Stars' Balanced Attack Topples Marlies
December 20, 2014 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Texas Stars News Release
TORONTO, Ontario - The Texas Stars jumped out to a 3-0 lead on Saturday afternoon with a balanced attack, and let Jack Campbell handle the rest, to shut the door on the Toronto Marlies in a 3-1 win at Ricoh Coliseum.
The Stars scored a goal in each period, a power play goal, and killed off all four Toronto power plays, while Campbell stopped 14 of his 32 saves in the third period alone to solidify the road win. Brendan Ranford tallied the 50th point of his AHL career with a goal, Radek Faksa extended his point streak to four games with an assist, and the Stars have captured three of four possible points through the first two games of their road trip.
Texas (11-8-8-0) will close out this road swing on Sunday afternoon when they visit the Hamilton Bulldogs at 2 p.m. CST.
Derek Hulak opened up the scoring on a rebound goal late in the first with his sixth of the season and Taylor Stefishen tallied an assist for his first career point with the Stars. The Hulak tally highlighted a first period blitz by the Stars, which saw them outshoot the Marlies 14-5 to start the game.
In the second, Derek Meech cashed in a power play goal for the Stars off a blast from the right point for his fourth of the season at 12:45. Matt Mangene picked up an assist on the goal for his first career point with the Stars after signing a tryout agreement earlier in the day. Faksa also assisted on the Meech tally.
Ranford's milestone goal came 1:36 into the third after driving down the left-wing boards and snapping a wrist shot past Marlies goaltender Christopher Gibson for his fifth of the year. Gibson took the loss, stopping 27-of-30 shots for Toronto.
Matt Frattin gave the Marlies (10-15-3-0) some life at 7:43 of the third on a goal from the right circle. Toronto pulled Gibson with four minutes left in the game for the extra attacker and a two-man advantage on the power play, but Campbell and the Texas penalty kill unit stood tall in the end. The Stars have now killed off 36 of their last 39 penalties (92.3%).
Texas finished 1-for-4 on the power play. Jesse Root has assists in back-to-back games now for the Stars, also tallying one on Meech's goal.
Three Stars:
1. Jack Campbell (TEX)
2. Derek Meech (TEX)
3. Matt Frattin (TOR)
The Texas Stars entered the 2014-15 season as the AHL's defending Calder Cup Champions. Single-game tickets and season ticket packages for the 2014-15 campaign are on sale now. For more information, call (512) GO-STARS (467-8277) or visit TexasStarsHockey.com.
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