mark Stepneski of Andrew's Stars Page

DALLAS — Mounting injuries appear to be catching up with the Dallas Stars, who lost to the Los Angeles Kings 4-1 at American Airlines Center Monday night.

The Stars, who had been playing without Mike Modano, Jere Lehtinen, and Steve Ott were without Brad Richards (sore groin) for Monday night's game.

With the four veterans out, the Stars rolled out a lineup that included nine players 24-years-old or younger in the game.

"We had a real good first period and a real good third period and ten minutes in the second period where we really lost our focus. It ended up costing us the game," said Stars head coach Marc Crawford. "It's going to happen some times when you have young players and we made a lot of young mistakes tonight."

The Stars got off to a good start, getting some big saves from Marty Turco in the first period and a goal from Jamie Benn with 2:42 left in the first to take a 1-0 lead into the first intermission.

But the wheels came off in the second period as the Kings outshot the Stars 18-4 and scored three unanswered goals to take a 3-1 lead.

"Coming out of our zone and in the neutral zone we gave them too many transition opportunities," Stars defenseman Matt Niskanen said on Fox Sports Southwest. "We got caught in our zone a few times, took a few penalties, they had good pressure on us and they capitalized. The things we've been doing well, we got away from in the second ... They game got away from us there."

The Kings got their chance to get even when Nicklas Grossman was penalized for tripping and Stephane Robidas took a delay of game penalty 23 seconds later, giving the Kings 1:37 of five-on-three power play time. The Kings couldn't cash in on the two-man advantage, but they scored on the five-on-four when Ryan Smyth tipped a Dustin Brown shot past Marty Turco at 5:17 of the second period.

That gave the Kings a boost and they were off and running.

"We just needed that one goal to break through," said Kings forward Justin Williams.

Goals by Williams and Anze Kopitar in a 2:33 span later in the period broke the game open for Los Angeles.

"There was a lack of desperation," said Stars captain Brenden Morrow. "Los Angeles came out fighting in the second period and we had a lackluster effort."

The loss dropped the Stars to 3-2-3 overall and 1-2-1 at home. The Kings, who were wrapping up a six-game road trip a team-wide bout with the flu, snapped a three-game losing streak and improved to 5-4-0 on the season.

"We turned the corner on the flu yesterday," said Kings coach Terry Murray. "We looked a little road weary in the last 10 minutes of the first period, but played a very good second."

The Stars, who have played three games in four games, head to California where they will play Anaheim on Wednesday and the Kings again on Thursday

Game recap

Some good penalty killing and sharp goaltending by Marty Turco helped keep the game scoreless in the first period and then the Stars took the lead late in the first on goal by Jamie Benn, who scored from close range after being set up Brenden Morrow's no-look, backhand pass from behind the net.

The Kings dominated the second period, outshooting the Stars 18-4 and outscoring them 3-0 to take a 3-1 lead heading into the second intermission.

The Kings got going when they got a 1:37 of five-on-three power play time. The Stars killed off the two-man advantage but Los Angeles scored with just seven seconds remaining on the second penalty when Ryan Smyth tipped a Dustin Brown shot past Turco at the 5:17 mark.

The Kings got the lead at the 13:26 mark when the Matt Greene's point shot was redirected into the net by Justin Williams.

The Kings struck again 2:33 later when they kept the Stars pinned in their own zone and Brown set up Anze Kopitar, who scored from the left circle.

No scoring in the third until Kings forward Wayne Simmonds scored into an empty net with 1:17 remaining to round out the scoring.