It’s crunch time in the NHL as the number of games in the regular season dwindle and the rumor mill heats up as teams fall out of contention.
On Friday night in Dallas, the Stars and St Louis Blues played like it was a playoff game and the Stars came away with a gutsy 2-1 win.
Ben Bishop made 28 saves for Dallas in the win.
“Every game from here on out is going to be of equal importance,” Bishop said. “Obviously it’s nice to beat the team that you’re chasing. But it doesn’t really change anything. Now we go out to the west coast and the game against San Jose is just as important as tonight.”
The Stars stayed with a 6-1-0 record over the last seven games and tied the Blues in points, 72, with the regulation win.
“If you’re going to get in the playoffs, you can get in without your power play,” Stars head coach Ken Hitchcock said of his club killing four of five penalties. “But you can’t get in the playoffs without your penalty kill.”
Mattias Janmark and Stephen Johns struck for the Stars.
“We’ve really been chasing all year and it’s a good feeling to catch up with them,” Janmark said after the two teams tied in the ladder chase.
Brayden Schenn scored the power play goal for the Blues.
“It’s essentially tough to win with one goal unless you get a shutout,” the Blues’ Colton Parayko said after the game.
[WATCH:Â All Blues vs. Stars highlights]
Dallas had only 16 shots on the night and Jake Allen made 14 stops in the loss.
“The goalie was the best player in the game for either team, and we looked like a team that had not played in the League for a week and got away with that part of it. We had some real gutty performances by some guys, especially on the back end,” Hitchcock said after the game.
Hard to imagine Allen being around much longer in St Louis despite the hard luck loss. He has lost 11 of his last 13 starts and the Blues give him no offense in support.
“No question. I thought we did a great job,” Allen said. “We came into a tough building, it’s a team that’s playing well. I thought it was a good, solid game. Obviously beside the score, it was unfortunate. I know a lot of guys are frustrated in here because we played a good hockey game. We just couldn’t catch a break.”
On the defensive side maybe in limiting the Dallas chances but the offense was absent.
The Blues are 0-2-1 in their last three games.
“The effort was certainly there and I think puck-possession-wise we were doing a lot of good things, we generated some looks,” Blues head coach Mike Yeo said. “We hit some posts and we didn’t finish, but we’re not at the point where we should take too many positives from that. Those are things that we should do and we’re capable of doing and now we’ve got to find a way to win these hockey games.”
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