* No matter what system you're running, you can't take bad penalties. It hurt the Stars on Saturday against Nashville (Mike Modano's penalty) and Jeff Woywitka's high stick hurt tonight. The Oilers scored with 14 seconds left in the man-advantage (that was a sweet backhand pass by Andrew Cogliano, wasn't it?) as Mike Comrie put it in. There was no Stars player in front of the net to deter Comrie.
* It's just four periods of hockey so far, but this team is showing some resiliency already. After giving up the goal, the Stars come back a few minutes later. Trevor Daley is active in the attacking zone, sends one in toward then net and then Brenden Morrow is there to put in the rebound (it went off one of the Oilers' skates) to tie the score.
* Krys Barch didn't really get a punch in on Shelden Souray in a first period fight (if you could call it that). Hats off for the effort, but Barch was on the ice a few times early on and that was it. I'm not sure Souray did much to get punches in, either. But it's never a bad thing to get Souray in the penalty box, either.
* Stars need to do a better job of passing the pucks. Seems like too many giveaways at center ice, some of which weren't really initiated by the Oilers.
* Stars were able to kill off a penalty midway through the period in a tie game. Oilers got a few good shots off, but Marty Turco was there and the Stars got through the kill without any damage done.
* I thought Fabian Brunnstrom had a nice period. He wasn't out there a ton, but he seemed hungry to find the puck.
* Stars didn't do much on their power play with five minutes late in the first. Oilers did a nice job of clearing the puck and not allowing the Stars to get some rhythm. But the Stars went back on the job late in the period and will start the third period with 41 seconds left on the man-advantage. And they had some chances.
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Richard Durrett
Richard Durrett joined ESPNDallas.com in September 2009. He writes about colleges, the Dallas Stars and the Texas Rangers. Richard spent nine years at The Dallas Morning News covering the Rangers, Stars, colleges, motorsports and high schools.
