Stars defeat Lightning, gain in Central playoff race

TAMPA -- Joe Pavelski had two goals and two assists when the Dallas Stars defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-2 at Amalie Arena on Friday.

The line of Pavelski, Roope Hintz and Joel Kiviranta combined for four goals and five assists, and Anton Khudobin made 25 saves for the Stars (22-18-14).
Dallas is two points behind the fourth-place Nashville Predators for the final Stanley Cup Playoff berth in the eight-team Discover Central Division. The Stars and Predators each have two games remaining.
"I think it's been really good for us and it's been going good all season together," Hintz said. "I think we've found each other well and we like to play with each other, so that's the biggest thing."

Dallas ends the regular season at the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday and Monday. Nashville hosts the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday and Monday. The team that qualifies will play the Hurricanes in the first round.
"We had to win tonight, clearly," Stars coach Rick Bowness. "We did what we had to do tonight, now we're going to need a little help. If we get some help from Carolina, we feel good about our game going into Sunday."
Curtis McElhinney made 26 saves for the Lightning (36-15-3), who lost in regulation for the first time in eight games (6-1-1).
"We didn't play very well," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "We didn't execute. We didn't defend well, and we didn't compete hard in the way that we normally do. We turned the game into a little bit of a one-on-one game, not only with but without the puck."
The Lightning loss allowed the Hurricanes to clinch the Central title. Tampa Bay will play the Florida Panthers in the first round of the playoffs.
The Panthers and Lightning are tied for second place in the division. They play their final two games at Florida on Saturday and Monday to determine second and third place and home-ice advantage for their playoff series.
Jamie Oleksiak gave the Stars a 1-0 lead at 5:50 of the first period with a shot from close range.
Pavelski extended the lead to 2-0 at 5:17 of the second period when he took a lead pass from Hintz after coming out of the penalty box and scored on a breakaway.
"Obviously we had to be desperate tonight," Pavelski said. "We did a lot of good things. Early on we got pucks behind them, forechecked, we controlled the play that way. It gave us a boost, I think, for sure."
Blake Coleman made it 2-1 at 11:11 of the second with his sixth goal in his past eight games.
"A lack of attention to detail; obviously we've been pretty strong in the late run that we've been on," Coleman said. "For whatever reason we had some big, glaring errors defensively and left [McElhinney] out to dry, unfortunately. And they were able to convert."

Pavelski made it 3-1 at 13:05 when he chipped in a pass from Hintz in the low slot. Hintz pushed the lead to 4-1 at 19:45 with a goal on a breakaway set up by Kiviranta.
"We played great, we played as one," Khudobin said. "We played on our toes and we did a lot of good things in front of the net, lot of good things in the neutral zone. We played north hockey instead of east-west."
Kiviranta made it 5-1 at 3:49 of the third period on a put back in front of the net
"We spent more time in their zone," Bowness said. "We put more pucks toward the net tonight than we did last game (a 6-2 loss to Tampa Bay on Wednesday). We weren't happy with that. We weren't happy with our zone time in the last game.
"So in this morning's meeting, we put a lot of focus on those two areas: we need to spend more time deep in their zone, we need to get our [defensemen] involved, get more shots from our D, which we got tonight, and we need to put more pucks toward the net, which we did tonight."
Alex Barré-Boulet scored on a power play for the Lightning at 8:29 to make it 5-2.
"I just think we could've been better and cleaner in the D-zone," Tampa Bay forward Pat Maroon said. "I think we could've done a better job of pushing the puck a little more north. I wish we would've had a better response, but we've got a big game tomorrow."