Houston Shuts Out Texas, Wins 5-0

The Stars dropped their last preseason tune-up to the Aeros 5-0 tonight.

Texas had a mostly solid first period with the exception of a 20 second span in the middle of the frame. Texas defenseman Brad Lukowich stepped up on Robbie Earl as he exited the Houston zone. Earl made a move to make him miss and pinned Maxime Fortunus with a 2-on-1 against Earl and Brandon Buck. Earl sent a pass across to Buck coming down the right side and Buck tipped it high to beat Krahn.

Nineteen seconds later, Earl would again assist as his pass from behind the net went off former Star Warren Peters in front of the net and in to make it 2-0. Shots in the period were to Houston's advantage at 11-10.

The Stars would cede two more tallies in the 2nd. While killing a penalty to Brad Lukowich, Max Noreau's slapper from the blue line beat Brent Krahn clean to make it 3-0. The 4th tally of the night for Houston just compounded the Stars bad fortune. A shot threw the crease by Houston's Jamie Fraser ticked off of Tyler Ludwig's skates and past the pads of Krahn. With 6:30 remaining in the period, Bachman replaced Krahn in net, which was not an unexpected move from Coach Gulutzan.

The goalie change was not enough to stop the bleeding as the Stars penalty kill let another past when Jon DiSalvatore got in low against Bachman. It was easy to see the play develop as Jordie Benn missed to assignment and left Bachman all alone to deal with DiSalvatore. That would end the scoring on the night. Texas was outshot 28-21 in the game.

There were, as you can see below, still a lot of tryout, ECHL, and CHL players in the lineup for the Stars. Meanwhile, the Aeros, who did not have the benefit of more than this single preseason game, fielded a squad that is much closer to what they will have to start the regular season. The long and short of it is don't fret this loss or last night's. The preseason games, I think, are something to not get bent out of shape over.

"It's all about learning right now and moving forward to next weekend," said forward Greg Rallo after the game. "It took a couple months last season to get [our defensive system] perfected, and it's going to take a couple months to perfect it again."

Tonight's lines:
Backman-Wandell-Sawada
Rallo-Morin-Blackwater
Irwin-Roman-Sceviour
King-Tousignant-Musitelli

Fortunus-Lukowich
Friesen-Ty. Ludwig
Benn-Monast

Krahn
Bachman

Injuries, scratches, and notes:
Beskorowany, Spang, Sinisalo, McCulloch, Lampl, Neal, Tassone, Tr. Ludwig, Stephenson, Chupp, Gazdic, Wathier (scratched)

Tom Wandell will most likely return to Dallas following tonight's game.

No gamesheets for preseason.

Comments

  1. That first goal went off the stick of Backman, the Texas forechecker. The pass never made it to Buck.

    ReplyDelete

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