The Iowa Wild snapped the Texas Stars' five-game win streak with a final score of 4-1. The Stars peppered Wild netminder Sameul Hlavaj with 34 shots but only beat him once. Texas maintains a healthy four-point lead over the rest of the Central Division.
Texas had the majority of the shots in the game and (arguably) most of the scoring chances. Still, outside of a Jack Becker third-period tally a few minutes after the Wild took a 2-0 lead, they could not solve Hlavaj. “It happens,” head coach Neil Graham said when asked what made the Wild netminder so challenging to beat. “...I'll tell you what, if it happens every two weeks, and you win a lot of games in between, you're going to take that.”
The fourth line of Emilio Pettersen, Chase Wheatcroft and Becker had an exceptional game for Texas. Becker scored the only Stars goal of the night right in front of the net after a great feed from Pettersen on the blueline. “They generated offensive opportunities almost every time they were on the ice,” coach Graham said of the fourth line. “They've embraced their role, and I thought they had a nice balance of compete, work ethic, some skill.”
The Texas Stars lineup consisted of four ATO newcomers to the team, including the professional debut of Artem Shlaine. “It's good to live it right away,” coach Graham said of his new guys coming from college hockey. “And I think I noticed a little more fatigue in a couple of players today, and you have to keep in mind, in a college schedule, you play Friday, Saturday, or maybe on Saturday, Sunday. Most players haven't played three games in five days with long travel coming from an Eastern Time Zone, probably since junior.”
The game began with both teams trading momentum back and forth. Midway through the frame, Michael Karow misplayed a dump-in/pass from the neutral zone, which gave Wild forward Michael Milne a pure breakaway. Milne made the finish look easy, going bar down on Magnus Hellberg to give Iowa the early 1-0 lead.
Texas responded well, controlling the next five minutes of play and outshot the Wild 3-0 during that segment. The momentum that the Stars had just built quickly evaporated due to a tripping call on Matěj Blümel right off of a neutral zone faceoff. Iowa appeared to score on a point shot/pass that was deflected in off the boot of a Wild forward in front of Hellberg. After an extremely lengthy review, the goal was taken off the board due to kicking the puck into the net.
Texas was undoubtedly relieved to only be down by one following the close call at the end of the first, but against the divisional basement dwelling Wild, they likely wanted to control the pace of play a bit more. They did just that in the second period, outshooting the Wild 15-8 and having substantially more quality scoring chances. They even had to kill a penalty in the frame, but that didn’t slow down their offensive momentum at all.
Mystically, Iowa goaltender Samuel Hlavaj kept the Stars off the board. The newest Texas Star, Shlaine, was denied on a powerful one-timer from the slot. Cameron Hughes had a rush chance that trickled through the netminder's legs but confoundingly avoided crossing the line. For his biggest highlight save of the period, Hlavaj reached behind himself from out of position with his stick and pulled a shot from Emilio Pettersen off the goal line.
The official immediately made the “no-goal” signal, but Pettersen (while the play was still ongoing) began to plead with the official that the puck did, in fact, cross the goal line. Once play finally stopped, a few minutes after the Pettersen’s chance, the jumbotron showed a replay that appeared to both Stars players and fans that the puck crossed the goal line, but the play could not be reviewed due to technical difficulties.
“The video review system was down," coach Graham said. "So it's tough to argue with a ref when they have no ability to review it. I'm not pleased that that occurred, and we need to make sure that that's corrected moving forward. But in terms of the officials, their hands were tied.”
Ultimately the Stars were kept off the sheet through two periods.
The Stars started slow in the final frame giving up a goal just two minutes in after a failed clearing attempt. The Stars answered right back with their lone goal from Becker.
Despite several more quality chances and a power play, Texas could not find the equalizer. After a couple of empty-net goals for the Wild, the time finally ran out on Texas’ comeback effort.
The Stars will face off against the Iowa Wild again on Wednesday night at seven at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park.
Tonight’s lines
Blümel-Hryckowian-McKenzie
Hughes-Shlaine-Lind
Martino-Hyry-Chisholm
Pettersen-Becker-Wheatcroft
Capobianco-Krys
Taylor-Petrovic
Karow-Looft
Hellberg
Injuries, scratches and notes
Bergsland, White, Ertel, Scott, Seminoff, Kyrou, Romano (scratch)
Stranges (injury)
McDonald (lower-body injury)
Tonight’s attendance was 5,116.
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