Ribeiro Shines as Stars Losing Streak Ends

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.

* Photo courtesy of Dallas Stars 

Tags: Anaheim, beauty, break, Brenden, Cammalleri, case, closing, confidence, Courtesy, Dallas, Dallman, defenseman, Division, duo, Eriksson, example, facet, Fresh, Game, goal, goaltender, Hagman, Jere, knowledge, Lehtinen, lockdown, Losing, loss, Loui, March, Michael, Mike Ribeiro, minute, mode, month, Morrow, Niklas, perid, period, Photo, point, position, score, season, shift, shone, something, Stars, Stephan Robidas, Stu Barnes, today, victory, week, yahoo