Stars Blank Coyotes
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DALLAS — Three players were front-and-center for the Dallas Stars in a 6-0 win against the Arizona Coyotes on Wednesday night at American Airlines Center. Left winger and captain Jamie Benn and center Cody Eakin each had a goal and an assist and goalie Kari Lehtonen stopped all 32 shots he faced.
It was Lehtonen’s third shutout of the season and 30th of his career. Defenseman Alex Goligoski added two assists for the Stars.
“All around, probably it was our best game,” Stars coach Lindy Ruff said. “Special teams were good. We defended the way we needed to defend, really moved the puck well and skated well.”
Dallas (17-14-5) won its third straight and snapped Arizona’s three-game winning streak.
The winning goal came from Stars rookie right winger Brett Ritchie, who scored in his NHL debut 7:22 into the second period.
“(Travis) Moen took the puck behind the net and I beat my defenseman off the wall and just went to the front of the net,” Ritchie said. “He (Moen) made a great saucer pass on his backhand and I didn’t have much work to do there, just knock it in.”
Center Colton Sceviour, right winger Ales Hemsky and left winger Ryan Garbutt also scored for Dallas.
After a scoreless first period when the Coyotes and Stars
combined for 10 shots, Dallas scored twice within a span of 1:03 early in the second period to take a 2-0 lead into the second intermission.
“We made a couple of bad mistakes in the second, got behind in the game and then chased it from there,” Coyotes coach Dave Tippett said. “Third period, came out, they got a lucky one off a skate and it was all downhill from there.”
Ritchie beat Coyotes goaltender Devan Dubnyk top shelf with a wrist shot from the slot. Moen picked up the primary assist with a nice pass from behind the Arizona net as he was falling to the ice.
Dallas added a second 1:03 later when Sceviour beat Dubnyk short side from the right circle for his third of the season. Benn started the rush by collecting the puck inside the left circle in the Dallas zone.
After blazing up the left side of the ice, Benn laid the puck off to Sceviour from inside the left circle and Sceviour finished with a pinpoint shot that landed in the top right corner of the net.
The Stars added a third goal early in the third period when Benn scored his 11th of the season after a pass deflected in off the left skate of Arizona defenseman Connor Murphy for a power-play goal. Benn sent the puck in from near the red line and it struck the blade of Murphy’s left skate inside the crease before crossing the line to make it 3-0.
“We got to answer a little bit better than that and felt we got behind it, chasing it and didn’t play the way that we have to play,” Coyotes right winger and captain Shane Doan said of his team’s response after that goal.
Dallas went on the power play 28 seconds into the third when Doan was called for tripping Goligoski.
Eakin gave Dallas a 4-0 lead with a slap shot from the right circle that sailed under Dubnyk’s right shoulder 6:20 into the third. Left winger Antoine Roussel got the primary assist by digging the puck out near the red line and then feeding Eakin, whose blistering slap shot chewed up Dubnyk for his seventh goal of the season.
Hemsky then scored with 6:27 remaining from almost the same spot to make it 5-0. After collecting the puck off the boards, Hemsky beat Dubnyk high on his short side with a perfectly placed slap shot for his fourth goal of the season.
Garbutt added his seventh of the season when he scored off the rush with 58 seconds remaining.
Dubnyk stopped 25 of 31 shots.
