Just Plain Awful

I almost didn't write this blog, but I promised (at least to myself) 82 games of coverage and I can't skip Thursday night's awful road loss to the St. Louis Blues.

I kid you not, it was terrible. I might be one of the biggest Stars fan out there, and I can honestly say that I couldn't find any bright spots in last night's game. You can't use Barch's goal as a bright spot, because his job isn't to score.

NOTES:

- Right off the bat, John from Stars Live jinxed us (sort of) by rhetorically asking if Brunnstrom would be able to repeat his big performance. The Swede had a few good chances, but obviously he wasn't the only one who couldn't beat Manny Legace.

- A James Neal trademark that will hopefully help the team in the long run; he's got incredible speed, and can hold on to the puck really well. He'll score on that left-side swoop before the year's over.

- The defense was again at fault on Thursday night: Keith Tkachuk's goal came on a turnover, Jay Mckee was left wide open to capitalize on a puck-handling slip-up by Turco, Steve Wagner scored because the Stars weren't willing to step in and take a puck for the team, Eric Brewer's one-timer also could have been blocked, and Yan Stastny had way to much time to shoot the puck on his goal. Penalties were also a big, big, problem; Brad Boyes scored on a 5-on-3, and the Blues had tons of other chances on the power-play.

- The Stars' 4th line played with the most energy last night; Krys Barch scored the only Stars goal, and Joel Lundqvist and Toby Petersen were probably the only Stars with a reasonably good outings.

- Tobias Stephan's second NHL game officially ended with him getting a loss, but he only played the last period, and only gave up 1 goal. That's not too bad, considering the Blues knocked 5 past Turco.

All in all, I was really disgusted with that game. I'm hoping we won't see another performance like this out of Dallas for the entire year, and if the boys can bounce back with a solid game against Colorado tomorrow, they'll be back on track.