| Texas Stars 15-8-2-2, 34 pts #5 Western Conference | at | Oklahoma City Barons 13-10-1-3, 30 pts #7 Western Conference |
December 22nd at 7:00 PM
Cox Convention Center, Oklahoma City, OK
Shorter preview, as usual, for the back-to-back against the same club...
The Stars walked into Cox Convention Center last night and blanked the Barons. They did it with team defense and they did it with a 5/5 penalty kill.
With the win, Texas goaltender Cristopher Nilstorp stretched his shutout streak to 146:31 including the shutout win at home against San Antonio. The win also pushed Nilstorp into the top three goalies in the league by GAA. His 1.94 average is third behind the tandem of Brust and Taylor in Abbotsford, the same club Texas stole 3 points from last weekend.
How did Texas win last night? They did exactly the things that Oklahoma City is not good at, according to Neal Livingston, one of the blog writers for OKC. They played defense and they played it their way. Last night on Twitter he remarked on it as such in three tweets:
Defensive games rarely favor the #OKCBarons. Tonight, we are seeing this fact yet again.It remains to be seen if Tyler Sloan will be able to go tonight. He left last night's game with an injury in the second and did not return. Hubert Labrie will slide in if so. Labrie played his only other game of the season against OKC as well.
Shutting out the #OKCBarons is difficult. But the Stars & Nilstorp look laser focused. This isn't the same Stars team of October.
First it was Larsen who proved he was NHL ready on defense. Now it's Oleksiak. Continually impressed by the big lefty. #OKCBarons
Stars injury/call up report:
Glennie (hand)
Sloan (questionable)
Website: okcbarons.com
Blog (unofficial): NewsOK's Barons Hockey
Blog (unofficial): Oil Field Hockey
Twitter: @OKCBaronsHockey
Hey Stephen,
ReplyDeleteJust a quick note to let you know that the "Oil Field Hockey" link appears to be bad. Shows the domain "oilfieldhockey.com" to be for sale.