The Stars were coming off a game in Philadelphia where they lost to the worst team in the league and seemed to lack emotion for much of the performance. So after a day off Friday and a seemingly good morning skate Saturday, there was a pretty simple focus against the Blues.
"We wanted a quick start, because we knew that they were going to be desperate," Spezza said. "We just beat them in St, Louis, so the reality was we were going to see their best game. That was a desperate hockey team and we didn't match their intensity to start the game, and that's why we got behind."
The Blues scored 34 seconds in on a fantastic shot from Vladimir Tarasenko, and that was a shocker, but St. Louis was simply the better team throughout the first period. They were relentless, they were smart, they were organized. Meanwhile, the Stars threw pucks around the neutral zone as if this was a preseason game, earning an astounding 32 giveaways on the stat sheet (the Blues had 12). Benn finished with three giveaways, which is a large number for an NHL game, but if he was being given turnovers in an NBA game, he would have easily had double-digits.
It was the fourth straight poor performance for the captain since returning from an upper-body injury, and it was just one more contributing factor in this 1-3-0 stretch.
"I thought there was no rhyme or reason to some of the decisions we made out there tonight," Montgomery said.