Dallas Stars 4, Anaheim Ducks 2

by Mark Stepneski of Andrew's Stars Page

The Dallas Stars have had some rough outings at home lately, but their play on the road continues to be strong. The Stars improved to 3-0-2 away from the American Airlines Center this season, beating the Anaheim Ducks 4-2 at Honda Center Wednesday night.

The Stars dominated play early, building a 3-0 lead in the first half of the game and then held off a strong push by the Ducks in the third to improve to 4-2-3 overall this season.

"The first two periods that we played were pretty close to the best periods that we played throughout most of the year," said Stars head coach Marc Crawford. "I thought we really attacked well. Our pressure was just terrific, especially from our first man. We created a lot of loose pucks and we were strong with the puck."

The Stars outshot Anaheim 16-5 in the first period and got a goal from Loui Eriksson to take a 1-0 lead in the game. Only some several nice stops by Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller kept the Stars from building an even bigger first period lead.

"It certainly was a great start by our club," said Stars goalie Marty Turco, who stopped 24 of 26 shots to improve to 2-2-3 on the season. "The last couple times at home we had the play take to us, so it was a great site to see us stopping them and doing the right things to get the game in our favor."

The Stars extended the lead to 2-0 in the second period when Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller turned over the puck behind his net and Mike Ribeiro set up a Brenden Morrow goal. Later in the period Steve Ott drew a slashing penalty and the Stars scored on the power play when James Neal set up a Trevor Daley goal, and it was 3-0 Stars.

The Ducks got a goal late in the second from Ryan Getzlaf and another in the third period from Joffrey Lupul to make a game of it, but Ott, back in the lineup after missing four games with an oblique muscle injury, sealed the deal with a late empty net goal.

"We stopped attacking a little bit in the third, which shows we still have a little ways to go," said Crawford. "But give them credit. They came back extremely hard as we thought they would. They started to put pucks and bodies to the net. Marty made a couple of real good saves."

The Ducks, who were coming off a 5-0 defeat at the hands of St. Louis, lost for the third time in their last four games and dropped to 3-4-1 on the season.

"We didn’t start playing until the third period and that is not acceptable in this league," said Getzlaf. "We’re not going to accept it as a group. We have to get ready to go ready to go tomorrow and get back on our horse."

The Stars play in Los Angeles Thursday night.