Stars defeat Senators for first home win of season

DALLAS -- The Dallas Stars won at home for the first time this season when Anton Khudobin made 19 saves in a 2-1 victory against the Ottawa Senators at American Airlines Center on Monday.

"It was a good 60 minutes," Stars coach Jim Montgomery said. "The only thing that we didn't love was a couple of turnovers in the second period. Besides that, we played pretty relentless hockey, both defensively and offensively."
Radek Faksa and Joe Pavelski scored for Dallas (3-7-1), and Khudobin came within 1:13 of a shutout before Vladislav Namestnikov scored to make it 2-1.
WATCH: [All Senators vs. Stars highlights]
The Stars lost their first three home games this season (1-2-1).
"I didn't have a lot of work, to be honest; the guys played really well," Khudobin said. "But it's a tough game to play just because you don't see a lot of work. You just have to stay focused all of the time. Even if you look at the last goal, something hits you and goes in. It's tough to play, but at the same time, we got the 'W' and that's what is most important."
Anders Nilsson made 41 saves for Ottawa (1-6-1), which has lost four in a row (0-3-1).
"He's been outstanding," Senators coach D.J. Smith said of Nilsson. "He was our best player tonight, he was our best player in Vegas (a 3-2 shootout loss last Thursday). I thought we wasted his effort here tonight. In saying that, it's a real bright spot for us that he's playing the way he is. We've got to put a real effort in front of him when he's giving us an effort like that, and you're going to get yourself a win."
Faksa gave the Stars a 1-0 lead at 18:58 of the first period when he deflected Taylor Fedun's shot past Nilsson from the slot. It was Faksa's second goal of the season.

The Stars outshot the Senators 17-10 in the first period. Their 43 shots on goal were a season-high.
"You've got to give them credit," Smith said. "They outplayed us here tonight. We didn't have as much jump as I would have liked. We wasted an outstanding goalie performance."
Pavelski scored a power-play goal on a rebound to make it 2-0 at 10:44 of the second period after Nilsson made saves against Tyler Seguin from the right circle and Jamie Benn's rebound attempt. It was Pavelski's second goal of the season and first in Dallas.
"Yeah, it felt good," Pavelski said. "It's been a little tough that way, but just focus on the process and you're going to get your chances. There's been a few that have been close and to see that one squeak in there was nice."
The Stars went 1-for-5 on the power play. They have scored with the man-advantage in back-to-back games but are 3-for-32 this season; the Senators were 0-for-2 and are 1-for-25.

They said it

"It's not the way we wanted to play or should play. We can't be happy with 40-plus shots when we put up 20 on their goal. It's tough to win the game that way. We just need to bear down, work hard and throw more pucks at the net. Sometimes it takes a bounce, or you get a rebound for a second or third chance." -- Senators goalie Anders Nilsson
"It was definitely one of the better starts we've had in this building; it was the best one of the year so far out of the few games that we've been here. The encouraging part was that in the second, it took us a little bit to get going, but we never really fell back into our old habits. There was good commitment from the group to play these guys down low, and we generated a lot of our chances off of it." -- Stars forward Joe Pavelski

Need to know

Nilsson has saved 93 saves of 97 shots in his past two starts. … The Senators have committed 10 penalties in the past two games. … Benn has an assist in three straight games. … Stars goalie Ben Bishop served as Khudobin's backup. He missed the morning skate after his home sustained damage from a tornado on Sunday.

What's next

Senators: Host the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday (7:30 p.m. ET; SN360, SN1, RDS2, FS-D+, NHL.TV)
Stars: Host the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday (8:30 p.m. ET; FS-SW, PRIME, NHL.TV)