Dallas Stars 4, St. Louis Blues 1

by Mark Stepneski of Andrew's Stars Page

The Dallas Stars continued to roll on the road, topping the St. Louis Blues 4-1 at Scottrade Center Saturday night running their season-opening points streak on the road to seven games.

The Stars picked up five of six points on their three-game road trip by going 2-0-1 and improved to 4-0-3 on the road this season. Overall, they are 5-2-4 this season and tied for the Pacific Division lead with the Los Angeles Kings.

The Stars now play four of their next five games at home, where they are 1-2-1 this season.

"I think we should be having success at home as well, and I believe we will," said Stars head coach Marc Crawford. "We haven't been able to initiate our plan of attack when we've had a home game. If you can play well on the road, you should be able to play well at home."

Turco stopped 27 shots on the night. He had good stops on Jay McClement and Erik Johnson in a scoreless first and then made key stops on Brad Boyes and Keith Tkachuk as the Stars protected a 2-0 lead late in the second period.

"It was the best I've felt all year," Turco said.

Turco also chipped in offensively. He made a long pass to set up the Stars in transition and Brad Richards then set up James Neal, who scored off a snap shot to break a scoreless tie 7:56 into the second period.

Loui Eriksson, Tom Wandell, and Brian Sutherby also scored goals and Richards had two assists for the Stars, who won the special teams battle by scoring once on the power play and going 5-5 on the penalty kill in the game.

And once again, forward Steve Ott was the center of the opposition's wrath and drew a key penalty that turned the game. Ott hip check on Blues defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo in the neutral zone led to retaliation from St. Louis' Alex Pietrangelo, giving the Stars a 4:00 power play and Eriksson scored off a nice set up by Richards to extend the Stars' lead to 2-0.

Colaiacovo, who left the game after the hit and did not return, wasn't happy after the game.

“There’s 18,000 people that will agree with me and say that was a dirty hit,” Colaiacovo was quoted as saying by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Hopefully the league will take a look at it, and do what’s right.”

Stars coach Marc Crawford said he hadn't seen the hit.

"I don’t even remember that one. I’d have to look at that one," Crawford said. "Earlier in the game, they got away with a lot ... It was a hard game to referee tonight because there got to be a lot of emotion in it.”

Blues coach Andy Murray said he couldn't say much because he hadn't seen the replay.

"I heard it was one of those submarine kind of hits," Murray said. "But I can't comment on it."

Late in the game, Ott took a kneeing penalty on B.J. Crombeen, which ended with Crombeen and Ott dropping the gloves.

"Hit the guy shoulder to shoulder. You don't need to bend down on the guy," Blues defenseman Darryl Sydor said about Colaiacovo hit. "The one on [Crombeen]? Yeah, I think he stuck his leg out. That's the way Steve plays. He has to play that way to be effective. We need to stay composed."

The Blues took 55 of the 86 penalty minutes in the game and put the Stars on seven power plays. There were three fighting majors.

The Stars now return home for games against Toronto on Wednesday and Florida on Friday.