If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Losing 8 of the last 9 games is never a good thing, especially in the month of March. That’s exactly the position the Dallas Stars were in going into todays battle with division rivals, the Los Angeles Kings. Fresh in the minds of the Stars was the devastating and embarrassing 4-2 loss to the Kings last week. In that game, the Stars led 2-1 right up to the last minutes, and then went on to give up 3 quick goals. Also fresh in their minds was the knowledge that with just 5 games left in the season, more losses could easily mean not making the playoffs.
After a few minutes and a goal by Dallman to put the Kings up 1-0 it looked as those this game could end up like other recent ones. That, fortunately for the Stars was not the case, and this was the closest the Kings ever got to competing with the Stars. At the 13th minute point, Stars defenseman Stephan Robidas tied the game, taking the 1-1 score to the first break.
During the second and third periods the Stars shone bright. The second period saw 4 goals by the Stars, including goals by Stu Barnes, Brenden Morrow and a duo by Loui Eriksson. The third perid blasted away with Jere Lehtinen, and then Niklas Hagman net a goal each. Kings forward Michael Cammalleri slipped one past Turco in the closing minutes, but the damage was already done.
“This is something to build on, and we need more of the same. We’re in a lockdown mode,” goaltender Marty Turco said. “The beauty of the whole game was not the score, but how the game went down—just the relentlessness of every period and every facet of the game. It’s great to see. But that’s what we expect, really. Today was a great example of what we need to do every shift from now on.”
- Yahoo! Sports
The Stars ended the game with a very convincing 7-2 victory, with 3 points games from Mike Ribeiro (3A) and Stephan Robidas (1G 2A) and go into tomorrows game against division rivals the Anaheim Ducks brimming with confidence.
Dion Phaneuf of the Calgary Flames has a strong shot. We’ve all heard about it, you might have also seen him power a rocket from the Blue Line. But have you seen him break glass, not once, but TWICE in the same game? This clip is a marvel at the shot that Dion Phaneuf posesses. The second glass breaking shot was from his OWN blue line! WOW!
Hi guys, only a few videos added today as am away from the PC for most the day.
Todays must see video is an interview with Paul Maurice, coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The interview was taken after the game in which the Boston Bruins knocked the Leafs out of playoff contention. The emotion and almost heartbreak can clearly be seen on the face of Paul Maurice.
Todays featured video is an interview with Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins. Patrice talks about his battle to recover from the massive concussion that had him out almost all this season.
Change. Often said to be as good as a holiday, sometimes said to be a hockey players best friend. For Jeff Halpern, the change of teams from Dallas to Tampa Bay seems to have litten a spark within him, and he’s been shining on a regular basis since.
You could go as far as to say that for the moment, Jeff Halpern is the best thing since sliced bread for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
In the 64 games Halpern played with the Dallas Stars this season, he put up seemingly good numbers of 10 goals, 14 assists for 24 points. Halpern, the checking center on the Stars roster was not expected to be a top line goal scorer.
The trade deadline however saw Halpern shipped to Tampa Bay Lightning along with team mates Jussi Jokinen and netminder Mike Smith. Halpern has not looked back! In the 13 games with the bolts this season Halpern has put up 7 goals and 8 assists for 15 points… better than a point a game!
In todays 3-1 win over the Florida Panthers, Halpern netted a goal and 2 assists.
Jussi Jokinen has 1 goal and 9 assists for 10 points in 14 games with the Lightning, down on goals from his average with the Stars, but up on points.
With all the buzz over Jonathan Roy’s fight, we have updated a few clips of this great fight. We also included a number of NHL game highlight videos, some minor league clips and a range of hockey fights both old and new.
Normally a team others look up for strong defensive play, a never say die attitude and gritty, hard hitting forechecking, the Dallas Stars of late have not fit the bill. In fact over recent games the Stars, who have gone 3-7-0 in their last 10 games are in a major slump, and have chosen the worse possible time to do it.
All teams go through slumps though, and in the NHL these days a slump means very little in the big scheme of things. The Detroit Red Wings, who lead the entire league in points went through a slump very similar to the one the Stars are in, and went on to a hot streak soon after. The San Jose Sharks had a slump before going on their current hot streak.
For the Stars then, it’s surely only a matter of time before the team gains back its confidence and gets back on track. Stars Captain Brenden Morrow spoke of confidence recently…
“That’s probably one way to describe it,” Stars captain Brenden Morrow said. “I think confidence is an attitude you have. We’ve had it at times, but right now we don’t, and it’s going to take more than just one game to get it back. It’s going to take a handful of games where you get ugly, where you dig in, and where you earn your bounces. That’s the way we have to look at this, we have to look at it that we have a lot of work to do.”
- Mike Heika, Dallas Morning News
The Stars face the San Jose Sharks later this week, and hope to break their slump in California. Word is BJ Crombeen has been called up from the minors, so maybe look to see a cold-streak winger be a healthy scratch during the upcoming games.
WE HAVE PASSED 2000 VIDEOS! A BIG thank you to everybody who has helped 2minsforhockey grow to a quality hockey video site. Today we added a large number of fight videos, as well as some goals, saves and an interview. Enjoy.
New videos added today, including fights, goals, and a handful of new interviews with Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley. We apologise for not doing a larger update, however due to it being Easter we are under tight time committments at this time.
It’s that time of year again. The NHL Playoffs are just around the corner, and teams are already starting to prepare for the post-season. In the West it’s highly possible that the 8 Playoff teams will be made up of 4 from the Northwest Division, 3 from the Pacific and 1 from the Central. In the East it’s possible that there will be 4 from the Atlantic, 3 from the Northeast and just 1 from the Southeast.
One could argue that the Southeast and Central Divisions are the weakest in their respective divisions, and the current NHL schedule could be seen as biased towards strong teams from those divisions. That is a topic for another day.
Today I want to touch on something that can make or break a game in the NHL, or in fact in any hockey league; Refereeing.
Bad calls are something we learn to live with in professional sports. We must remember of course that the people in the black and white stripes don’t always see things the way we do. There are times however when bad calls have influenced the result of a game. Just this week referees made a bad call and caused a 2 minute minor on a team, then just 30 seconds later failed to pull up a goalie interference call on the opposition team, which resulted in a Powerplay Goal.
The Playoffs however are the be all and end all of NHL hockey. Teams battle it out all season to make the Playoffs and the last thing they want or need are referees not doing their jobs properly.
We can only hope then that we will have a relatively clean Playoff Series, not just from the teams, but also the Referees.
Losing 8 of the last 9 games is never a good thing, especially in the month of March. That’s exactly the position the Dallas Stars were in going into todays battle with division rivals, the Los Angeles Kings. Fresh in the minds of the Stars was the devastating and embarrassing 4-2 loss to the Kings last week. In that game, the Stars led 2-1 right up to the last minutes, and then went on to give up 3 quick goals. Also fresh in their minds was the knowledge that with just 5 games left in the season, more losses could easily mean not making the playoffs.
You could go as far as to say that for the moment, Jeff Halpern is the best thing since sliced bread for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
