Stars Take The Lead In West With 5-2 Over Montreal

Added on Dec 22, 2010 by J Merrill in

NHL

The Dallas Stars have beaten the Montreal Canadiens 5-2 on Tuesday night, and have now taken over the number one slot in the Western Conference. Jamie Benn had a shorthanded goal, Brad Richards scored on the power play as the Stars downed the slumping Canadiens. Dallas has 45 points in 34 games, one more of the Detroit Red Wings, who have played 32 games. The Stars are 11-2-2 in their last 15 games overall and 10-0-2 in their last 12 at the American Airlines Center after scoring five times on just 17 shots against Carey Price.

Dallas coach Marc Crawford really felt his team was ready to play on Tuesday, and thought they showed up with a lot of focus. He said “I thought our team played a really good skating game tonight. That’s one of the quicker teams we’ve seen this year, and I thought our guys were very sharp early. I appreciated the quickness that we had tonight and I appreciated the skating legs everybody showed.” Crawford also felt his team really stepped on defense, and he was quick to call out his goalie Kari Lehtonen who made 27 saves out of 29 shots. He said “At the end of the day, when you do more things right from a defensive standpoint, you make it difficult for the other team to get sustained offensive pressure. Kari was terrific tonight. I thought he was reading (the play) good. It was a rocket that beat him in the third period, but aside from that, he was really large tonight, and that gave us a lot of confidence.”

Loui Eriksson restored the lead back to three 53 seconds after the Canadiens had cut it to only two. Ericksson netted his 15^th of the season, and his 100^th career NHL goal. “It’s fun to achieve that, but I want to keep it going,” Eriksson said of his milestone. He also feels they need to focus on the momentum they have right now, he said “We’re playing with a lot of confidence right now. We got a lead and kept on going.”

Brad Richards, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy with Tampa Bay int heir 2004 Stanley Cup win, also had a power play goal. He said his team needs to focus on the things they can control, and they should be alright. “There’s a lot of variables, a lot of stuff out of your control. We’re trying to take care of everything that we can control. Our work ethic is one of those. We’re going to try to take control of what we can take control of.” He also said they wanted to get the lead early, and not let got of it. Thats pretty much what happened during the game, he said “We wanted to pounce on them. We got a lead and never gave it up. It was a great effort all the way through.”

Montreal, playing the second game of a seven-game trip that will keep the Canadiens on the road for the rest of 2010, lost for the sixth time in seven games. Montreal’s goalie Carey Price felt like the Canadiens just couldn’t catch a break, and it was due tot eh hard work of the Dallas Stars. He said “It wasn’t good all around. We couldn’t get a break. That’s a team that’s a blue-collar team. They brought a lunch-bucket effort and got rewarded for it.”

The Montreal Canadiens (19-13-2,40pts), who are now 1st in the Northeast Division, will face the Carolina Hurricanes (15-13-4, 34pts) on Thursday. The Dallas Stars (21-10-3,45pts), who are now 1st in the Pacific Division, will face the Calgary Flames(14-18-3, 31pts) on the same day.