DALLAS — The Dallas Stars offense finally woke up in a 6-2 win against the St. Louis Blues this past Thursday.
The Stars went hard to the net, they scored a couple gritty goals, and their best players stepped up.
Now Dallas will test that same formula against one of the NHL’s best goalies when the Chicago Blackhawks visit the American Airlines Center on Saturday.
Corey Crawford shutout the Colorado Avalanche in a 4-0 victory this past Thursday. He made 38 saves, and Stars defenseman Johnny Oduya — a former teammate — said in order to beat the Stanley Cup winning goalie, you have to make him uncomfortable.
“It’s like playing any good goalie, the classic term is trying to get in front of him and disturb him as much as possible,” Oduya said. “Obviously you throw a lot of pucks in their for bounces. It’s tough to beat goalies like him straight up now a days. If we can get some commotion around the net and maybe some bounces, that’s what we have to do.”
However, Crawford doesn’t get uncomfortable very often, as shown by his dominant start to this season. Through nine games he has a 5-3-1 record, a 2.01 goals against average and 0.936 save percentage.
The 31-year-old has been particularly stingy in his last five starts. Crawford hasn’t allowed more than two goals in a game during that stretch, while he’s posted a pair of shutouts and had a 0.935 save percentage or higher in each performance.
It’s been needed as the Blackhawks have gotten out to slow starts and the goalie has been tested in the first period.
“I think you want to make sure you get better starts, we’ve been sloppy in certain areas early in games and it leads to chances and momentum going their way,” Chicago head coach Joel Quenneville said. “And Corey’s been excellent for us during this stretch, so that keeps us in the game and that gives us a chance to win it.”
Quenneville admitted that it’s not a sustainable model. Chicago needs to start quicker and can’t rely on Crawford for a free pass every night, but seeing the Stanley Cup winning goalie make at least 29 saves in each of his last five games helps the Blackhawks breathe a sigh of relief.
“He’s been really great, absolutely fantastic goaltender,” defenseman Gustav Forsling said. “He’s a really good talker out there, and he helps out and makes you more comfortable to know you have him back there.”
His numbers and impact on his teammates have helped put Crawford into early Vezina Trophy conversations, an award given to the league’s best goaltender. The Blackhawks know that, and they want to start playing better hockey in front of the goalie.
“It gives you a lot,” Ryan Hartman said. “It does give you confidence and makes you battle for him, since you know he’s battling for us. You just try to keep it out of our end as much as possible, but we know we’ve got a guy making saves. If he does his job well it’s always easier on us.”
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