NHL Update: Edmonton Oilers edge past Dallas Stars, 4-1
Shawn Horcoff scored a goal and assisted twice, as Edmonton Oilers crushed Dallas Stars, 4-1, at Rexall Place on Tuesday night.
"It was great. We got challenged yesterday and 23 guys played a great game tonight. The last two games have not been indicative of the way we have been playing. I thought before that we were putting in some good efforts and weren't getting the results."Horcoff
said.
Jordan Eberle and Taylor Chorney each also lit the lamp for Edmonton, which snapped a three-game skid and won for only the third time in its previous 15 play-offs overall (3-11-1). Ales Hemsky added another goal in the win.
Nikolai Khabibulin was solid between the pipes, turning aside 24 shots in the win.
“Khabibulin was good early and we needed him to be,” Edmonton coach Tom Renney said. “He made some good saves and we fed off of that. Then our power play scores a goal and then all of a sudden you start to believe in yourself and what you are doing and why
you do it.”
Loui Eriksson supplied the lone offense for Dallas, which has wheels falling off after a very promising first half of the season. Kari Lehtonen gave up four goals on 30 shots in the losing effort.
"It's easy to go behind that we have guys hurt, but we have a lot better team than we've shown the last couple games," Lehtonen said.
Eberle got Oilers on the board to give 1-0 lead with his 12th goal of the season with two minutes left in the opening stanza.
Just 7 ½ minutes into the second period, Edmonton notched a 2-0 lead with a power-play goal. With Mark Fistric in penalty box for hooking, Chorney netted his first NHL goal with the help of Horcoff and Tom Gilbert.
Eriksson got Stars on the board to cut the deficit in half, 2-1, with 3 ½ minutes left in the middle frame. It was his 19th goal of 2010-2011, a power-play tally assisted by Lehtonen and Jason William, but Oilers answered less than two minutes
later.
Moving on 5-on-4 due to another Fistric minor cross checking, Edmonton threw the puck around the perimeter of the Dallas zone until Hemsky controlled it along the right half-wall. Hemsky then skated to the top of the circle and slipped the puck into the
low slot to Horcoff, who successfully redirected it past Lehtonen for 3-1 edge.
Hemsky accounted for the final scoring, 4-1, just 28 seconds into the third period. It happened so when Horcoff controlled the puck through the neutral zone along the left side and dished it across to Hemsky, who fooled two defenders, rushed in on a breakaway
and fired a backhander to the left post.
Tags: