Final
Dallas Stars 1 – Philadelphia Flyers 4
Stars fans can only ask why? Why did Claude Giroux have to return in this game? The young Flyer looked like he hadn’t missed any time at all as he retook his NHL points lead with a four point night in the Flyers 4-1 win over the Stars.
The Stars just didn’t have an answer in this game, not only to Giroux but to the entire Flyers team. When the game originally started, it looked like Dallas would be in fight for the entire game as they scored the opening goal just 56 seconds into the game. Michael Ryder took a drop-off pass from Loui Eriksson and skated himself a short distance into the middle of the Flyers zone before firing the puck past Sergei Bobrovsky into the top corner.
The Stars continued to dominate the play until the Flyers struck back after 8 minutes as Giroux announced his return with his usual goal scoring. The Stars defenders allowed Jaromir Jagr to skate freely into the zone and he was damn near on top of Richard Bachman when he shot the puck. Bachman blocked the shot off to his right but Giroux was sitting right the and he was able to jump on the rebound and immediately get it right by Bachman.
From that point on, the game belonged entirely to the Flyers. A dubious unsportsmanlike penalty on Vernon Fiddler put the Flyers on a power-play three minutes after Giroux’s goal. Fiddler had stopped right in front of Bobrovsky and sprayed him with a little snow shower and was called for the penalty. You pretty much never ever see that called so it was a good shock to see Fiddler get two minutes for that one. Wayne Simmonds subsequently tipped in a Kimmo Timonen shot from the point for the Flyers second goal of the night, a goal that would eventually be the game winner.
The Flyers would score two more goals, a power-play goal in the second period as Jagr scored and a Andrej Meszaros goal in the third period. The Stars just didn’t have the skill to compete with the Flyers in this game and it showed just how far they have to go to keep up with the true elite teams in the league.
The game got really chippy in the second period as Brenden Morrow, Adam Burish and Tom Sesito were all issued 10-minute misconducts. There continued to be scuffles all over the ice after plays and it might have all stemmed from a small incident at the end of the first period. Steve Ott was making his way to the locker room and stopped to let some of his teammates go first down the tunnel. Flyers coach Peter Laviolette took issue to Ott taking his time and shoved him aside so he could get down the tunnel first.
Special teams cost Dallas in this game as they allowed two power-play goals and failed to score on three power-plays of their own. The Flyers actually had better chances shorthanded than the Stars did when they had the man-advantage.
The loss drops the Stars to 19-13-1 (39 pts) and into a three way tie for first place in the Pacific Division. Their next game will be Friday night against the Nashville Predators.
Notes:
- Adam Burish made his return to the lineup after missing 15 games with a broken hand. He had 6:57 minutes of ice time and a 10-minute misconduct. He had two shots on goal.
- Dallas got a good attendence in this game as 15,061 was the announced attendence in the arena.
- Bachman has been plagued by the tipped shot a lot lately. Two of the goals last night took deflections towards the net and a good number of the goals in the Devils game came off deflections. Defenders need to either do a better job blocking shots or clearing the guys away from the net. Bachman also needs to be careful about being too aggressive in the net.
Game Stats and Scoring Summary:
| Dallas | Philadelphia | |
| Score | 1 | 4 |
| Shots | 31 | 30 |
| Penalty Minutes | 32 | 18 |
| Power Plays | 0 of 3 | 2 of 5 |
| Blocked Shots | 14 | 20 |
| Hits | 30 | 26 |
| Faceoff Wins | 25 | 36 |
1st Period:
- 0:56 – Michael Ryder (12) Dallas 1 – Philadelphia 0
Assists: Loui Eriksson, Jamie Benn
- 08:30 – Claude Giroux (17) Dallas 1 – Philadelphia 1
Assists: Jaromir Jagr, Scott Hartnell
- 11:36 – Wayne Simmonds (10) (Power Play) Dallas 1 – Philadelphia 2
Assists: Kimmo Timonen, Claude Giroux
2nd Period:
- 08:00 – Jaromir Jagr (11) (Power Play) Dallas 1 – Philadelphia 3
Assists: Claude Giroux, Kimmo Timonen
3rd Period:
- 05:22 – Andrej Meszaros (4) Dallas 1 – Philadelphia 4
Assists: Claude Giroux, Scott Hartnell
