Stars Shine in 4-3 Shootout Victory over Griffins

CEDAR PARK, Texas – The Texas Stars, American Hockey League affiliate of the NHL’s Dallas Stars, topped the Grand Rapids Griffins in their second consecutive shootout victory and their first win on home ice. It was also the Stars’ 400th win in franchise history.

Midway through the first period, the Stars went to the penalty kill on a Joel L’Esperance hooking call. Shortly thereafter, the Griffins’ league-leading power play unit struck to give them a 1-0 advantage as Matt Puempel tucked a one-timer under the cross bar. It was one of two goals that the Griffins scored on the man advantage, finishing the game 2-for-7.

Texas leveled the score seven minutes into the second period seconds after killing a penalty. Conner Bleackley carried the puck into the zone on a rush and beat a Griffins defender to battle Calvin Pickard at the net. Bleackley then went glove side on the Griffins netminder to tie the game at one. One minute later, a Chris Terry penalty sent the Stars to an important power play. Brad McClure rose to the occasion, scoring his first goal of the season, to put Texas ahead 2-1. Texas finished the night 1-for-3 on the power play.

Early in the third, Reese Scarlett extended the Stars lead to 3-1 with his first point of the year. Joel Kiviranta slid the puck to Scarlett from the left corner as the defenseman worked back toward the blue line. From the point, Scarlett blasted a shot straight past Pickard to up the Texas lead. Moments later, Riley Tufte was called for tripping as the Stars faced their seventh penalty kill of the night. Grand Rapids responded with a power play goal 15 seconds into the advantage to cut the Texas lead to one goal.

With less than 10 minutest to play, the Griffins caught a rebound off the pads of Bow before he could cover the puck and snuck the game-tying goal behind the Stars’ goalie. The two teams battled through the final nine and a half minutes, but each came up empty to force overtime.

In overtime, Texas fired off five shots to Grand Rapids two shots, and saw a chance on the power play, but the goalies stood strong for the five-minute period and extended the game to a shootout. The first round featured Tanner Kero who lifted the eventual game winning goal over the leg of Pickard for the shootouts lone goal. For Texas, Joel L’Esperance and McClure also has chances in the following round, but were stopped by the opponents netminder. Additionally, Bow stopped attempts by all three Griffins, Joe Veleno, Puempel and Evgeny Svechnikov to support the Stars lead and their second shootout victory.

In a solid performance, Bow earned his second consecutive win as he stopped 36 of the Griffins 39 shots. Pickard surrendered four goals on the Stars’ 32 shots in the Griffins loss. The Central Division rivals are set for a rematch on Saturday night at 7:00 p.m.