DALLAS — The problem with New Year’s Eve in Dallas, an arena police officer helpfully explained Friday, is that many citizens carry guns and a lot of them celebrate midnight by firing live ammo into the air.
Like revellers everywhere, they also like to drink alcohol, which makes the gun-firing really exciting.
There was no such problem inside American Airlines Center, where Vancouver Canucks goalie Cory Schneider kept the Dallas Stars’ big guns holstered in a 4-1 National Hockey League.
Schneider made it to 2011 unbeaten in regulation time, making 44 saves to bump his record to 6-0-2 in his excellent rookie season.
Daniel Sedin and Raffi Torres scored goals 47 seconds apart to give the Canucks a 2-0 first-period lead, and Vancouver’s power play doubled the advantage in the second period when Stars’ goalie Kari Lehtonen was chased after allowing four goals on 14 shots.
The Canucks’ power play finished 3-for-5 and was the biggest reason, besides Schneider, Vancouver won easily despite being outshot and largely outplayed at even strength.
The best save of the first 17 minutes was made by Canucks defenceman Dan Hamhuis, who sprawled to block Mike Ribeiro’s shot at a mostly open net.
The game was scoreless until Henrik Sedin’s partially fanned pass made it to his brother between the hashmarks, where Daniel steered it behind Lehtonen for Vancouver’s first power-play goal at 17:11.
Forty-seven seconds later, the score was 2-0, as Jannik Hansen’s deft pass in neutral-zone traffic sent Torres in on a breakaway. The winger extended his point streak to four games by scoring on a backhand after being turned sideways by a hook.
Schneider did his most important work of the game at the start of the second period, stopping Jamie Benn from close range, then making excellent saves against Brad Richards and Ribeiro on a Dallas power play.
Henrik Sedin made the score 3-0 on another power play at 9:52, banging in a one-timer from a sharp angle after Alex Edler’s outstanding faked shot froze Lehtonen.
The goal came amid a flurry of Dallas scoring chances, as Schneider somehow made a point-blank save on Ribeiro, blocked Steve Ott’s tricky deflection and stuffed James Neal on a penalty shot at 13:39 after the power forward was tripped by Kevin Bieksa on a breakaway.
If the game wasn’t over at that point, the unofficial end came at 16:50 when Bieksa’s point shot skipped off Dallas captain Brenden Morrow and past Lehtonen for a third power-play goal — after the Stars’ received a bench minor for arguing a non-call against the Canucks for too many men.
The goal brought former Canuck Andrew Raycroft in to replace Lehtonen, but it was far too late for Raycoft to match Schneider’s impact.
Schneider gave away his shutout at 3:21 of the third period, turning over the puck behind his net a few seconds before Morrow one-timed Ribeiro’s pass into the top corner near the end of a Stars’ power play.
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