Heika’s Take: Stars flounder against Senators, drop fourth in a row

Well, if the Stars were going to have a stinker, it was probably a good bet it would come in Ottawa.

Dallas lost for the seventh straight time at Canadian Tire Centre, dropping a 4-1 game to the Senators and playing one of their worst games in recent weeks.

“We weren’t competitive enough,” said Stars coach Pete DeBoer. “This is a league where you have to earn your wins and we’ve been pretty good about that all year, but we weren’t in the game tonight right from the drop of the puck.”

The Stars exited the first period at 1-1 after Joe Pavelski scored his 20th goal of the season in the final minute. However, things fell apart after that. Ottawa finished with a 30-15 advantage in shots on goal and had twice as many scoring chances. Dallas was leading the NHL in shots on goal over the past 13 games at 36.5 per game, so the performance was unexpected.

“You can’t get 15 shots and win a game,” said forward Matt Duchene.

While there was a good feeling coming out of the first intermission, the Senators just steamrolled the Stars from there.

“I thought we had a pretty good first and then it was just not good enough after that,” Duchene said. “I thought we were very disjointed, out of sync. I don’t think it was a work ethic thing, I think we just didn’t execute. We didn’t execute on the breakouts, we didn’t execute on the forecheck. We shot when we should have passed, we passed when we should have shot, we were just out of sync. It happens. Over 82 games, you’re going to have games like this. It doesn’t mean you accept it, it means you understand it, you fix it and move forward.”

The defeat gives the Stars their longest losing streak of the season at four games. Two of those losses came past regulation (one in overtime and one in a shootout) and a 3-1 loss to the Rangers came when the Stars dominated play, so DeBoer said he’s not completely worried about a trend. But it was a wake-up call.

“There’s good losses and there’s bad losses, and this was about as bad a loss as we can have,” the coach said. “So we’ve got to respond.”

It was a team effort in defeat. Starting goalie Jake Oettinger was pulled in the second period after allowing three goals on 11 shots.

“It was just to get a response,” DeBoer said. “I thought everybody was flat and was just looking for a spark.”

Backup Scott Wedgewood was solid in making sure the game didn’t get away, but all of the skaters can now look deeply into the mirror after their performances. Dallas will practice in North Carolina on Friday before playing the Hurricanes on Saturday night, so they have plenty to look at and fix.

“It’s one of those you learn from,” Duchene said. “You flush it and you move forward. The nice thing is we have put ourselves in a great position to have these games every now and then and have it not cost anything. But it’s how we react to it now.”

Dallas falls to 32-16-8 (76 points) and is getting pressure from Colorado (35-18-5, 75 points) and Winnipeg (34-15-5, 73 points) in the Central Division. They play both teams next week, so the key is getting back into a groove and playing more consistent hockey.

“This room had all the feel of we were going to play a really good game,” Pavelski said. “But we went out there and it got worse as it went on. So, we’ve got to figure it out. We’ve lost some tight ones here, and you don’t want to let it go too long.”

One of the huge indicators of the Stars’ performance was their lack of success in the dots. Dallas ranks fourth in the league in faceoff winning percentage (53.7 percent), but won just 21 of 54 on Thursday.

“I think that’s a great indicator of our compete level,” DeBoer said. “What did we end up at, 30-something percent? That’s a good indicator of where our compete was.”

So is that an area that gets talked about before Saturday’s game?

“Honestly, there’s nothing that really needs to be said,” according to Duchene. “We’re a veteran team, we’re one of the top teams in the league and we know what makes us good. We just didn’t have it tonight.”

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.