from Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News,

We can argue as to whether or not Antti Niemi is a back-up goalie or not, but that's part of the beauty of the net-balancing experiment the Stars are conducting this season. The simple fact is the Stars won four times all last season with someone other than Kari Lehtonen starting the game...and those four wins were the last four games of the season.

This year, they already have three wins with Lehtonen nestled safely beneath his ballcap _ and that is revolutionary for Stars fans who have watched Andrew Raycroft and Dan Ellis and Tim Thomas and the trio from last season.

It's important not only because the team is off to a 6-1-0 start, it's important because nobody is panicking. The Stars were 4-1-2 to start last season, but the belief was Lehtonen needed to be in the cage as much as possible. He was averaging 60-plus games per season, and there was no sign that trend was going to change. Heck, had you asked in October, the sentiment might have been that he would top 70 games last season.

But there was a reason he didn't _ because his game unraveled. Pushed to the edge by the pressure to perform, he started to wear down and crumble.

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