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Minus No. 91, Dallas Stars’ 9-1-1 Call Gets Spotty Response in 4-1 Loss to Los Angeles Kings

DALLAS – In Monday night’s 4-1 loss to Los Angeles, the Stars missed Brad Richards. All of them. The shooter. A point man on their top power play. Dependable in the face-off circle. Without him … them … an already depleted Stars team was reduced to a one-line offense outdone by the Kings’ one-line offense. And that was enough to lose to a flu-ridden opponent dragging in a three-game losing streak and playing its sixth consecutive road game over 10 days.

On Monday morning, Stars coach Marc Crawford announced the groin problem that Richards has been playing with for weeks would keep him out of Monday night’s AAC meeting with L.A. and possibly out of Wednesday night’s road trip opener game at Anaheim. Crawford stated the obvious, that others would have their chance to step up and fill Richards’ void.

The response was predictably spotty from many players still earning their wings as NHL’ers. “We made a lot of young mistakes,” Crawford said.

With Richards and Mike Modano, Steve Ott and Jere Lehtinen out, the Stars resorted to bringing up young Perttu Lindgren for his NHL debut and keeping defenseman Marc Fistric at forward.  The Richards and Ribeiro lines have shouldered most of the offensive load so far this season. Ribeiro’s line was left to provide most of the attack on Monday night.

Mike Ribeiro, Brenden Morrow and Jamie Benn accounted for 20 of the 29 shots taken by forwards and the only Dallas goal. That was a product of Morrow’s grit and guile late in the first period when he flicked a blind, backhand pass from behind the L.A. net to Benn, planted in the crease. Benn jabbed it through Jonathan Quick.

The Stars grabbed the early lead on a road-weary opponent. But the Kings’ top line of Anze Kopitar, Ryan Smyth and Justin Williams took control for an 11-minute stretch of the second period. It began with Smyth’s power-play goal at 5:17, scored shortly after the Stars survived a 1:37 five-on-three (killed solely by Ribeiro, Karlis Skrastins and Trevor Daley). L.A. added scores from Williams and Kopitar within a three-minute span midway through the period when the Stars ceded control of neutral ice. The makeshift Dallas combinations on the ice for those goals were Fistric-Petersen-Barch (at the end of a long shift) and Brunnstrom-Wandell-Neal.

The Stars pounded Quick with 15 shots in the third period with nothing to show for their efforts, and L.A. added an empty-netter at the finish. The Kings came into the game 30^th in the league in face-offs and won 25 of 46 to help keep the Stars at bay.

“We made the turnovers. We created their chances,” Ribeiro said. “It got away for 10, 15 minutes in the second period, and they took advantage of it.”

Said Morrow: “It’s a lack of execution, trying to do the easy thing. Trying to make it easy on yourself. I don’t know if you call that lack of effort.”

There was no lack of effort from his line – Ribeiro hit the post twice – but the results were minimal.

“If we didn’t get the chances, I think we’d be a little bit concerned,” Morrow said. “It’s just a matter of time before they start going in. The pucks were there. They were bouncing off our sticks. That just happens.”

Four games into the home schedule, the Stars have only three points at AAC. Yet they’ve come away from Calgary and Chicago with wins.

Crawford acknowledged it was a gamble to add Lindgren to the lineup (“The game got a little tense for him.”), and he’ll look for more size and reliability when considering reinforcements from the Texas Stars for the upcoming trip. Richards might be back Wednesday. Ott might be back Wednesday after taking his first morning skate with the team on Monday. Modano told DMN‘s Mike Heika that he recently tweaked his opening-night rib injury and considers himself day to day for a month.

Having played three games in four days, the Stars will play the usual back-to-backers in Anaheim and L.A. on Wednesday and Thursday nights and stop in St. Louis on Saturday night before getting three days off. Such breaks will be rare in a schedule compacted in an Olympic season.

“That’s why you work so hard in the summertime,” Morrow said, “so you’re in good shape.”