Dallas Stars Find Way to Beat Detroit Red Wings

The Dallas Stars improved to (12-3-0) as they beat the Detroit Red Wings 4-1 on Sunday afternoon to finish off their road trip (3-1-0).

Recap

First Period

Patrick Sharp netted his sixth goal of the season 7:22 into the first period to put Dallas up 1-0 after a beautiful pass from defenseman John Klingberg. Valeri Nichushkin then extended the Stars’ lead at 15:19 when he scored his first goal of the season to give Dallas the 2-0 lead.

That, however, didn’t last for long as Detroit’s Gustav Nyquist got one past Dallas goaltender Kari Lehtonen with less than thirty seconds remaining to cut the lead in half.

The Stars took their 2-1 lead as well as a 15 to 8 shots advantage into he first intermission.

Second Period

The second period featured a lot of quality chances, but no scoring. Radek Faksa was called for tripping a little under three minutes into the game and then at the 10:53 mark Dallas took a bench minor penalty, but neither resulted in goals.

Johnny Oduya had a quality short handed opportunity during the second Wings power play of the period, but net minder Jimmy Howard got a piece of it and the puck deflected off of the post.

The Stars took their 2-1 lead into the second intermission, while also leading in shots 18-11.

Third Period

The third period was a strange one to say the least. It was initially a rather slow start with limited shots on goal and a few unimportant power plays; however, Ales Hemsky‘s hit on Jonathan Ericsson in the Detroit defensive zone wreaked havoc on the game.

Hemsky’s hit will be looked at by the Department of Player Safety because it resulted in Ericsson’s face being cut open. The nature of the hit also makes it a possible case for a penalty as Hemsky took a few strides before hitting him in the back forcing him into the boards.

Then to make the game a little bit more strange Dallas forwards Jason Spezza and Patrick Sharp collided in the neutral zone on the subsequent Stars power play from Ericsson’s roughing on Hemsky. Sharp was a little slow to get up, but remained in the game, while Spezza seemed unfazed.

Dallas finished off the game with an empty net goal from both Tyler Seguin and Cody Eakin. The Stars beat the Wings 4-1.

Thoughts and Observations

Welcome Back Nichushkin

Valeri Nichushkin got a monkey off of his back in today’s game to say the least. Having not scored in the regular season since March 2014 today’s goal in the first period will hopefully open up the floodgates for his offensive contributions.

The Russian native has played well thus far this season after having only played eight games last year due to injury. After undergoing a successful hip surgery no. 43 has returned to the line-up and shown glimpses of greatness, but hadn’t been as productive as he would’ve liked. Today that changed and it is hopefully a sign of what’s to come.