By Steve Hunt
FOXSportsSouthwest.com
January 15, 2011
After the Stars struggled to beat an Edmonton team 3-2 on Tuesday night, a club mired at the bottom of the Western Conference standings, there was some concern on the part of Dallas head coach Marc Crawford.
On one hand, the veteran head coach was concerned about his team's effort against the Oilers. But he also knew his club would have almost four days off before they returned to the ice at the American Airlines Center on Saturday night against Atlanta.
Those concerns were quickly cast aside when the Stars handed the Thrashers a 6-1 drubbing before more than 17,000 at the AAC on Saturday night.
Recently-extended defenseman Trevor Daley had a pair of goals as did James Neal, and James Woywitka netted his first goal of the season in the huge win. All told, the Stars were 3-of-5 on the power play for the game, another big performance for that unit at home.
"It's funny how it goes sometimes," Crawford said. "Tonight we scored on three broken plays on the power play. The sticks were in the right place and it kind of just went in. The best play was the last one. The guy that scores the goal hadn't had a goal all year."
Dallas center Steve Ott summed up his team's performance in pretty simple terms.
"Power play, they were going in very well for us tonight. We had a lot of good shot presence," he said.
Tonight's game also marked the first game for Stars netminder Kari Lehtonen against Atlanta since they had traded him to Dallas almost one year ago. Lehtonen stopped 29 of 30 shots in a big win over his former club.
"He was excellent. That was a concern because it was the first time for him to have an experience like this," Crawford said. "It [the goaltender position] requires real good focus. Kari had a lot of that tonight. Apart from the screen shot that beat him, he was terrific. He made several great saves when the game was in the balance."
Ott spoke for the entire squad when he talked about how good it was to see their starting netminder deliver his latest in a string of great performances this year.
"I'm sure it was extremely important to him. In the last year, we've seen what he can do. He's been great all year," Ott said. "He's our catalyst. Without him, it would be a completely different game."
For Daley, tonight marked the first two-goal game of his career.
"We [the defensemen] want to help out on the offensive end. In today's game in order to win, you've got to keep pucks in, especially with our forwards who are highly skilled," the Stars blueliner said. "It's up to us to keep those pucks alive and keep plays alive. That's what we were keen on trying to do. Tonight was one of those nights where it bounces our way."
Dallas returns to the ice on Monday night against the Kings, who have beaten them twice so far this year.
