Saturday, October 23, 2010

Pekka Rinne Leads Predators to 1-0 Win in Dallas

Pekka Rinne was perfect in goal stopping all 30 Shots from the Dallas Stars in the Predators' 1-0 victory at the American Airline Arena on Saturday night.

Cal O'Reilly scored on a rebound off of a Shea Weber shot just 42 seconds into the contest and that held up as the only score in the contest.

Kari Lehtonen was the hard luck loser in goal for the Stars and was impressive stopping all but one of the Preds' 24 shots.

The Predators looked strong as the game began and outshot Dallas 11-8 in the first period. The second period was all Dallas, with them peppering Rinne with 13 shots while the Preds only got off five shots. In the final period, the Stars led in shots 9-8.

Dallas had numerous scoring chances but the best was in the second period when a shot from Matt Niskanen ended up behind Rinne in the blue ice. Kevin Klein beat Loui Eriksson to the puck and was able to clear it.

The Predators started seven defensemen due to Kevin Klein being a bit under the weather. Teenu Laasko, who was called up before the game only played four shifts and saw 2:24 of ice time. Sergei Kostitsyn was a healthy scratch.

Shea Weber's big shot claimed a couple of more victims during the game. Patric Hornqvist was hit but was able to continue playing. J.P. Dumont was stuck and did not return after the 7:50 mark in the third. His availability for Sunday's game is unknown.

The Predator's unbeaten in regulation streak continues as they are now 4-0-3. Dallas slips to 5-2
as they are off to their best start in several years and were leading the league with 3.67 goals per game before being shut out on Saturday night.

The Predators have a quick turn around and left immediately after the game to travel to Tampa where they will play the Lightning at 5 p.m. central on Sunday afternoon.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass

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