(Credit: Texas Stars/Logan Foust)
There was a somber mood in the back of house at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park on Tuesday night. Stars players strolled out of the locker room in suits, quickly walking toward the exit doors, looking straight ahead with blank expressions.
In the coaches' locker room, Stars head coach Toby Petersen was in the back, taking almost 45 minutes to emerge for his post-game press conference. By the emotion of it, Texas appeared to be back in its early-season form, and not the one that flexed its dominance in last weekend's Midwest road trip.
After jumping up to a 2-0 advantage to open up the first period, the Stars' offense began to lag behind in the final 40 minutes. Despite the offense falling cold, Texas’ defense was holding firm for the majority of the night, allowing just a fluke goal in the second period.
Then all of the positives came crashing down as the clock ticked into the back half of the third period. The Coachella Valley Firebirds scored four goals in the final 10 minutes, storming back to claim a 5-2 victory over the Stars.
“We didn't react very well to them making adjustments. We didn't respond in the way we wanted to keep the lead or build on the way we were playing the first period,” Petersen said. “I had no problem with the way the guys were working, but just the execution on the plays and sticking to the script and responding to the way they pushed back in the second — it finally caught up to us.”
And caught up to them it did — with all the momentum captured, the Firebirds broke through to take control of the game, firing two goals in the final period to give them the lead advantage to a game that was out of hand just 30 minutes before.
On both of the even-strength goals in the final period, the Stars decided to keep the third line out on the ice, which proved to be a costly mistake. Petersen was not light with his assessment of the goals and the third line’s performance in both instances.
“Hockey's [a] game of momentum, and they had it, and we didn't,” Petersen said. “On both of those goals, [were] pretty preventable turnovers that were definitely part of the problem on those
Just 45 seconds separated the goals, and overshadowing an otherwise good defensive performance. The Stars were flooded by the Firebirds' aggressive forecheck that forced a timely turnover to set up Jani Nyman’s game-breaking goal to put them up 4-2 late in the final period.
Coachella Valley added two more goals with late-game empty netters to end their comeback with five goals on the night.
Texas started showing cracks in the middle frame by struggling to get down the ice, or when they did, could not maintain defined plays, falling short in matching the success in the first period.
Coachella Valley was able to find its identity in the second, notably outshooting Texas 18-6 in the frame. While offensively dominant, the Stars were able to keep up on the defensive side of the ice for the majority of the period.
The Firebirds were finally able to strike back on a minimal effort dump off towards the Arno Tiefensee’s net following a faceoff win. The quick wrist shot by Coachella Valley centre Ian McKinnon surprised the young goaltender on the shot, with the puck falling into the net while trying to make a routine glove save.
“There's certainly gonna be some adjustments… plenty on both sides,” Petersen said. “We gotta be ready to play a full 60-minute game. If we don't, we can probably not expect any different result.”
Texas will finish up its series with Coachella Valley tomorrow at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park at 7:00 p.m. CT.
Tonight's lines
Hanas-Shlaine-Lind
Stranges-Becker-McDonald
Ertel-Chisholm-McKenzie
Taylor-Krys
Karow-Looft
Punnett-Bergsland
Tiefensee
Injuries, scratches and notes
Martino (warm-up)
Bertucci, Hreschuk, White, Wheatcroft (sctach)
Hyry, Tuomaala (injury)
Tonight's attendance was 4011
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