Burnside: Five takeaways from Stars' 5-2 loss to Sharks

SAN JOSE, Calif. --The Dallas Stars began their three-game California road trip in grisly fashion Sunday, getting dumped 5-2 by the San Jose Sharks.
Here are some mutterings on a feeding frenzy at the "Shark Tank," where the Stars were the appetizer, main course and dessert.

1. That's no way to start a game

The Sharks scored on their first, third, fourth and fifth shots of this hockey game. In fact, pretty much all you need to know about this game is contained in this sentence (but you might as well read to the end anyway).
For a team that has been so good on the road -- the Stars were 5-0-1 in their last six road games and had not given up more than two goals in any of those contests -- Dallas bore little resemblance to the team that took the ice in any of those previous six road games.
Before the game, Stars head coach Ken Hitchcock had talked about how the team had actually been playing better on the road -- that they were tighter, more dialed in.
Guess the line went dead for this one because from the opening shift, when the team's big line of Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin and Alexander Radulov couldn't regain possession after turning the puck over on the rush in the opening sequence, the Stars were as loose as we've seen them play in a long time.
"Yeah, kind of blinked and it was 3-0 there," Seguin said after. "Blinked on my first shift and I gave (Sharks captain Joe) Pavelski a pretty sweet pass there to start the game. Not the way you want to start a road trip.
"Hopefully, we can take some positives from the third period, and playing a better style -- more of our style -- and bring it against two great teams coming up here the rest of this trip."
Seguin was referring to the final two games of this trip in Anaheim on Wednesday and Los Angeles on Thursday.
Certainly, the plan will include something other than was on display Sunday night.

2. Trends or blips on the radar?

The challenge in assessing either wildly exemplary or wildly disappointing play is that the tendency -- the natural reaction, perhaps -- is to attach far too much significance to either. And that's fair.
Big picture, the Stars will still wake up Monday morning in third place in the Central Division. So, there's that. But this marks the second time in three games that the Stars have been humbled going back to last Sunday's 6-0 thrashing at the hands of the Canucks in Dallas. And for the eighth time in the last 10 games, the Stars have allowed the first goal of the game.
The Stars have developed a kind of maturity that allows for those kinds of things to happen periodically and still rebound -- they've won 10 times this season when giving up the first goal -- but it's physically and mentally taxing to perpetually chase games.
Case in point was Friday's win over St. Louis. Even though the Stars managed a season-low 16 shots on goal, they built a 2-0 lead by the midpoint of the third period and were able to hang on in spite of a late-third-period, double-minor penalty assessed to John Klingberg.
But it's clear there is some real level of concern about how the Stars are trending from both the player side of the equation and the coaching staff.
"I don't know what to say. When you don't check and you don't want to check against a good team who's ready to play, you get buried," Hitchcock said during a brief postgame media session. "You look at the last three games, we've given up so many scoring chances because we don't want to check. And when we get back to that, we'll be a good team.
"It was the same against Vancouver and the chances were 20-10 against St. Louis for St. Louis, and tonight, the game was over in the first period."
Defenseman Dan Hamhuis was perfectly blunt in his assessment.
"I don't think that we were ready for the game," he said. "We had some good stretches, I suppose, through the first period, and they seemed to score on every chance. They got some good breaks, but all in all, our determination level wasn't high enough."

3. Solutions, anyone?

We have said this throughout the season, but it bears repeating given the aforementioned concerns -- and that is to win the way Hitchcock wants this team to play is hard. It's hard work checking for chances (a favorite Hitchcock term), but when the Stars play that way, they are a very big handful for opposing teams.
Right now they are not that team -- and they are more hanging on as opposed to a handful.
"We have to get back to that. That's on us. It's on me," Hitchcock said. "Right now, I'm having a difficult time getting them to dig in in that avenue and I've got to figure out a different way to do it. So we'll sort it out over the next 48 hours and see if we can come up with a different plan.
"But it's pretty simple: If you check and you compete at the puck, where the puck is, good things happen and we've proven that. But boy, we've gotten away from it the last three games."
So, where to start? Well, Seguin figures a good place is to start with himself and the rest of the leadership group. He's not wrong. Especially over the past three games, the team's offensive leaders -- the emotional core of the team -- have struggled to reverse the tide when things start to go a bit sideways.
Benn's pass to Stephen Johns on the winner against St. Louis on Friday was an example of that kind of moment of stepping up, but was more exception than rule over this small sample of play.
"I think there needs to be a look in the mirror from our leaders," Seguin said. "When these games are 1-0, 2-0 even 3-0 -- you know even if it's some bad breaks or some bad bounces against us tonight -- that's an opportunity for our leaders to really step up and grab it, and we didn't do that against Vancouver, we didn't do that tonight. So I think that's going to be a discussion by us and it starts with how I started the night.
"Obviously, (I) didn't intentionally give it to Pavelski, but it just can't happen."
As for specific changes, Seguin feels the team isn't generating the kinds of quality chances they were when they were really cooking offensively.
"Shots is a big thing for us," Seguin said. "We're a team that puts up a lot of shots. We can get 15 to 20 in a period, no problem. But as of late, we've been playing a little more hesitant. We haven't had our third guy enough over top of their guy in their end. We haven't been winning enough puck battles, and you saw tonight, not one power play. So I think that's on the forwards to get our feet moving a little bit more, competing a little harder and winning more board battles because, right now, the other teams aren't getting penalties against you. Obviously, you're not winning enough or having the puck enough.
"It's something we've got to look at. It's something we've got to change."

4. Feast-or-famine time for Bishop

Had to feel a bit for starter Ben Bishop, whose night involved facing just five shots in total -- four of which found their way behind him in just 17:23 of playing time.
The first beat him through traffic on the first shift. The second came on a tough carom off the end boards, and the third one went off Radulov's stick after the winger had a chance to intercept a pass in the defensive zone and, finally, a shot as a San Jose power play expired that may have glanced off Seguin's stick.
"Obviously, you never want to give up a goal in the first minute of any period, much less the first shift of the game," Bishop said. "You get behind the eight ball pretty quickly. Some tough bounces there off the end wall, and then Rads knocks one in and then one that goes of Seggys stick and in. So it's just one of those nights.
"There wasn't much going my way, at least."
It was a strange week for Bishop, who had worked to bring his game into elite status over the past couple of months. He was pulled in the Vancouver game after allowing four goals on 20 shots in 24:38 of playing time, and then was huge in Friday's win over St. Louis.
Still, there was a kind of Zen-ness about Bishop, which comes from having seen lots of different nights during the course of his career.
"You go back and you look at the goals, it's a long year," he said. "Some nights, you're going to have where guys miss empty nets and hit posts, and guys who make saves in front of you. And then, there are nights like tonight where it doesn't go your way.
"The law of averages -- sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn't."
And then, perhaps finding some gallows humor in the way things went, Bishop added: "Tonight, when they score first, and then second, third, fourth, and fifth -- it's hard to come back."
True that.

5. Bright spots and other things

Let's end on a bright note, shall we?
Thought Mattias Janmark, who had a handful of terrific chances, was the best Dallas player on the ice. Playing with Devin Shore and Jason Spezza, the trio created the bulk of the team's scoring chances -- even if they didn't manage to find a way to beat Martin Jones, who was very good, stopping 26 of 28 shots.
With Gemel Smith back in the lineup because Martin Hanzal was unable to go because of soreness after the St. Louis game, Smith was effective and scored the first of two third-period goals for the Stars off a nice feed from Brett Ritchie. That's two games in a row where Smith has been a positive force.
And finally, once again, Kari Lehtonen, who was called on to relieve Bishop before the end of the first period, came up with a handful of timely saves in a lost cause, ultimately stopping 22 of 23 shots.
This story was not subject to approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Scott Burnside is a senior digital correspondent for DallasStars.com. You can follow him on Twitter @OvertimeScottB, and listen to his podcast.