Heika's Take: Stars 'had nothing going' in disappointing loss to Capitals

The Stars had a lot of stuff going on Friday night - a ceremony to retire the No. 56 of Sergei Zubov, the first game goalie Braden Holtby played against his old team, and a disallowed goal in the first minute of the game.
But after a 5-0 loss at the hands of the Washington Capitals at American Airlines Center, they weren't interested in any explanations.

"We had nothing going tonight, nothing," Stars coach Rick Bowness said. "We played a very experienced, hungry hockey club that had lost two in a row. They came in and took control of the game and didn't let up. We just had nothing going tonight."

Dallas falls to 22-17-2 while Washington jumps to 24-12-9.
It was a rough outing for a Stars team that's been uneven of late. Yes, Dallas won four straight on the road, but three of the games were chaotic and this now makes two disappointing home games. Dallas lost to Montreal 5-3 before heading on the road, and this defeat drops them to 14-5-1 at American Airlines Center.
"We got exposed today," defenseman John Klingberg said. "Mistakes got costly. They're a really good hockey team over there, so they punished us."

The game started at 8 p.m. because of a
ceremony to honor Zubov
. The players sat on the bench and watched and then went through warmups to get ready for the game. That could've been a challenge, but Dallas scored a goal less than a minute into the contest. It was another great shift from the line of Joe Pavelski, Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson, but Robertson was offside to start the shift, and Washington challenged the goal.
Replay officials disallowed the goal, and it was all Washington after that.
Hintz took a penalty at the 1:19 mark and the Capitals scored a power-play goal 10 seconds later when Tom Wilson was able to slip a puck past former teammate Holtby on the play.
Miro Heiskanen was whistled for holding at 7:21 of the first, and Washington again converted 30 seconds in. That made it 2-0, and the Capitals ran that to 3-0 before the end of the first period.
It was a bad feeling for an arena that had such high expectations.
Holtby was facing his old team and was pulled after allowing five goals on 27 shots in two periods. Klingberg was minus-3 while returning from an upper-body injury and playing 18:57, and Radek Faksa was minus-1 and played just 12:49 while returning from a non-Covid related illness.
So, a lot going on there.

"Listen, when the whole team was bad in front of him, we aren't going to point our fingers at anybody," Bowness said when asked about Holtby's disappointing night. "The whole team was bad. Goalie, defense, forwards. The whole team. We aren't pointing fingers at anybody."
Klingberg was asked about his uneven play. "Body feels good," he said. "It's fun being back, but bad game, obviously another dash three, so I'm not happy with that."
Klingberg said he couldn't even blame the distractions. He said the team was fired up for Zubov, and they simply played poorly.
"It's hockey," he said. "We were really excited about what was going on before the game, so no excuses there."
So now what? Well, they wash it out and try to learn from it. The Stars play host to Boston on Sunday and Calgary on Tuesday before shutting down for the All-Star break. Because of that, they need to find some solutions.
"We're well aware we've lost two home games in a row, and we're well aware we're going to have to put a much better effort on the ice Sunday night," Bowness said. "We're going to count on pride to do that."
Don't miss your chance to see the Stars continue their homestand Sunday against the Boston Bruins at 6 p.m. Get your tickets now!
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heikais a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.