Win Streak Concludes at Six as Preds Fall to Stars

All good things eventually come to an end.
Colton Sissons scored Nashville's lone goal, as the Predators fell to the Dallas Stars, 4-1, on Thursday night at Bridgestone Arena. The result sees Nashville's six-game winning streak conclude, as they finish their two-game set with the Stars and remain in fourth place in the Central Division.
On Tuesday, the Preds were able to find a way to come back and eventually beat the Stars in overtime, but on Thursday, Dallas controlled the play for a majority of the night to hand the Preds their first loss in seven tries.

"I don't think we did enough," Sissons said. "[The Stars] had the competitive edge, and they were a little cleaner with their game. I think especially in the second period, they took over a little bit just from our lack of execution, just turning pucks over left, right and center. It's difficult to play when you're doing that."
"It was a tough, physical game tonight, and credit Dallas, I thought they were the better team for lots of parts of the game," Preds Head Coach John Hynes said. "We weren't at the level that we needed to be at tonight to be able to have success."
Dallas took their first lead of the night fewer than three minutes into the contest, as Esa Lindell beat Juuse Saros in the slot. Late in the opening frame, Sissons tallied his fifth of the season to even the score after 20 minutes of play.

The Stars were the better team in the second stanza, and Jason Robertson gave his team a 2-1 lead before Jamie Benn converted on the power play early in the third period to put Dallas up by two. Nashville's final push was unsuccessful, as the Stars added an empty-netter and finished with a 31-22 advantage in shots on the night.
To see the winning streak conclude is disappointing, but the Preds were still able to appreciate what they were able to accomplish over the last two weeks to get themselves back into a playoff spot in the Central.
However, they know things won't get any easier in the final 18 games, and the team they're currently tied with at 39 points - the Chicago Blackhawks - come to town on Saturday afternoon.

"It's been a fun run, it would have been great if we won out the rest of the 20-odd games or whatever we have left, but in a realistic world, I don't think that's going to happen," Sissons said. "So, we turn the page, learn from some of the lessons that we can watch tomorrow and move forward to Chicago. Another tough divisional game here - they're all divisional - but I'm sure they'll be hungry because we took two from them in their arena [last weekend]."

"There's lots of good things that we've done, and obviously, the No. 1 most important thing is I think we understand what we need to do to be able to win games and be a difficult team to play against," Hynes said. "The lesson out of this game is when we get away from that, we're not as good of a hockey team. It's understanding, which we do, what does it take for us to be able to have success? You've got to take a couple things out of this game, but there's a big game coming on Saturday... but I think the most important thing is just really take the lesson from it, make a couple points with the group tomorrow and make sure that we're mentally and physically ready to play the way that we need to against Chicago on Saturday."

Notes:
Eeli Tolvanen saw his six-game point streak come to an end on Thursday night; he finished with three goals and nine points during the span, and the six-game stretch finished tied for the second-longest point streak by a rookie in franchise history.
Tonight's loss ends Nashville's six-game winning streak. It was their longest since winning a franchise-record 10 games in a row from Feb. 19 to March 8, 2018. Only four teams have had a longer such streak this season: NY Islanders (9), Carolina (8), Colorado (7) and Washington (7).
Tonight marks the first time in the last four meetings between the Preds and Stars that the game ended in regulation. Nashville had won three straight over Dallas in overtime or a shootout.
Nashville's three-game homestand concludes on Saturday afternoon (at 2 p.m. CT) when the Chicago Blackhawks come to town for a single visit at Bridgestone Arena.