Oilers end home skid
Oilers 5 Stars 2
EDMONTON — The Edmonton Oilers hope home ice will be more hospitable in December after a good start lifted them to a badly-needed victory at Rexall Place.
Lubomir Visnovsky, Ales Hemsky and Andrew Cogliano led the way with a goal and an assist each as the Oilers defeated the Dallas Stars 5-2 Wednesday, ending a five-game losing streak at home.
Shawn Horcoff and Marc Pouliot also scored for Edmonton in a battle between two teams who entered the game sharing the Western Conference basement.
Not only did the Oilers get a win at home, they got it in large part to starting the game off well, something that has not been a hallmark for Edmonton this season.
“We got off to a good start tonight, which has not been our forte here at home,” said Oilers head coach Craig MacTavish.
“There was a lot of pressure on the team for this game. We are going back on the road and hadn’t played well at home. There was a lot of pressure and sometimes that doesn’t bring out your best game but we played well tonight. It sure helps us when we come back having won a game in that fashion.”
Horcoff said the Oilers lack of jump to start games has been a killer in the first quarter of the season.
“The games that we have lost in the last five or 10 have been as a result of our starts,” he said. “In a lot of those games we were able to come back and play a solid 40 minutes for the rest of the game and give ourselves a chance to get back in the game. But it’s too good of a league to be falling behind early all of the time and trying to come back.”
The Oilers (11-11-2) won for the first time at home since Oct. 18 and leapt from a three-way tie for last in the West to a three-way tie for ninth”.
Mike Modano replied with a pair of goals for Dallas (9-12-4), which saw its season-long two-game winning streak come to an end. The Stars had also won the previous seven meetings between the two teams in Edmonton.
“We were a little flat at the start,” Modano said. “It’s tough to come from behind like that with a team like this and how good the crowd gets behind them when they get some momentum going. So you play catch up early and it’s tough to win.”
Dallas was missing controversial forward Sean Avery, who was out of the lineup after being suspended indefinitely for his vulgar pre-game comments on Tuesday before the Stars 3-1 victory in Calgary.
Avery will meet with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman today.
“I guess time will tell how it plays out and what the future holds for Sean,” Modano said. “I think we all support Dave (Tippett) and the management, and Tom Hicks obviously, and what we condone and what we’ve built as a respect around the league as individuals and the type of atmosphere that we generate over the years. How he fits into that and if things change I can’t really tell you right now how that’s going to be.”
Stars goaltender Marty Turco says it is important that the team gets past the Avery issue.
“We addressed it yesterday and were pretty forthright,” he said. “A few of us were honest but we have quite a hole to climb out of as a team and that’s what all of our focus has been today and will be, certainly, in the immediate future. I said earlier, it’s out of my hands and none of my concern at this point.”
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