Stars in Trouble!

By Jon Gabrielle,  Stars correspondent

The Dallas Stars are in trouble.

That is, if you include missing the Stanley Cup playoffs for a second consecutive season, troubling?

Last night’s 5-3 loss to that hallowed franchise north of the border, the Montreal Canadiens, was the Stars’ ninth consecutive loss on the road.

Now tied for 11th place in the conference standings with 49 points, the gap between them and playoff contention is widening. with 6 points and 3 teams seperating them from a berth.

Dallas has now lost three straight and six of their last seven.

However, Stars’ head coach, Marc Crawford, not only remained optimistic but is a believer. “We were better…for our team, I thought our effort was pretty good tonight…I’m a believer in the hockey gods. Sometimes when you’re in a bad spell they don’t let you get out of it easy, they want to see you do it a couple of times. So we’ve got to build on the effort we had tonight.”

Optimistic Marc Crawford.(photo by/Wikipedia)

The effort may have  been better by the 18 skaters in front of him, but Marty Turco continues to struggle, giving up 5 goals on 28 shots.

For his part, Turco seemed to bear some of the responsibility. “We’re doing a lot of good things, and we have for a long time, but the overall team defense has to be better. That starts with myself. I have to start making better saves to give these guys a chance to win hockey games.”

At this point the Stars need saves, any saves, not necessarily “better” ones.

The team returns home for games on Saturday and Monday against Detroit and Minnesota. Both teams have been playing improved hockey of late, passing the Stars in the standings, occupying the two spots ahead of Dallas, in 9th and 10th places respectively.

If Dallas has any realistic chance of staying in contention,  considering their recent road woes, these two games at the American Airlines Center might be put in the “must have” category.

Posted by Jon Gabrielle on Jan 15 2010. Filed under Dallas Stars, Pacific, Western Conference. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.