Marchment gets hat trick, Stars defeat Blackhawks again

DALLAS -- Mason Marchment had a hat trick and an assist for the Dallas Stars in an 8-1 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at American Airlines Center on Sunday.

Marchment pushed it to 7-1 at 14:29 of the third period, redirecting Tyler Seguin’s one-timer from just inside the blue line. He then completed the hat trick to make it 8-1 at 18:56 when another redirection deflected into the net off the skate of Blackhawks defenseman Jarred Tinordi.

“Great finish. Not the way I drew it up, but you’ve got to get lucky every once in a while,” Marchment said. “I was giving [Esa Lindell] the target and he hit it right on the dot, then it went off a guy’s foot.”

Seguin had a goal and two assists, Sam Steel had a goal and an assist, and Miro Heiskanen, Nils Lundkvist, Jason Robertson and Matt Duchene each had two assists for Dallas (22-9-4), which is 7-1-1 in its past nine games. Scott Wedgewood made 23 saves.

“[Wedgewood]’s been great. He’s got the confidence right now,” Stars defenseman Ryan Suter said. “He’s making that first save right now, which is important. When he has confidence and your goalie is making those saves, it kind of gives your whole team confidence.”

Philipp Kurashev scored for Chicago (11-23-2), which was coming off a 5-4 overtime loss here on Friday and is 0-10-1 in its past 11 road games. Petr Mrazek allowed six goals on 31 shots before being replaced by Arvid Soderblom, who made eight saves.

“I thought there wasn’t a lot of battle in our game,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “Things that we showed from last game that we did well -- moving our feet in the [offensive] zone, shooting pucks -- I thought we were very slow tonight and the battle level was not near [last game]. Obviously, they upped their level from last game and we went the other way, and it was pretty much what the score said it was.”

Craig Smith gave Dallas a 1-0 lead at 11:35 of the first period when Steel's turnaround shot from inside the blue line deflected in off him.

Suter made it 2-0 at 17:16 with a shot from the high slot that deflected off the stick of Kurashev.

Seguin extended the lead to 3-0 at 19:11 of the first, tapping in a backdoor pass from Marchment.

“8-1 is tricky. In this league, you’re not going to see that all the time," Seguin said. "This is a sport where you try to chase that full 60 minutes, and it’s hard to do. It’s a great league. Our main focus was getting off to a better start and not chasing the game. We did that to a T tonight.”

Chicago was outshot 17-6 in the first period.

“My only hope for a game like today is we just finally hammer it through our thick heads of how we're going to need to play, and that is not it,” Blackhawks forward Nick Foligno said. “That is just not who we are, not who we can be. That's not what we expect in the room. That's not what our fans should expect.”

Steel made it 4-0 at 3:43 of the second period, roofing a backhand from the right circle shortly after a power play expired.

Marchment pushed it to 5-0 at 12:50 with a power-play goal from the low slot.

“That’s the story of our team is our ability to score and to get scoring from multiple lines,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “The game was really set by that fourth line (Smith-Ty Dellandrea-Steel). If we’re going to have any kind of success come playoff time, we’re going to need different contributions from different lines almost every night. It’s nice to get that. We had some guys in some ruts for a little bit of a stretch here recently, and everyone seems to be coming out of it.”

Kurashev scored on the power play 39 seconds into the third period to make it 5-1. He finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play with Connor Bedard and Cole Guttman into an open net.

Roope Hintz responded for Dallas to make it 6-1 at 4:46 when he batted in a rebound.

“It’s tough to explain. It seemed like every mistake was going in tonight, and couldn’t stop the bleeding,” Blackhawks forward Anthony Beauvillier said. “Losing games is one thing, but I feel like we need to be connected and keep working. It’s a bad feeling losing a game like that. Sometimes you lose like we did last game, but the energy was really good. Played a really good game and there was a lot of positives coming out of last game. Tonight, it’s hard to find some positives.”

NOTE: Blackhawks forward Tyler Johnson left at 3:43 of the second period with an undisclosed injury. Richardson said after the game that he’ll be out “a little bit” but will need further testing before a timetable can be established.