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Tarnished Stars hope to display power against Flames (Oct 27, 2017)
CALGARY, Alberta -- The Calgary Flames are having penalty-killing problems just as one of the NHL's top power plays comes to town.
The Dallas Stars, who are second overall with the man advantage through 10 games, visit Friday, facing a Flames squad that keeps surrendering goals while short-handed and driving their coach crazy in the process.
"The biggest issue with the penalty kill right now is our zone entries. We are not stopping people. They're walking into our zone uncontested, setting up. And if you're going to let somebody stay in your zone for two minutes, you can't get a clear, but if you can't even stop them from coming in, you're going to get scored on," frustrated Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan told the scrum following Wednesday's 5-2 loss in St. Louis.
Calgary is 20th out of 31 teams in penalty killing with a 79.5 percent success rate.
The Blues were 2-for-3 on the power play in that game. The Nashville Predators were 2-for-3 the night before but the Flames scored late in regulation to tie and won 3-2 in a shootout.
Gulutzan didn't like what he saw either night.
"I like our in-zone kill; being organized at the blue line right now and denying entries is not where it needs to be. It's not NHL level, and we've got to get it there," Gulutzan said.
The Stars and Flames each enter Friday's game 5-5-0. Calgary is 1-3-0 at home and the Stars are 1-4-0 on the road.
Dallas's power play was potent Thursday in Edmonton, going 3-for-5 to move from eighth overall to second with a 29 percent success rate. Only the Tampa Bay Lightning, at 31.1 percent, are better.
Thursday's performance has the Stars' power play shooting at 40 percent on the road with six goals in 15 opportunities. Calgary has given up five power play goals in 19 opportunities in four home games.
The Stars are not in a good emotional state since they blew a late lead in Edmonton and lost 5-4. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored with 7:44 remaining to tie the game and Matt Benning got the winner with 2:37 left.
Captain Jamie Benn scored twice for Dallas in Edmonton and leads the Stars with seven goals and 13 points. Johnny Gaudreau tops the Flames with two goals and 12 points.
Dallas has begun a five-game road trip with back-to-back losses.
Stars coach Kevin Hitchcock said his team isn't doing enough to win games right now. He mentioned bad decisions like icing the puck multiple times as one of those things that cost them Thursday.
"We iced it three times (in the third period) before they finally scored," Hitchcock said. "We just don't do enough in the details in critical ice to have a better record. We look like we should have a much better record by the way we play but in the details we just don't get it done."
Leaders on the team are doing their part but others aren't, Hitchcock said.
"Other people have step up here. In the details of winning we need to look in the mirror and we'll do that (Friday) morning and get ready for Calgary."
