Stars lose to Devils, give up ground in wild card race in West

DALLAS --The Dallas Stars failed to gain ground in the Western Conference wild card race when they lost 3-1 to the New Jersey Devils at American Airlines Center on Saturday.

"We didn't look like a team that wanted to make the playoffs, I'll tell you that," Stars coach Rick Bowness said. "Let's be honest, what do our eyes tell us? There wasn't near enough desperation in our game, it's as simple as that. It's everybody, and they can't point fingers. They've got to look at themselves because it was everybody. We didn't have one person out there, for me, that played a good game."
Jake Oettinger made 20 saves for the Stars (40-27-4), who fell into a tie with the Vegas Golden Knights for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the West.
"I feel confident in myself, and I think I can get this team to the playoffs," Oettinger said. "Bad goals go in. It's about forgetting about it and moving on and being a rock for this team. I have a great opportunity here to do that, and it's up to me."
Nico Hischier had a goal and an assist, and Fabian Zetterlund had two assists for his first NHL points for the Devils (25-41-6), who had lost five straight (0-4-1). Nico Daws made 27 saves.
"We needed some good saves at key times, and I thought he made those saves for us," Devils coach Lindy Ruff said of Daws. "I thought his puck play on a lot of their entries allowed us to get out of the zone. I thought it was a real sharp game by him."

Hischier scored the tiebreaking goal with 1:11 remaining in the third period to give the Devils a 2-1 lead.
"We really did a good job this game," Hischier said. "Sixty minutes, not just 20, not just 40. This time, we really digged in, we were competing. Like I've always been talking about, just not playing 40 minutes. Sixty solid minutes and we got rewarded at the end."
Pavel Zacha scored 10 seconds later for the 3-1 final.
"It's a really big win," Devils defenseman Ty Smith said. "Lindy's been talking about us being in the game, making sure teams know they have a battle that night. I thought we did a pretty good job of that. Obviously, coming off a bit of a tough stretch, that's a big bounce-back win."
Ryan Suter gave Dallas a 1-0 lead at 13:31 of the second period with a power-play goal. The Stars had gone 1-for-25 on the power play prior to the goal.
"It wasn't the game we needed to show up and play," Suter said. "They came at us, they came hard, and we weren't ready for that."

Smith tied it 1-1 at 4:26 of the third with a shot from the high slot.
"If we play like that, we're going home in three weeks, it's as simple as that," Bowness said. "That's what I told them after the game. We play like that, three weeks from today, we're going home, if that's what we want. You can say all the right things all the time. It's not what you say. It's what you accept and what you do."
NOTES:The Devils had lost nine straight road games in regulation. ... Suter scored his 100th NHL goal in his 1,269th game. … Hischier and Zacha's goals tied for the second-fastest in Devils history. John Madden and Patrik Elias scored eight seconds apart against the Boston Bruins on April 6, 2001. … Hischier got his 200th NHL point (77 goals, 123 assists), becoming the second player from the 2017 NHL Draft to reach the milestone (Elias Pettersson, Vancouver Canucks; 209).