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| (Photo Credit: Tim Watkins) |
Following a less-than attractive 6-3 loss Friday night to the Eagles, the Stars came out as the aggressor while also cleaning up many of the puck handling issues that plagued them the night before,
"Last night we kind of got away from ourselves to snowboard in the wrong direction and I think we had more control [tonight] over our movements, more control of the structure than we had [last night], better intensity in the battles and often, that's the competitive edge you need." Stars head coach Neil Graham said after the game.
Texas took their first lead of the season in the first period when Blumel scored his first tally of the night. Texas entered the zone with numbers when Tanner Kero fed Ryan Shea at the top of the slot and Shea's shot rebounded off of Eagle's goalie Justus Annunen's shoulder right to Blumel who fired it into the yawning net, to light the lamp, giving the Stars the 1-0 lead just 6:36 into the game.
Less than 5 minutes later Petrovic scored his first tally of the evening to make it a 2-0 Stars’ when he took tape-to-tape (to tape) passes from Shea and Curtis McKenzie and fired a wrist shot from the right point putting it over the left shoulder of Annunen. Petrovic found the back of the net again when khe five-holed Annunen off of another McKenzie feed for his second goal with 3:35 left in the first, giving Texas a commanding 3-0 lead that they would take to the break.
"Not too many times I've scored 2 goals in a game" Petrovic said later. "The coaches kind of lit a fire under our butts tonight, our effort last night wasn't what we wanted, tonight they challenged us but we all played really well." the veteran donning an "A" on his jersey continued. "It's the standard now."
Texas reversed the first period results from Friday by outshooting Colorado 15-6 in the first period.
The teams traded blows, literally and figuratively, for much of the opening fifteen minutes of the second with Colorado trying to claw their way back into the game. McKenzie dropped the gloves with Keaton Middleton after the Eagles defenseman took exception to a clean hit by the Stars Captain on the Eagles Alex Beaucage. Unfortunately for McKenzie, the fight came at the end of an extremely long shift, so he did well to hang on for dear life.
Late in the period, with Texas on a 5-on-3 advantage, Blumel found the twine for the second time of the night on a one-timer, rocket from the top of the slot to make it 4-0 Stars with 3:42 left in the frame. This came just moments after Blumel had another goal disallowed.
Marian Studenic closed out the scoring for Texas when he tipped in a tipped in a shot from Shea with just 11.5 seconds left in the period to give Texas a 5-0 advantage. Shea finished the night with 3 assists.
The Eagles finally got onto the scoreboard just 1:21 into the third period with the Stars on a 5-on-3 kill of their own when Brad Hunt snuck one by Khudobin for his only blemish on the on the night.
Khudobin, who was never really challenged until the third period, stood tall the remainder of the way while the defensive corps did their jobs commendably as the team skated on to the 5-1 final, earning a split of the two-game opening series.
Sunday, the Stars will take a well-deserved day off before resuming practice Monday as they prep for their next series Oct. 21-22 in Des Moines, Iowa, against division-rival Iowa Wild.
Tonight's lines
Blumel-Kero-Barber
Stranges-Back-Damiani
McKenzie-Bourque-Studenic
Karlstrom-Gardner-Olafsson
Rosburg-Butcher
Shea-Petrovic
Harley-Gleason
Khudobin
Injuries, scratches and notes
Scheel, Karow, Cecconi, Dmowski, Ducharme, Tufte (scratch)
Tonight's attendance was 5,630.
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