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Texas Stars

Stars Blanked by San Diego, 4-0

December 29, 2016 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Texas Stars News Release


CEDAR PARK, Texas - Andy Welinski opened the scoring two minutes into the game and rookie goaltender Kevin Boyle took care of the rest to lead the San Diego Gulls to a 4-0 win over the Texas Stars on Thursday in front of 6,538 fans in attendance.

Boyle made 22 saves in the shutout effort and also earned the first win in his AHL career. Landon Bow stopped 22 of 26 shots in the loss for Texas. With the win, the Gulls snapped a seven-game winless skid (0-5-1-1).

Texas (15-12-1-1) and San Diego (12-11-2-1) will face off again on New Year's Eve at 7 p.m. at H-E-B Center to close out 2016.

Welinski's one-time blast from the point beat a screened Bow to open up the scoring. Midway through period one, Plano, Texas native Stefan Noesen stuffed in his fourth of the season, and the Gulls skated into the break leading 2-0.

After a scoreless second, the Gulls added to their lead with a penalty shot goal from Jordan Samuels-Thomas on a wrist shot from the right circle at 10:39 of the third. Kalle Kossila snapped home the final goal of the night on a loose puck in front with just under six minutes to play.

Texas finished 0-for-3 on the power play. San Diego went 0-for-1. It was the Stars' first shutout loss since April 8th of last season when they lost to the San Jose Barracuda, 3-0.

The Stars' Brandon DeFazio saw his three-game point streak come to an end in the loss.

Weekday home games (Monday-Thursday) are H-E-B night with the Texas Stars where fans can donate a non-perishable item at the box office and save five dollars on their ticket purchase. Every Saturday is a Texas Lottery Lucky Row Night where the first Stars player to score wins free scratch-off tickets for a lucky row of seats at H-E-B Center. Fans can also enjoy Coke Zero Family Four-Packs every Saturday with four tickets, four hot dogs and four soft drinks starting at just $16 per person.

The Texas Stars are the primary development affiliate of the NHL's Dallas Stars, and are currently playing their eighth season at H-E-B Center at Cedar Park. Full season, 24-game, 12-game and six-game ticket packages for the 2016-17 campaign are on sale now. For more information, call (512) GO-STARS (467-8277) or visit TexasStars.com.

Three Stars:

Kevin Boyle (SD) Andy Welinski (SD) Stefan Noesen (SD)

Photo Credit: Andy Nietupski/Texas Stars

Postgame Quotes:

Forward Brandon DeFazio

On tonight's game...

"It's not what we wanted with a great crowd here. I feel like we let everybody down, and we let ourselves down. It's not the effort we wanted to come out with."

On San Diego's seven game losing streak...

"We were definitely aware that they were going to be desperate. [The media] asked me before the game, what we thought was going to happen, and I figured exactly what did happen would happen. We wanted to start better because we didn't start as well as we wanted to in San Antonio, and we didn't. It's got to be a focus."

On shots hitting the post...

"You could say both ways, it could have changed [the game]. They hit a couple [of posts] early, and we had a couple on one shift. I felt like if we were to have got one [goal] when it was 2-0 maybe the crowd would have gotten into it, things get exciting, we can wake up and get going. But, that's not the way it went."

Head Coach Derek Laxdal

On tonight's game...

"I think it would be easy to say that their work ethic was much stronger than ours tonight in most areas of the game. They killed our pretty strong forecheck right off, and they ended up creating a goal on the first one. Then they got up 2-0, and we had a little bit of a pushback in the second period where we just couldn't generate a goal. I thought their young guy [Boyle] played pretty well in net and kept it simple. They did a pretty good job boxing out around the net. We played pretty well in the last two periods at San Antonio and just couldn't find that game tonight. We'll move on from that one."

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