Home cooking: Stars get offense rolling, top Senators

After struggling to score and get shots on net in their previous two games, the Dallas Stars got plenty of shots and goals Friday night in defeating the Ottawa Senators, 6-4, at American Airlines Center.
The Stars, who had scored just two goals on 36 shots in losses to the New York Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins, scored their six goals Friday on a season-high 54 shots on goal. Twenty of those shots came from the Dallas defense, which scored four goals.
"Our D did a really good job of getting their shots through," said Stars forward Devin Shore. "That creates rebounds and traffic which can create difficulties for the other team."

"We shot a lot of pucks to the net, and there was a lot of traffic," said Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen, who scored two goals on five shots. "Last three games the defensemen haven't had many shots, so they said shoot the puck. We shoot, and there was traffic, so it was good."
Jamie Benn, Taylor Fedun, Blake Comeau, and Gavin Bayreuther also scored goals for the Stars. Shore, Alexander Radulov, and Mattias Janmark each had two assists. Anton Khudobin stopped 29 of 33 shots for his fourth win of the season.

The win snapped a two-game skid for the Stars, who improved to 8-3-1 at home and 12-9-2 overall.
The Senators, who have the worst goals against average in the league, have allowed 19 goals during a three-game losing streak. They fell to 9-11-3 on the season.
"Not necessarily the same mistakes, but they are defensive mistakes," Senators coach Guy Boucher said. "We've been putting a lot of work in to get better defensively but tonight was a game where we didn't get better defensively."
The Senators took a 1-0 lead 3:05 into the game when Bobby Ryan set up Ryan Dzingel, who scored off a one-timer from the left circle. The Stars drew even midway through the first period. Tyler Seguin sent a pass from the right corner to the front of the net, where Benn directed it past Senators goaltender Craig Anderson to tie the game 1-1 at the 10:22 mark.
Khudobin came up a with a nice save on Matt Duchene 2:30 into the second period to keep it a tie game. And after the Stars missed on their second power play of the night, the Senators got their first chance with the man-advantage and cashed in to take a 2-1 lead when Brady Tkachuk scored on the rebound of his own shot at the 10:02 mark.

The Stars pulled even less than three minutes later. Radulov skated into the Ottawa zone and sent a cross-ice pass to Heiskanen, who scored on a wrist shot from just beyond the top of the left circle to tie the game 2-2 at 12:45 of the second.
"Rads made a good play and a good pass to me," Heiskanen said. "I just shoot it, and it went in. That's good."
The Stars took a 3-2 lead late in the second. Just seconds after Khudobin broke up a Senators chance in the Dallas crease, Shore, who was back in the lineup after missing four games due to injury, drove the Ottawa net on the rush and slipped the puck to Fedun, who scored off a backhand shot at the 18:48 mark.
Fedun, who was acquired from Buffalo two weeks ago and called up from the AHL Thursday, scored in the NHL for the first time since 2013.
"I just jumped up and tried to find a hole," said Fedun, whom the Stars acquired from Buffalo earlier this month. "It was a great play by Shore to get it over to me."

"It was a great finish by Fedun," Shore said. "That was really good patience and great job getting the puck upstairs."
The Stars killed off Ottawa's second power play of the game early in the third period and just 16 seconds later extended the lead to 4-2 on a goal by Heiskanen, who scored from the right point at the 4:40 mark.
The Stars pushed the lead to 5-2 less than two minutes later when Comeau tipped in a shot by Esa Lindell at 6:12.
The Senators made it interesting with two goals in a 3:18 span - one from Maxime Lajoie and the other from Zach Smith - to cut the Dallas lead to 5-4 with 6:06 remaining.
But Bayreuther sealed the win with his first NHL goal, scoring into an empty net just after the Senators pulled Anderson for the extra attacker.

Turning point

With the game tied 2-2 late in the second period, Stars goaltender Anton Khudobin made a nice play to sweep the puck away from Senators forward Mark Stone as he tried to push the puck across the crease to a wide-open Brady Tkachuk. The Stars immediately took the puck the other way, and Devin Shore set up Taylor Fedun, who scored on a backhand to put the Stars ahead 3-2 with 1:12 to go in the period.
The Stars rode the momentum from that goal into the third, scoring twice in the first 6:12 to push the lead to 5-2 -- a deficit that proved to big for the Senators to overcome.

Three stars of the game

Miro Heiskanen, Dallas: Stars rookie defenseman scored two goals, recorded five shots on goal, and a game-high 12 shot attempts in 23:04 of ice time.
Devin Shore, Dallas:Stars forward returned after missing four games with a lower-body injury and made an immediate impact, recording two assists.
Taylor Fedun, Dallas: Stars defenseman, called up from AHL on Thursday, scored a big goal in the second period and put five shots on goal in 12:54 of ice time.

They said it

"I think that is the most shots we've gotten through by our defenseman this season and it led to four goals, right? So, Miro (Heiskanen), obviously, that tying goal that made it 2-2; what a great release. To get a shot off on a knuckle puck that was past him without stick handling is not easy to do, and that's why he scores." --Stars coach Jim Montgomery
"I thought the top line got us going. They were on top of pucks, and I thought this was Tyler Seguin's best game since maybe our fourth game of the year. He was moving his feet, winning battles and he was reading on the forecheck. And, obviously, his shot. He was letting it go from everywhere." -- Montgomery
"It all happened pretty fast. I was able to get into Texas and get in a couple of games down there. I think a lot of the X's and O's are pretty similar, so I think that really helped and then a couple conversations with the coaches before the game was enough to get the gist of it and hopefully just go from there."-- Stars defenseman Taylor Fedun on fitting in with Dallas quickly

Medical matters

Forward Devin Shore returned to the lineup Friday after missing the past four games with a lower-body injury. To make room for Shore coming off injured reserve, the Stars placed goaltender Ben Bishop (lower body) on IR retroactive to Nov. 19.
Stars coach Jim Montgomery said Bishop is expected to join the team Sunday night in Denver, and the plan is for the Dallas goalie to start going on the ice Monday. Montgomery also said that center Martin Hanzal (back) would travel with the team on the upcoming four-game road trip.
The rest of the team's injured players -- John Klingberg, Marc Methot, Connor Carrick, and Stephen Johns -- will not travel.

Stat pack

What's next

The Stars play at Colorado on Saturday. This will be the first meeting of the season between the Stars and Avalanche. Saturday's game kicks off a four-game road trip for the Stars, who also play at Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver.

Stars lineup

Jamie Benn - Tyler Seguin - Alexander Radulov
Roope Hintz - Jason Spezza - Devin Shore
Valeri Nichushkin - Radek Faksa - Tyler Pitlick
Mattias Janmark - Jason Dickinson - Blake Comeau
Esa Lindell - Miro Heiskanen
Gavin Bayreuther - Roman Polak
Joel Hanley - Taylor Fedun
Anton Khudobin
Landon Bow
Scratched:Julius Honka, Brett Ritchie, Gemel Smith
Injured: Ben Bishop (lower body), John Klingberg (hand), Marc Methot (lower body), Connor Carrick (foot), Martin Hanzal (back), Stephen Johns (post-traumatic headaches)

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mark Stepneski has covered the Stars for DallasStars.com since 2012. Follow him on Twitter @StarsInsideEdge.