It’s a 60 minute game

And that is why you never completely give up on a game. It does not happen much, but sometimes when you keep fighting you can find a little hole and start chipping away. The Dallas Stars were able to do that last night against the San Jose Sharks at the AAC. The game was up-and-down all game long by the time it finally ended. The Stars come out and are not overpowering the Sharks, but get a 2-0 lead in the first and are getting better chances at the net.

Brad Richards just continues to create offense and can do it every night. A goal and an assist early for him. But then the Sharks get a goal late in the 1st and the teams go into the intermission 2-1 Stars. Then the Sharks take the momentum in the 2nd, as the game got dirty and scrappy. For a team playing 3 games in 4 nights, the Sharks were trying to do what they could. But somehow the ref gives Lady Byng finalist from last year Richards a 10 minute misconduct call when Mitchell goes right to Brad and tried to start something with him and instigated. But instead of the Sharks getting punished, both guys sit for 10 minutes and the Sharks had to love that. They pop a couple of goals and have the Stars on the ropes. 3-2 after two periods.

The Stars get into the third and finish killing off a double-minor to James Neal, and maybe it looks like they can get right back at it and tie the game up. But Patrick Marleau finishes a rush for the Sharks a few minutes to give them a two goal lead. At this point I think many Stars fans checked out. Another game where we were in the game late, but drop the game in the third. They already done it a few times this season against other divisional teams. And maybe a few of the players did too. It even looked like the Sharks made it 5-2 right away, but the goal was off of a high deflection by Marleau and it was a high stick. The game keeps going and the Stars are still trying and are still fighting. It was good to see, yea we don’t give up. But then with just under three minutes left in the game, Richards throws a puck at the net and it bangs in off of Neal. Richards again provides the offense and seems to be one of the only ones recently. I tweeted earlier that night that the key for the Stars would be if the 2nd line could finally break through it’s slump it had been in collectively for the last 2 weeks. Well 29 seconds later Mike Ribeiro finally breaks through and scores his first off a loose puck in front of the net. It took a review of the play and the Sharks wanted it not to be a goal, but it was. In about 35 seconds of magic and driving to the net, the Stars get a pair of goals and all of the sudden are in a tie game with all the momentum after being in a game it looked like they had no business winning. It’s a 60 minute game folks! But I guess sometimes you can play half of it and steal a game. Not something you want to try often. But it keeps happening, the Stars will be in close games and take part of the 2nd or 3rd off and then try to comeback in the 3rd at some point. It’s not going to work that much, but last night Dallas pulled off one of those rare times.

Ribs goes on to score another goal in front of the puck on a scramble in OT and the rest, as they say, was all fun and games. The AAC went crazy, message boards and twitter were all over the place, and the Stars we celebrating. It was a big win, and maybe it turns some things around. The PK went 5-5 and was great, and the PP went 1-4. So the special teams was good, Ribs and Morrow finally got into it and might have broken through the funk, and they came back to win an exciting game at home. It could be a big game and give the Stars some energy and confidence. But at the same time that is not necessarily how you want to go about games and this thing with taking part of the game off recently in close games is not something they can keep doing. We will see if this carries over this weekend, as Dallas hosts the Avs tomorrow night.

P.S. – My laptop crashed horribly last night. So it might be thin for a little bit here guys, but I will try and keep posting every other day for you guys or as I can.