Heika's Take: Stars face second consecutive loss, fall to Panthers

Glen Gulutzan didn’t see a trend on Saturday night, but he did see a lesson.

The Stars lost consecutive games in regulation for just the third time this season, and also found themselves on the poor side of a ton of stats for the second straight game. But Gulutzan said a 4-0 loss to Florida was actually quite different from a 5-2 defeat at the hands of Minnesota on Thursday.

“No, it wasn't similar,” the Stars head coach said. “They brought their A-game tonight, and you guys got to see it tonight. I just thought that they stayed with it. They capitalized quicker than we did and I think if we had capitalized early it'd maybe have changed things, but they're never going to change a thing.”

Dallas was outshot 9-0 to start the game in Minnesota and mustered just two first-period shots on Saturday. However, the game against Florida was a low-event game, and Dallas was simply trying to win battles in hopes of earning scoring chances. In a lot of ways, the challenge was more about raising their level of “compete” to meet that of the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions.

Florida lost a lopsided 6-2 game to Colorado on Thursday and came in with one of its best efforts, and the Stars simply weren’t able to match that level.

In the first minute of the second period, Anton Lundell walked through the Stars defense and stick-handled around goalie Jake Oettinger to tuck in the all-important first goal.

Sam Bennett scored five minutes later to double the lead, and that put the Stars in a tough place. Bennett directed the puck in with his skate, but after review, the league decided the goal would stand.

It was a tough break and just one more part of a tough night.

“They had a decision to make, and they made it, so I wasn’t too wound up about it,” Gulutzan said. “The second one hurts, because if it stays 1-0 . . . But you look at the Big 4 [power play, penalty kill, 5-on-5 and goaltending], we lost the specialty teams battle and that hurts you.”

Brad Marchand scored on a power play in the final minute of the second period, and that was pretty much game. Dallas had killed 35 consecutive power plays before that, so there was some symbolism as well as a 3-0 lead.

“That guy made a great play and found the guy on the back side and sometimes it's going to be like that,” said forward Colin Blackwell on a cross-ice pass that left Oettinger hanging. “Overall, I like the aggressiveness on the penalty kill, and I think if you stick with that good things are going to happen for us.”

That’s how they got to an impressive 10-game run, by adjusting their strategy and finding aggression. And on the other side of the ice, the Stars saw how the Panthers’ aggression helped deflate the Dallas power play, which went 0-for-3 while generating very little danger.

“It was a little bit of everything,” Blackwell said of the entire game. “They were very aggressive. I think when you do that sometimes you can’t always make the perfect pretty play. It's not always going to be pretty, but it's just little things, advancing the puck, advancing the puck, and knowing the next guy is going to do the right thing and hopefully get rewarded for it.”

And that is the lasting thought, as the team sits 21-7-5 and rolls into a game Monday at home against Los Angeles.

“This one isn’t going to yield anything great,” Gulutzan said when asked about any trends in seeing the puck control and shot production slip. “Our guys are trying to get to the interior and do the right things, but you can just see how hard it is. So that’s the lesson: You have to amp up your battle and your compete level.”

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on X @MikeHeika.