Stars 4, Hurricanes 1

After surviving a slow start in the first period, the Carolina Hurricanes made some key mistakes down the stretch and watched the Dallas Stars turn a close game into a rout, with a 4-1 victory at the PNC arena on Friday night in front of 10,188.

The Canes were dominated early and were outshot 13-6 in the first period but they held in there behind some solid goaltending by Eddie Lack.

They were able to keep the game scoreless and actually took a 1-0 lead when Eric Staal fed brother Jordan in front of the Dallas net, 3:41 into the second period.

Ales Hemsky would tie the game later in the period when Lack was nudged out of the crease.  Hemsky had a wide open net to shoot at and the Canes complained that there was goalie interference on the play.  Bill Peters used his "coach's challenge" to force a review, but the goal stood up.

After the game I asked the coach if he got any explanation from the refs after a review of the play but he said he did not.  "They just thought there was no interference", he said.

Lack said afterward that it was a 50/50 play.

The teams battled back forth and this turned out to be a pretty even game up until midway through the third period when a puck got by Ron Hainsey at the Carolina blueline.

Tyler Seguin skated in on a 2-on-1 break with Patrick Sharp and made the pass to Sharp right in front of Lack.  The former Hawk made no mistake and that goal turned out to be the game-winner.

The Stars would notch another goal a bit later when Radek Faksa scored his first, to make it 3-1.

After the Canes pulled their goalie for an extra attacker, they ended up shooting the puck into their own net to close out the game.  The puck crossed the goal line with just a fraction of a second left.    Jason Demers got credited for the goal.

It was another game where a bad mistake ended up being the back-breaker, although this team came out slow again and had a bad first period.

They will hope for a better result on Saturday night against the Ottawa Senators.

Game Notes:

• The Canes did not have a single powerplay all night as the Stars were not called for any penalties.  Carolina just had one infraction, a high sticking call on Hainsey. 
  
• Justin Faulk played a team high 23:24, had four shots on goal, two hits, and two blocked shots.  Faulk leads all NHL defensemen with four powerplay goals and he is tied for highest among all NHL skaters with those four.  He is second in the league for defensemen with 45 shots on goal, and is 7th in the league overall with highest ice time. 
  
• The Canes have scored just three first period goals this season.
• The home team had 26 hits and 19 takeaways compared to 12 hits and 9 takeaways for the visitors.