Game Recap: Stars Give Solid Effort But Fall Short Again In Tampa Bay

While it was nowhere near as perfect as the road game at St. Louis last weekend, the Stars played a pretty solid game on Saturday in Tampa Bay.

After taking the lead on an Esa Lindell point shot in the first period, they took a bend, don’t break mentality, keeping the Lightning to just one goal deep into the third period. Unfortunately, they themselves stayed at one goal as well and were kept to only two shots for a large portion of the game.

“I think they outshot us quite badly,” Esa Lindell said about the second period. “We didn’t get the pucks deep and turnovers fed the game the way they play really well. That cost us longer shifts in the d-zone so we didn’t have the energy to play o-zone. We kinda just chipped it out and changed, and the next line had to play defense again. That was kind of the snowball effect.”

Eventually, a mistake up the ice turned into a breakaway for Ross Colton, who tucked a shot under the arm of Anton Khudobin to give the Lightning their first lead of the game.

And from there, it was the same story as it has been all season on the road, as Dallas mustered few scoring chances but could not push hard enough or finish around the net, eventually falling 3-1 at Amalie Arena.

Anton Khudobin provided a strong performance in the pipes, stopping 26 of 28 shots he faced (Killorn added an empty-net goal), including multiple high-danger scoring chances when his tired teammates broke down in front of him.

“He was great,” Rick Bowness said. “He gave us a chance to get a point out of the game. We are not going to win anything on the road until we get more than one goal. He did his job, he made some big saves when he had to. A couple of bad breaks there but Anton was wonderful.”

While the effort was much better, the result is the same. The Stars drop to 4-12-1 on the road and have lost eight straight away from American Airlines Center. Their last road win remains the game against the Arizona Coyotes on Nov. 27, seven weeks ago.

Nikita Kucherov led the Lightning with two points while Colton, Brayden Point, Alexander Killorn, Antony Cirelli, and Steven Stamkos all tallied one point each.

As for the special teams, the Stars allowed a power-play goal for the ninth time in the last ten games, as Point hammered home a wrister from the slot with seconds remaining on both the penalty and the first period clock.

The inconsistencies are as apparent as they have been all season for the Stars. From their long winning streaks to long losing streaks, killing 29 straight power plays to allowing power-play goals in nine of ten games, and even their effort on a nightly basis. It is something that has to change, and they are running out of time to do so.

As we near the final weeks of January, it is time to do or die. The learning curve is over. There is no more talk about getting better. They need to find a way to score goals and get points on the road or they will be watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs from home for the second straight season.

“We’re implementing new things. When we see a game like tonight, we saw some things that we have to work on Monday. Last night [Friday at Florida], you throw that out the window. It’s about getting our defense more involved. We score goals when our defense is getting 10-15 shots a game. 5-6 shots, we don’t score any goals. When we see things, we work on them.”

Dallas returns home for a must-win Tuesday matchup against the Montreal Canadiens before taking off on a four-game east coast road trip beginning on Thursday (Jan. 20).