Stars Can’t Close Off to San Jose for Game 5

Stars lost tonight in a game that looked simply like the Sharks wanted it more, I do not really see this as a reason to be worried. I am in no way saying the Stars did not want to win the game, they wanted to win it but they had played three games in four nights and won the first two. Both teams came in to the game tired so the extra energy went on the side of the team with their backs to the wall. With all their pride carrying them, their coaches job on the line, and some of them their careers in San Jose, they came out faster and hungrier than the Stars. These are evenly matched teams and the bounces went the way of the team that earned them tonight.

Some thoughts, Turco was outstanding again, especially in the third period. He made some big time saves early in that period to give the Stars a chance but after 6 big time saves, he let one in. Still I have no complaints about Turco. I felt we did not test Nabokov nearly enough, he looked really shaky in San Jose and we only got 18 shots against him. As the Sturminator likes to say, “they dominated field position” however the reason why they did this was in the faceoff circle. It really seemed like the Sharks won all the big faceoffs tonight. The numbers were about even but when the Sharks needed to sustain pressure they won a lot of the big draws, while we did not especially on the powerplay. It seemed like they won a lot of the draws on both their penalty kill and ours.  That might have been where the presence of Stu Barnes would have been mostly missed.  Maybe he could have won a few draws on the penalty kill.  Hell he would have been the one on the ice instead of Toby Peterson on that last penalty kill where the Sharks took the decisive lead.  With all of that I still felt the real difference was the fact that they stayed out of the penalty box and we did not in the third period.

Secondly, I love Sergei and I will always bow down to his greatness but he was not good at all tonight, and I do not mean because he made that one mistake, I am ok with that mistake from Zubie. Hes like Flozelle Adams, you know Flozelle is going to false start one play a game but you accept that because he keeps Romo’s jersey clean at a pro bowl level. I felt Zubie was just slow tonight, he got beat alot on just flat out speed. Thats what worries me, he got beat in his first game back too, he took a hooking penalty in the first period of game 2 because he was slow and a guy flew right by him. However, if Tippet(who needs to bring back the mustache) plays him another 25 to 30 minutes on Friday I won’t complain. I will only critique how he plays because I trust Zubie to be on the ice. I want him on the ice.

On a positive note, I thought Niskanen has put together two back to back solid performances. He has not made any glaring errors in my account and he saved a goal on a wrap around in game 3 and he made the outlet pass that sprung Hagman that earned him his penalty shot.

I think the Stars will win game 5 because it will be close, the Stars will be as hungry as the Sharks and it will come down to the goaltenders. If it comes down to that I take Marty any day.