Wow, what a great game last night! For all the people who left before it was over – you missed out! Maybe you’ll listen to the Fanatics section next time before you leave 🙂
First period, in which the Stars dominate a tired Sharks team: The Stars played well, up until the last minute when Trevor Daley’s mental facilities collapsed and he allowed a weak rush from San Jose to lead to a goal. The Stars ended the period 2-1 with goals by Richie and TRD (a powerplay goal!). Nichol had the goal at the end of the period for the Sharks.
Second period, in which the Sharks get physical and the Stars fall apart: The 2-1 lead turns into a 3-2 deficit as some guy named Pavelski scores and Couture adds another. Jamie Benn wins his third fight of the year against Setoguchi, and Richie (?) starts something with Mitchell and they end up with 10-minute misconducts because the fight started before the puck was dropped. What this means: Richie doesn’t technically have a “fight” to his name, and it ruins his chances for the Lady Byng at the end of the season.
Third period, in which we sit dejected until the last 3 minutes: Marleau scores in the first half of the period to make it 4-2, and many fans leave the game. We warn them that they are going to miss the comeback and shootout victory for the Stars, but they give us dirty looks and rush to get out before traffic is too bad. But with the attendance this season, that’s a pretty poor excuse to leave because there aren’t enough people at the games to make traffic a hassle afterward. The Sharks score a 5th goal, but it’s disallowed because of a high stick and there’s a little life in the Fanatics section. We start cheering again and wonder if maybe the Stars can pull something out of this.
All of a sudden, something wakes the Stars up and TRD gets his second goal of the night with less than 3 minutes left. All 3000 of us who stayed are rejoicing, and… it’s actually pretty loud in there! 29 seconds later Ribs does it again for his FIRST GOAL OF THE SEASON! On the next faceoff, it looks like Ribs has scored again, we all have mini heart attacks, but then realize there was no goal.
Overtime, in which we win: The Stars are pumped for overtime and look like the hungrier team. Hey, the Sharks were playing their 3rd game in 4 nights and had the same epic collapse the night before against Colorado, so they had the right to look pretty sad out there. The Stars look good, we’re all cheering, and Ribs gets his second goal of the night about halfway through the overtime. Victory is sweet 🙂
Here is some super high quality video of the end of overtime and the goal celebration for Ribs. Not many of us stayed, but I was surprised at the volume level.
Today marks the one year anniversary of the firing of Doug(ass) Armstrong.
I won’t lie –Â I was ecstatic on November 13, 2007 when I came into my room after class to see that Tom Hicks had fired Armstrong. I called EVERYONE I knew who had the smallest bit of knowledge about the Stars to rave about how happy I was that this idiot finally got kicked out of his position as GM. I was excited by the newness of the Hulljack tandem. After a year, I can’t say I’m happy with Hulljack either. But in my mind, having one of the NESN announcers as GM would be better than Armstrong.
I guess Armstrong was never going to get my love since the only other GM I knew for the Stars was Bob Gainey… and that’s a hard act to follow – it doesn’t matter who you are. Armstrong struck out permanently with my family when he traded Joe Nieuwendyk and Jamie Langenbrunner his first week in office. Langenbrunner I didn’t care too much about – I never saw what the big deal was about him. He always seemed to be just a step away from being great, but he could never get there.
The Devils didn’t even WANT Nieuwendyk. The purpose of the trade was Arnott for Langenbrunner because they really wanted Jamie. Doug(ass) threw Nieuwy in to sweeten the deal. I still remember where I was when I heard about the trade. It was spring break, and I was trying to take a nap in my room when I heard my mom cry out that the Stars had gotten rid of Nieuwy, her favorite player at the time. Needless to say, that nap didn’t end up taking place.
Then there was the Darryl Sydor debacle. Armstrong didn’t just let go of him once – he did it twice and even refused to tell Syd whether or not the Stars were interested in signing him again. You DON’T do that to a guy like Sydor, and you knew how he thought about it when he said he was disappointed in the organization. Me too, Syd.
This is what Armstrong was so willing to give up – a man who cared so much for the team that he CRAWLED to the front of the net with a broken ankle because he couldn’t get off the ice.
Perhaps even worse than that was when Armstrong was ready and willing to let Mike Modano go to Chicago. Luckily Tom Hicks stepped in, and I like to imagine he said something along the lines of, “Hey stupid, this is our franchise player. Don’t be dumb enough to just let him leave. Ok? Thanks.”
Big moves aside, Armstrong was famous for trading first round draft picks for old and washed-up players who wouldn’t stay with the team for long. Norstrom’s play in the 2008 postseason was enough to almost completely make up for the previous year of over-paid, almost worthlessness.. but I would have liked the first round pick.
I will give Armstrong a little credit – he did manage to steal Ribeiro from Montreal and gave Brenden a huge contract extension.
But I’m not sure Hulljack have done a better job as GM.
The Stars seem to have a protocol for new GMs – be sure to trade my mom’s favorite hockey player as soon as possible. Hulljack’s first move was to send Jeffy, Smitty, and Jokinen to Tampa for Brad Richards. Now, I don’t think Richards is as much of an idiot as I did when we got him (“I only want to play for winning teams” = I don’t want to help work to make a team better), but I still think we gave up way too much in the trade. This would have been Smitty’s last season on his contract, and I think they should have let the 2 goalies split time this season, and then pick a starter at the end of the season. Then work on sending the other guy to a team he wouldn’t be totally against going to.
I’m not saying Smitty would have gotten the job with us. It just would have been nice to actually let them play it out instead of deciding without giving Smitty a chance. Then the Stars would know for sure that they picked the right goalie for the long-term – something I don’t think they can say today.
And just throwing this out there – it’d be really nice to have a good checking line center who can take faceoffs and absorb almost all the short-handed time. We lost that by getting rid of Jeffy and with Stu’s retirement. Basically, we went from 2 great checking-line centers to zero. And Mike Modano is NOT a checking line center. I don’t care if he’s “old” or “not the face of the team anymore”. He could still score a hell of a lot more goals if they would give him the opportunity to.
Then there was my favorite (heh) decision to tell Hagman that the Stars were “going in a different direction” and weren’t interested in signing him. I guess a mid-twenties, 27-goal scorer didn’t fit into their plans. Instead, we needed to sign Sean Avery. I’m still waiting for someone to explain that one to me.
While I’m on this topic, can someone explain to me why we need 4 players who serve the exact same purpose at different levels of effectiveness? Otter, Barch, Avery, and Crombeen are all the same type of player. We don’t need 4 of them – one, or maybe two, would suffice. Ott is best at the job, so keep him.
They have done good things. Getting the long extension for Ribeiro was good, and picking up Brunnstrom has the potential to be great. Sadly they promised him all NHL time when he could really benefit more from playing a lot of minutes in the AHL.
In my mind, Hulljack have built a team with way too many players serving the same purpose (and not that goal-scoring, game-winning purpose) and put all their faith in a goalie who may not have been the best decision for the job.
If I knew last year at this time that Jeffy, Haggy, Smitty, Mittens, and Jussi would be gone and replaced with Brad Richards and Sean Avery… well I probably wouldn’t have been so excited on the phone with everyone.
The Stars are coming off a great victory last night, but you know they’re going to have to be pretty tired after flying into St. Louis after their 6-4 victory over Nashville yesterday. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Marty get the start tonight since he didn’t play so well last night and back-to-back games are usually the best time to let the backup see some ice time.
St. Louis has started the season significantly better than last year. Their power play is right at 50%, so hopefully the Stars won’t take a lot of penalties. I think the Stars penalty kill is going to take some time to gel with the absences of Stu and Jeffy playing center on the PK and Hagman with all of his shorties last year. Hopefully the goon of the night yesterday (Brenden) can keep himself out of the box.
For all you Otter loving fans, as of this morning, his start is still questionable. Apparently he did make the trip to St. Louis though, so that ups his chances of playing tonight. I don’t know who they will take out if Ott does play tonight though. Brunnstrom certainly won’t be the healthy scratch. I can hope that it’ll be Avery, but it’s probably more likely to be Barch.
My pick to score last night didn’t work out, but tonight I’m trying again and going with Mike Ribeiro. He hasn’t looked so great this season, and I think a goal tonight would really help him out.
And I don’t think Brunnstrom will be getting another hat trick tonight. I just hope he consistently gets points for us. As long as he’s a consistent producer, he’ll live up to his hype for me 🙂
Here you are guys. The pictures are all after the jump since there are a lot of them. All of them are now up. I noticed we got several views before they were all up, so go look again 🙂 I got stuck uploading pictures while I was reading about Piaget’s stages of development for the millionth time, helping my roommate find a bank, and eating dinner… but they’re all good now.
Practice was great. It was really good to see Boo skating again. Plus Steve Ott really liked his sign 🙂 I just wish Hagman and Brenden had come out… I wanted my hugs! (more…)
According to Heika’s blog, Ribeiro had some x-rays done on his elbow today. I’m guessing this is from the Tootoo hit in the game. He did leave the ice for a few minutes, but he came back and seemed to be okay. Tippett said that it was just precautionary, but the Stars have already called up Toby Petersen in case Ribeiro can’t play. Looks like he’s having a pretty good season for Iowa (21 goals and 30 assists) so hopefully he can be a help if Ribeiro can’t go.
If Ribeiro doesn’t go on Wednesday, what do you do with the lines? Just slide Petersen in on the top line with Eriksson and Brenden, or try Richards on the top line?
Whatever happens, I hope Ribsy gets well really soon. He’s one guy we can’t afford to lose for the playoffs.
All I can about the 3 games tonight… GO HABS AND SENS!
Ovechkin just scored his 50th goal tonight against the Bruins on a beautiful breakaway. I think it’s possible he’ll get to 60 if he can get out of this goal drought he’s in right now. Well, he now has a hat trick, so I guess the quest for 60 goals this season is still healthy.
My Canadian teams disappointed me tonight. The Sens lost to the Ducks, and it looks like the Habs are gonna lose unless they can score the tying goal in the next few minutes. It would have been nice to not let those two teams each get 2 points tonight. Guy Carbonneau, you disappoint me tonight.
Well this is the first time I’ve had to put an “L” for the game outcome. Hopefully there won’t be too many of those.
The Stars looked pretty bland last night. After the game, Tippett said they were giddy about the trade and the victory over Chicago on Thursday. I wouldn’t call it giddy, more like lethargic and bored. There was hope in the arena for about 10 seconds when Ribeiro scored to make it 2-1, but the third goal really took the life out of everyone.
I thought Brenden played pretty well, but he really should have been more careful around Ellis behind the net because we could have used him on the ice those 5 minutes.
3 Stars:
1. David Legwand (I like to refer to him as Mr. DUI)
2. Dan Ellis (he had a really good game. The Stars make good goalies)
3. Mike Ribeiro
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