By JIM REEVES
revo@star-telegram.com
DALLAS — If this was a test, the Dallas Stars needed a cheat sheet.
Or maybe just a little more study time. After all, in the Marc Crawford School of Fast Break Hockey, the Stars have just barely crawled out of pre-school with junior high already looming just around the next corner.
They’re learning quickly, though you couldn’t necessarily prove it by Friday night’s 3-0 paddling at the hands of that Eastern Conference bully Boston at the AAC.
"We just ran into a well-oiled machine," said goalie Marty Turco. "They have a great system and they’re all on the same page.
"You have to create your own chances and we got stifled a little bit. We couldn’t sustain any pressure [on the offensive end]. Our makeup is to wear other teams down with our good forwards and we didn’t have a chance to do that much."
It was the Stars’ first actual loss of the season in six games (2-1-3), despite three shootout "losses," which just proves that when it comes to fuzzy math, the NHL manages to top even the politicians. Only in this league can you lose, gain a point in the standings and still be considered unbeaten.
For all their progress in new coach Crawford’s aggressive, pressure system, Friday night was a lesson not in how far the Stars have come this season, but how far they still have to go.
"You have to commit to doing the simple things really well," Crawford said. "That’s the lesson for our team tonight: commit to doing the simple things real well, get the puck to the net, go short shifts, don’t give them the outnumbered chances.
"Boston took their game to a different level and we couldn’t match it. It’s hard to beat a team like Boston if you don’t have everybody going and we didn’t have many guys going tonight for whatever reason."
The talk about the Stars coming into this game after their 6-0 wipeout of Nashville in their last game was how energized they seemed, how quickly they were taking to a style of hockey downright foreign to anyone wearing a Dallas jersey over the last 16 years.
The Stars we’ve known since they arrived from Minnesota in 1993 won a Stanley Cup and went to the finals in consecutive seasons a decade ago on the strength and tenacity of their defense.
Crawford came in with the strange idea that it’s OK to score, too.
"It’s the run-and-shoot," team president Jeff Cogen said before the game, drawing on a football analogy to make his point. "If I didn’t know better, I’d think Mouse Davis [the coach who refined the run-and-shoot offense] was behind the bench."
The Stars came in averaging four goals a game, but apparently somebody forgot to fax the early-season clippings to the Bruins.
The Bruins, whose 116 points last year netted them the second-best record in the NHL, are who the Stars hope to grow up to be before this season is over.
Vezina Trophy winner Tim Thomas met every Stars’ challenge, stopping 27 shots. The Bruins made the Stars, who had seemed so lively and super-charged in their first five games, look sluggish. They blocked shots, deflected passes and peppered Turco with 29 shots.
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