Final

Dallas Stars 4 - Nashville Predators 1

For this day at least, the Stars focused on the hockey game and didn't get too caught up in the sideshow that the Nashville Predators provided. The Preds came out in this game looking for a fight, specifically Mark Fistric, as retaliation for a hit that Shea Weber took at the end of the last game that these two teams played. The Stars got that out of the way early as Fistric took on Jordin Tootoo (who wouldn't even have the decency to take off his helmet, little bastard) and immediately got into more important things.

Mike Ribeiro had one of his best games of the season: Scoring two goals, taking a puck to the mouth, lost a few teeth and then doing the tough guy thing and coming right back into the game. Glen Gulutzan made a shift before the game started, switching Steve Ott and Loui Eriksson to try and get Ribeiro and Brenden Morrow back on track (Eriksson had assists on both of Ribeiro's goals). For one game at least, that move worked out perfectly as Ribs was dishing and dekeing like he hasn't done in a long time.

Dallas Stars (21-16-1, 43 pts) @ Nashville Predators (21-14-4, 46 pts)

7:00 PM CT, January 5, 2012

Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, Tennessee

The easiest way to rile up a Stars fan right now is to mention the name "Adam Pardy" in conjuction with the word "defense" or "lack of defense". In his first year with the Stars, Pardy has looked 1/3 lost, 1/3 confused and 1/3 just plain bad. A good clean waste of $2 million. Luckily for the Dallas folks is that Stephane Robidas should make his return from his injury tonight. With the recent callup and play of Jordie Benn, that should push Pardy out of the lineup and into the 7th defensemen spot which is definitely where he belongs. Unless Gulutzan just isn't that sure about Benn, then Pardy would be in the lineup, but Stars fans can all pray that isn't the case.

The lack of defense is what killed the Stars in their last game, a 5-4 loss to the Detroit Red Wings. Without Robidas and Sheldon Souray, the Red Wings ran rampant over the Stars d-men. Kari Lehtonen had an amazing first period but just couldn't hold on for the rest of the game. He let in some easy goals that a first string goalie just should never allow. He was giant target in a free-of-obstacles shooting range for the Wings. The Stars offense (Read: Eriksson-Benn-Ryder) was all that kept the Stars in this game or it would have been an easy blowout.

December was a roller coaster month for the Stars. They beat good teams and lost to bad teams. They saw players come back from injury but suffered more injuries as the month wore on.

Dallas played 13 games in the month of December, none of them reaching overtime and went 7-6-0. They enter the first game of the new year with 43 points, good enough for 10th place in the Western Conference and 3rd in the Pacific Division.

The stats below are only for the month of December unless noted otherwise. For the power-play and shorthanded times, I've put in their times for December with the season totals in parenthesis.

GP = Games Played            TOI = Time on ice          TOI/G = Time on ice per game

PP TOI = Power-play time on ice              SH TOI = Shorthanded time on ice

Detroit Red Wings (24-13-1, 49 pts) @ Dallas Stars (21-15-1, 43 pts)

7:00 PM CT, January 3, 2012

American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas

In case anyone has forgotten, Red Wings suck. Ok, now that that's out of the way, let's get the preview rolling. The first game of the new year for Dallas is a chance for them to build on a great game on New Year's Eve. Dallas has what was probably their best game of the season in their 4-1 win over the Bruins despite major injuries in their defense. The injuries only got worse in the backline so things only get more interesting tonight.

Stephane Robidas and Sheldon Souray are still out, with Souray just getting placed on IR. Philip Larsen, who had been playing very well this season, sustained a concussion and will miss this game so reinforcements had to be called up. Up to the NHL come two youngsters that have been having excellent seasons in the AHL this year, Brendon Dillon and Jordie Benn. Yes yes, Jordie is the brother of Jamie so that will be an interesting sidenote tonight in his NHL debut.

Boston Bruins (24-9-1, 49 pts) @ Dallas Stars (20-15-1, 41 pts)

7:00 PM CT, December 31, 2011

American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas

New Year's Eve gets some early fireworks tonight as the Stars host the Boston Bruins, only the best team in the league. In recent years this matchup has provided fights fights and more fights, culminating in a game last year in Boston where there were three fights in the first three seconds of the game. I would seriously doubt that something like that would happen tonight though. I just don't see Gulutzan emphasizing that in his game plan.

Dallas is coming off a very disturbing 4-1 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets, only the worst team in the league. I can only hope that the Stars looked past the Blue Jackets and had their minds on this game because if they didn't, I'm expecting the Bruins to win by a 10-1 score tonight.

Kari Lehtonen is back and played an alright game, but he has a major handicap because the team's top two defensemen, Sheldon Souray and Stephane Robidas are dealing with foot injuries that will probably keep them out another week/2 weeks. The more Adam Pardy that sees the ice, the worse this team gets.

Columbus Blue Jackets (9-22-5, 23 pts) @ Dallas Stars (20-14-1, 41 pts)

7:30 PM CT, December 29, 2011

American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas

If Kari Lehtonen wanted to try and ease his way back into the lineup, there might not be a better team to do that against than the Columbus Blue Jackets. Lethonen makes his long awaited return to the Stars lineup tonight after missing the past month (12 games) due to a groin injury. He gets some good news and bad news in his first game back.

The good news? His opponent tonight is the Columbus Blue Jackets, the worst team in the NHL. Columbus gives up the third most goals in the NHL, only in front of the Ottawa Senators and Carolina Hurricanes and they score the fourth least goals in the NHL. Add those two together and the Blue Jackets have the worst goal differential in the league.

Nashville Predators (18-12-4, 40 pts) @ Dallas Stars (19-13-1, 39 pts)

7:30 PM CT, December 23, 2011

American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas

Dallas gets a chance to end their short three-game home stand on a positive note as the Nashville Predators come into town tonight. The Stars are coming off a game where they were dominated 4-1 by the Philadelphia Flyers, one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. The Stars are currently tied for first in the Pacific Division with the Phoenix Coyotes and the San Jose Sharks and if things go right tonight, they could go into the Christmas break with sole possession of first place.

The problem with the game with the Flyers was the penalty-kill for the Stars. That could show up again tonight as the Predators are the second-best power-play team in the NHL, converting on 21.7% of their chances. Their road PP (19.7%) isn't as good as their home precentages (24.1%) but that's certainly more than dangerous enough for the Stars. They have to stay out of the penalty box tonight if they want to win this game.

The Preds are ranked 24th in the NHL in PK percentage (79.8%) , but don't let that fool you. The majority of that percentage is due to how bad they are on their home PK (72%, second worst in the NHL). On the road, they are actually one of the best teams in the league with a 85.1 PK percentage (8th best in the NHL).

Final

Dallas Stars 1 - Philadelphia Flyers 4

Stars fans can only ask why? Why did Claude Giroux have to return in this game? The young Flyer looked like he hadn't missed any time at all as he retook his NHL points lead with a four point night in the Flyers 4-1 win over the Stars. 

The Stars just didn't have an answer in this game, not only to Giroux but to the entire Flyers team. When the game originally started, it looked like Dallas would be in fight for the entire game as they scored the opening goal just 56 seconds into the game. Michael Ryder took a drop-off pass from Loui Eriksson and skated himself a short distance into the middle of the Flyers zone before firing the puck past Sergei Bobrovsky into the top corner.

The Stars continued to dominate the play until the Flyers struck back after 8 minutes as Giroux announced his return with his usual goal scoring. The Stars defenders allowed Jaromir Jagr to skate freely into the zone and he was damn near on top of Richard Bachman when he shot the puck. Bachman blocked the shot off to his right but Giroux was sitting right the and he was able to jump on the rebound and immediately get it right by Bachman.

Philadelphia Flyers (20-8-4, 44 pts) @ Dallas Stars (19-12-1, 39 pts)

6:30 PM CT, December 21, 2011

American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas

The Stars face the other half of the Winter Classic teams tonight as the Philadelphia Flyers come into town in a matchup of division leaders. The Flyers are first place in the tough Atlantic Division, ahead of the New York Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins while Dallas clings to its lead in the Pacific.

The Flyers have had large success against the Stars in recent years. Dating back to the 2008-2009 season, the Stars have lost 5 in a row against the Philly. Two of those games were played in Dallas. To make matters worse, the Flyers now employ astronomer and law expert Ilya Bryzgalov himself. Bryzgalov has been a thorn in the side of the Stars for years now. As a member of the Phoenix Coyotes, Bryzgalov is 13-8-2 against the Stars with a 2.27 GAA and a .924 save percentage.

Anaheim Ducks (9-18-5, 23 pts) @ Dallas Stars (18-12-1, 37 pts)

7:00 PM CT, December 19, 2011

American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas

The Dallas Stars finally return to the friendly confines of the AAC tonight to take on the Anaheim Ducks. It's been awhile since the Stars have played here, 16 days in fact. The Stars are coming off 3-2-0 road trip that ended poorly with the 6-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils. Richard Bachman suffered the first NHL loss of his career and Dallas sustained injuries to Tomas Vincour and Philip Larsen.

Things could get back on track tonight as the Anaheim Ducks are the second worst team in NHL, only one point ahead of the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Ducks are a pretty bad team all around. They have the second worst goal differential in the league (again only one goal ahead of the Blue Jackets) and are the worst road team in the league. They fired Randy Carlyle about two weeks ago and hired Washington Capitals cast-off Bruce Boudreau in his place. The Ducks have gone 2-5-1 since that coach replacement, something that might actually be considered a smashing success.