The Dallas Stars defeated the Vancouver Canucks 4-2 on Thursday (or late into Friday morning, depending on your time zone).
Here is the 20/20.
1. Good, scrappy win for Dallas.
It wasn’t pretty, but the Stars found a way to stay in the game, their goalie battles through some uneasiness, and despite getting out played for long stretches, they found ways to make it count in the third period.
It’s a good discussion point about the Stars in general. They are a good team, one of the NHL’s best actually based on record, but they’ve been finding ways to do it a bit ugly.
2. Colin Blackwell broke a 2-2 tie in the third period, finishing a breakaway with a wrist shot over the glove.
It was smart/sneaky play on both the breakaway pass, a little spin and pivot by Radek Faksa, and then on the shot selection by Blackwell who showed some patience before roofing it.
He’s not a goal scorer, far from it, but Blackwell seems to have those “marquee” moments and understands how to make the most of prime scoring opportunities. Or better put, for whatever reason he scores more “pretty” goals than you’d expect from a fourth-line depth guy.