Erik Cole's goal capped a perfect night for the Dallas Stars and their fans. Cole scored on a breakaway with 4:49 left in regulation to give the Stars a big 4-3 win against the Minnesota Wild on Saturday after the franchise honored Mike Modano by retiring his No. 9 in a pregame ceremony.
"I know these guys really wanted to play
hard for him. All the activities outside the game were awesome and
these guys wanted to cap it off and make it a real special day for
him," Stars coach Lindy Ruff said of Modano. "It's
the biggest day, I think one of the biggest days in franchise history
when you put a guy like that up in the rafters and then you cap it
off with that type of game."
The win pulled the Stars within three points of
the Wild for the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
Cole, who also added an assist, broke a 3-3 tie when he intercepted
an errant pass by Wild defenseman Keith
Ballard near the Dallas blue line. Cole raced up the middle of
the ice before beating Minnesota goaltender Darcy
Kuemper with a well-placed wrister just under his blocker for his
15th goal of the season.
"Bad read on my part," Ballard
said. "It was pretty obvious what I was looking to do. I
don't know if I telegraphed it a little bit or I just kind of
misjudged how high he was playing in the D zone. It's a split-second
decision of is he open or is he not and I thought I could slide one
across to him, but obviously the guy picked it off."
Tyler
Seguin had a goal and two assists for Dallas, which lost starting
goaltender Kari
Lehtonen 6:37 into the third period after a hard collision with
Minnesota center Erik
Haula. Haula went hard into the crease and collided with
Lehtonen, knocking off the goalie's helmet and drawing blood. He was
assessed a charging major and a game misconduct. Seguin tied the game
during the long power play.
"He went in hard, [Lehtonen] hit the
crossbar hard," Ruff said. "Likelihood it's a
concussion on just a dirty play. He should be suspended. Fourth-liner
takes out our goaltender.
Minnesota coach Mike Yeo saw the play a bit
differently.
"It's a tough one. I'm not sure what else
a player can do. You're trying to score a goal," Yeo said.
"But you watch the replay and he's trying to make a play to
score a goal. He gets tripped up a little bit. There's really nowhere
for him to go, so I would say it's incidental but what can you do?
I'm not going to sit here and complain about that."
Tim
Thomas, acquired Wednesday at the NHL Trade Deadline in a trade
with the Florida Panthers, made his Dallas debut in relief of
Lehtonen.
"In a certain way, [it was] one of the
easiest wins I ever got in my career," Thomas said. "But
it was great to see the team come back. They deserved it. When the
going got tough, we found a way to win and it's really nice to see
[Erik] Cole score that goal."
The Stars jumped out to an early lead when captain
Jamie Benn
scored 31 seconds into the game with a wrister from the right circle.
After some solid passing from Seguin and Rich
Peverley, Benn finished for his 25th of the season, beating
Kuemper on the short side over his glove. Minnesota tied it when
Haula scored a shorthanded goal at 16:32, beating Lehtonen top shelf
with a wrister from the left circle after Stars defenseman Alex
Goligoski was unable to control the puck near the Dallas blue
line. Mikko
Koivu's cross-ice pass found Haula, who finished for his third
goal of the season. Dallas regained the lead when rookie Alex
Chiasson scored a power-play goal on a tip-in 1:55 into the
second period. After Benn won a faceoff in the right circle following
a penalty against Kyle
Brodziak, the puck made its way over to Seguin, who fired a hard
shot from the left point. Kuemper made the save, but the puck
trickled through his legs and Chiasson knocked it in for his 11th
goal of the season. Charlie
Coyle tied the game at 11:15 with a power-play goal after a
flurry of activity in front of the Dallas net. Lehtonen stopped shots
by Jonas
Brodin and Matt
Moulson, but Coyle knocked the puck into the net for his seventh
goal of the season. Minnesota took its first lead 1:23 into the third
period when Brodziak whistled a wrister past Lehtonen from the left
circle after a turnover in the Dallas zone. Stars defenseman Brenden
Dillon was trying to clear the puck, but his cross-ice pass was
intercepted by Brodziak, who scored his sixth. The Stars tied it at
3-3 at 11:11 when Seguin connected for a power-play goal during
Haula's charging major. Seguin collected his own rebound after his
initial effort was turned away by Kuemper and flicked in his
team-leading 29th of the season.
"Special teams are going to win games,
especially in a playoff-type game like that was tonight,"
Seguin said. "I've played in a bunch of playoff games and
that's about as close as you're going to see to it in a regular
season game."
Kuemper stopped 34 of 38 shots. Lehtonen made 26
saves before departing with the injury, and Thomas stopped all six
shots he faced in relief.
On a night that saw Mike Modano's number getting retired, check out this great read from NHL.com than chronicles his career: http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=708355&navid=nhl:topheads
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