Texas Stars fans buzzed with national pride for Military Appreciation Weekend before the opening puck drop at the H-E-B Center. Less than 60 minutes of hockey later, the Bakersfield Condors scored their second empty net goal, and the fans were heading for the exits early.<\/p>\n
Despite finishing the game with a four-shot advantage, the Stars opened its four-game home stand and its first of four matchups against the Condors with a 4-1 loss.<\/p>\n
Only five minutes into the first period, the Stars opened the scoring thanks to a scrappy goal from captain Curtis McKenzie. When the Condors\u2019 goalie spilled a shot from Texas defenseman Trey Taylor, McKenzie guided the puck home for his seventh of the season.<\/p>\n
However, as the period progressed, physical play from the Condors shifted the momentum. A holding penalty called against rookie forward Harrison Scott gave the Condors a man-advantage that it would capitalize on.<\/p>\n
Despite a desperate sprawling right-pad save from Stars goalie R\u00e9mi Poirier to open the penalty kill, the Condors equalized when unmarked forward Sam Poulin fired the puck past Poirier\u2019s glove side.<\/p>\n
Building on this momentum, the Condors once again found themselves with a man advantage to close out the period. Then, as the first 20 minutes came to a close, tensions flared as Condors forward Quinn Hutson ripped a shot on Poirier after the period ended.<\/p>\n
Hutson was assessed for unsportsmanlike conduct as a result, which yielded the Stars their first power-play opportunity of the night to begin the second period.<\/p>\n
Yet, the second period was a story of lackluster special teams played by the Stars. Despite three separate man-advantages, the Stars at times struggled to even gain offensive zone control.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was tough,\u201d head coach Toby Petersen said. \u201cIt\u2019s an area that we\u2019ve got to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Special teams is a facet of the game that has impeded the Stars\u2019 success all year. Texas has scored on only 13.8% of power plays and managed to kill off 78.5% of its own penalties. Both special teams units rank in the Western Conference\u2019s bottom half.<\/p>\n
Friday night, this problem was further accentuated by Condors captain forward Seth Griffith capturing the lead for his side shortly into the second period. Streaking off the bench, Griffith made the Stars pay for losing possession behind its own net with a well-placed shot over Poirier\u2019s right shoulder.<\/p>\n
The third period did little to turn the tide for the Stars. Poirier managed to keep the game 2-1 with consecutive blocker saves, but the Stars offense fell short of finding an equalizer.<\/p>\n
With the Stars forced to pull Poirier, the Condors padded the lead with two empty-net goals. The Stars will be looking for revenge tomorrow night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that it is a great team over there and that we\u2019re going to have a challenge tomorrow,\u201d Petersen said. \u201cSo these are big games for us. There\u2019s a chance for us to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Stars fans buzzed with national pride for Military Appreciation Weekend before the opening puck drop at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-219780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}