DeSmith makes 36 saves, Stars hold off Utah Hockey Club

SALT LAKE CITY -- Casey DeSmith made 36 saves for the Dallas Stars, who held on to defeat the Utah Hockey Club 2-1 at Delta Center on Monday.

It was DeSmith's first win since Oct. 24.

“My [defensemen] were great boxing out, there were very few shots that I didn't have a clear look at," DeSmith said. "It's easy to feel good when you're seeing it, so great job by all my [defensemen] boxing out, getting on top of sticks, all that good stuff.”

Evgenii Dadonov and Jamie Benn scored in the second period for the Stars (16-8-0), who have won three in a row, including 3-1 against the Winnipeg Jets on Sunday.

“You could see we ran out of some gas in the second half of that game, but we found a way,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “[We] built a lead up, defended well around our net, and Casey was our best player, which is what we needed today.

“In the conference, in the division for us, we're in a battle with a lot of teams. You circle this one on the calendar because it's three [games] in four [days] and back-to-back. You're usually not getting points in a game like this, so this was a gutsy effort by our group.”

Nick Schmaltz scored, and Karel Vejmelka made 19 saves for Utah (10-11-4), which had its three-game point streak end (2-0-1).

“Dallas is, by any metrics you can find, a really tough team to get anything sustained against in terms of O-zone time,” Utah coach Andre Tourigny said. “Today we had a lot of sustained offense, a lot of shots from the slot, a lot of passes to the slot, and a lot of opportunities to break the game down. Unfortunately, we didn't finish.”

Dadonov gave the Stars a 1-0 lead at 7:07 of the second period, beating Vejmelka short side under his blocker from the bottom of the right circle for a power-play goal.

“I just try and do my job,” Dadonov said. “Obviously, it's hard to play back-to-back, especially [after a] pretty tough game yesterday.”

Benn extended the lead to 2-0 at 19:17, taking a pass from Sam Steel and shooting blocker side from the right face-off dot.

“It wasn't pretty, but [we] found a way,” Benn said. “I thought [DeSmith] was unbelievable from start to finish. What a game he had, and we definitely don't win that without him.”

Schmaltz cut it to 2-1 at 6:57 of the third period, beating DeSmith glove side from the edge of the left circle after the Stars turned the puck over along the boards.

“I thought we were all over them,” Schmaltz said. “I think they were kind of just hanging on, chipping pucks out, and we were kind of controlling the play for the most part. That goal late in the second kind of hurt us, getting a two-goal lead, but [we] fought back in the third.”

NOTES: Utah defenseman Mikhail Sergachev played in his 500th NHL game. ... Schmaltz has three goals in his past two games after not scoring in the first 23 games this season.