Duchene scores 1st for Stars in win against Blue Jackets

DALLAS -- Matt Duchene scored his first goal with the Dallas Stars in a 5-3 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets at American Airlines Center on Monday.

Duchene, who signed with the Stars as a free agent on July 1, gave Dallas a 3-2 lead at 2:49 of the third period on a rebound from the bottom of the right face-off circle.

“The first one’s always the hardest one to get in the season. Pretty sure I showed you guys that,” Duchene said. “It was probably the luckiest and least dangerous play of the game that ended up in the net. It’s kind of funny how that went tonight.”

Roope Hintz, Wyatt Johnston and Evgenii Dadonov each had a goal and an assist for Dallas (5-1-1). Jake Oettinger made 22 saves.

“We were flying,” Oettinger said. “I think it started with [Duchene] and [Mason Marchment]’s line, I think they were the best line on the ice by far. Really happy to see those guys get rewarded. They’ve been our best line the last few nights. We need them. We have such a deep team, and they just showed that tonight.”

Dmitri Voronkov scored his first NHL goal for Columbus (3-4-2), which has lost four in a row. Elvis Merzlikins made 28 saves.

“We were 2-2 going into the third period, not a bad spot to be on the road,” Severson said. “They just outplayed us a little bit in the third there. Got a couple of really nice bounces, obviously, as well. But at the same time, they did play better than us in the third. We had a couple of good looks, Boone [Jenner] had a good chance and their goalie made a good save. That would have been a key point in the game.”

Thomas Harley gave Dallas a 1-0 lead 27 seconds into the first period when he finished off a 2-on-1 pass from Jason Robertson.

“Nice to get one in the start because our starts haven’t been great this year,” Hintz said. “We’ve been talking about our starts, and we started really good today, and that kind of kept us in the game.”

Voronkov tied it 1-1 at 4:37 when he drove to the front of the net and scored off a centering pass from Cole Sillinger.

“We’re definitely getting our chances, that’s for sure, the last few games,” Columbus forward Mathieu Olivier said. “At some point, we might go through a phase where they’re all going to go in. At some point, it might be evened out, but right now they’re just not going in as much as we’d like. It comes through phases throughout the year, but it’s up to us to find our way out of it.”

Damon Severson gave the Blue Jackets a 2-1 lead at 13:41, one-timing on a rolling puck from the left face-off circle. It was his first goal with Columbus since being acquired from the New Jersey Devils on June 9.

Hintz tied it 2-2 at 5:52 in the second period when he tipped Robertson's shot from the point.

“The best compliment I could give Roope is, I have more coaches from other teams that I sit and talk with or chat with just talk about how underrated he is,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “This guy’s one of the best in the world. He’s physical, he’s fast, he’s hard, he makes plays. He can play defense, he can play offense. He’s a prototypical No. 1 center, and there’s probably maybe 10 in the League, in the world, right now in that category. He brings it all.”

After Duchene gave Dallas the lead, Dadonov pushed it to 4-2 at 12:39 with a shot from the right face-off dot that went over Merzlikins’ shoulder.

“I don’t think we were resilient all night. I think it was on and off,” Columbus coach Vincent Pascal said. “It’s not about the final score. I think we have more than this, and I’m talking about the effort. A lot of guys worked hard, but we can’t afford to have a few guys not working hard enough. That’s not going to fly. We need 20 guys to play hard and take care of the details of the game.”

Johnston scored into an empty net to make it 5-2 at 16:21.

Sean Kuraly cut the lead to 5-3 at 17:10, scoring near the right post after Ivan Provorov's initial shot caromed to him off the end boards.

“That’s a veteran team over there that knows how to win, how to close out games,” Columbus forward Adam Fantilli said. “I’m not used to losing, I don’t want to get used to losing. I think we’ve got to just keep pushing and playing the right way, and I think eventually they’re going to start to fall for us. We’re going to get our bounces, things are going to start going well if we keep working hard, but definitely not a feeling I want to get used to at all.”

NOTES: Hintz has 251 points (120 goals and 131 assists) in 318 NHL games. He is the fastest Stars player to reach 250 points since the team moved to Dallas in 1993-94. Eight Minnesota North Stars players did it in fewer games than Hintz, led by Bobby Smith (218 games). … Oettinger extended his season-opening point streak to five games.