Stars Dominate Blues, Win 4-1

Nov 29, 2022 - 4:35 AM

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The Dallas Stars visited the state of Missouri for their first game (this season) against long time division rival the St. Louis Blues. The Stars have been having a much better season than the Blues, who are currently outside of the playoff bubble.

Scott Wedgewood was a last minute decision for Dallas, he is in net tonight for Jake Oettinger, who was under the weather.

First Period

Listen, the first period was less exciting than a game between vision rivals really should be, but despite not leading on the scoresheet or in the shot count, Stars had a dominant first period.

Blues players got trapped down in their zone for long shifts while the Stars controlled the neutral zone. Joe Pavelski had an early ping on the goal post but neither team managed to score in the first.

Wedgewood did an excellent job controlling the puck and had an absolutely beautiful series of stops late in the first.

Shots: Stars 9, Blues 11
Goals: Stars 0, Blues 0

Second Period

Wyatt Johnston saved the game from being a scoreless snoozefest early in the second period. What started on the other end of the ice with a save from Joel Kiviranta ended up behind Jordan Binnington on the other end.

A few minutes later, Nathan Walker picked a fight with Joel Hanley. There was no instigating incident, just one of those fights meant to inject some liveliness into the crowd.

It’s Joel Hanley’s first fight in the NHL.

The two teams traded penalties back and forth. The Blues did not manage to get a shot off on their man advantage opportunity and the Stars only had one shot that was saved by Binnington.

The Stars also excelled at the faceoff dot in the first and second periods, ending the second period with 72% faceoff wins.

Shots: Stars 17, Blues 19
Goals: Stars 1, Blues 0

Third Period

The third period was more of the previous two. Yes, spoilers, the Blues scored, but they were never really in the game. And anyway, the Stars scored first when Ty Dellandrea finished off a tic-tac-toe with Jamie Benn and Wyatt Johnston.

The Blues goal came about five minutes later when Brandon Saad managed to tip the puck past Wedgewood, though this was the only moment he really looked human in the whole game.

Then later Jason Robertson extended his goal streak to 17 games, maintained leadership of the goal scorers and is right up with Connor McDavid for points this season. And it was just a really pretty goal too.

Miro Heiskanen, who lead the Stars in ice time tonight, scored the empty netter to cement the victory.

Shots: Stars 24, Blues 24
Goals: Stars 4, Blues 1

The Stars have a bit of a break this week and won’t play till Thursday night back in Dallas against the Anaheim Ducks. Puck drop will be at 7:30 pm CST.