On a night of big goal outbursts, the Dallas Stars scored five times in the third period to defeat the Anaheim Ducks, 6-2.
Trailing 2-1 early the third period, the Stars got goals from Dan Hamhuis, Adam Cracknell, Patrick Eaves, and Jamie Benn in less than a seven-minute span to take the lead and effectively end the suspense of the outcome.
Dallas goalie Antti Niemi – File photo by Jack Lima
“I thought it was a good sign for our team to be so resilient to come back in the third,” Hamhuis said. “It’s a process. We just want to keep doing the right things over and over. It’s hard to score pretty goals in this league now. It’s a matter of percentages and being in their end more and funneling pucks to the net.”
Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry were Anaheim’s goal scorers.
“I thought we played a pretty good road game up until the third period. We did a lot of things right,” Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. “We weren’t sharp in our execution because we had lots of chances to score goals in this hockey game.”
John Gibson was another starting goalie to fail to make to the end of the game, he was pulled for Jonathan Bernier.
“Yeah, he (Antti Niemi) played great. He’s a good goaltender. He made some key saves for them,” Getzlaf said. “Our goalie, I thought (he) played great at the start of the game too. It was a great hockey game there for a long time too. We kind of self-destructed and they took advantage of it.”
Stephen Johns opened the scoring in the game for the Stars and Radek Faksa ended it with an empty-netter.
WATCH: All Ducks vs. Stars highlights
Antti Niemi made 34 saves for the win as the Stars improved to 12-13-6.
“Excellent. He played a great game for us,” Stars coach Lindy Ruff said of Niemi. “You’ve got to give him a lot of credit for staying ready. … Antti gave us a great game tonight, which allowed us to finish this one off.”
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