The Stars did not align thoughts on last nights 4-3 OT loss

[yave1964]

  We should have won. Really, we outplayed them the entire game except for a few lapses.

 

 I remember watching a Jimmy Howard interview a few years ago, in which he said as a goalie the biggest back breaker you can allow to occur is to allow the other team to score with less than three minutes to go in a period and his concentration level goes up as the period gets later.

 Last night Howard inside of 90 seconds to go in the period gave up not one, not two BUT THREE goals. In the second with 24 seconds to go, in the third with 70 to tie the game, and in OT with under a minute to Peverly. Three goals with less than 70 seconds to go in a period. Jimmy Howard, you broke our backs last night.

  He has been okay this year, a lot of goalies have had a difficult time adjusting to the little changes in equipment this year (imagine if real change which is needed occurs) but Howard has not earned his keep this year.

  When Howard Starts we are       5-6-2

   When anyone else does we are 4-0-0

 We are missing Ericsson, a lot. God I never thought I would write that. Almquist looked really sharp though a plus two and his first goal on a nifty set up by Zetterberg who was outstanding. The kid has an accurate shot and lacks size but hopefully will grow into it a bit.

  Pavel Datsyuk, there are not enough words to describe the game he played last night. He was all over the ice, backchecking, stealing pucks, on one sequence when he scored his goal after spinning two Star defenders out of their shorts he actually kept the puck in the zone with two steals behind the net earlier in the sequence. My God can the man play. Amazing.

  Stehen Weiss still is not scoring but is still easily our absolute best man in faceoffs and it is not even close. He plays defense and takes most of our defensive zone faceoffs which is difficult to get the offense going that way, but I have no complaints with the effort.

  Thought the kid line of Andersson, Tatar and Abdelkader played a particularly poor game last night. Crashing the net is their game, it will keep them in the league a long time, I thought they were too busy trying to finesse last night.

  Danny Dekeyser is smooth and calm, he lays his body out and blocks shots fearlessly, stopping a couple of Stars breakaways last night. Very, very happy he is here.

  Nichushkin was a presense last night for the Stars, I guess I didn't realize how big he is and that he plays big. He is off the score sheet for now a lot, but give it time, he is 18 and not embarrassing himself at the NHL level.

  I have Seguin in both of my leagues so I watched him on the ice last night and he did not have a particularly good game, a non entity for most of it. Scary moment in the third when three Stars players collided and Seguin was one of them.

  James Benn has made this tea his own. His ice presence is obvious you can almost see the young kids rallying around him. Benn is now the veteran leader.

Edited November 8, 2013 by yave1964

[WingNut722]

I was not able to watch this game, but solely looking at the highlights and the boxscore, it looks like they did okay.  The Stars have a stronger team now than they did in the last few years.  Agreed on missing Ericsson.  I don't know if Almquist is ready for the big league yet.  His goal looked good and I'm happy he was able to light the lamp, but he looks real small out there.  Looks like the Red Wings are starting to shoot the puck again.  29 shots to the Stars' 24.  Without looking at the stats, this is probably the first time the Wings have outshot their opponent in a couple week (save the Edmonton game).  

 

I wonder if Jimmy Howard is filling his head with this grandiose notion of playing in the Olympics and he's trying too hard.  He needs to relax and play his game.  He is better than this.