Dallas Stars With The Effort But Not The Win As They Lose 3-2 Against Colorado

Tonight certainly started off better than Saturday's game versus the Minnesota Wild.

The Dallas Stars came out with a shooting mentality tonight. They managed to outshoot the Colorado Avalanche 18-5 in the second period. It's the most shots they've had in any period yet this season.

They started to regress about mid-way through the first period. But they came out in the second and third period playing more of the game Stars fans saw in the preseason. They were possessing the puck better and had more offensive zone pressure.

Sometimes you come up against a hot goaltender, and that's what the Stars faced tonight. Seymon Varlamov's outstanding play is what allowed the Avalanche to skate away with the win.

The Stars had their chances. Tyler Seguin had seven shots on goal alone. Most of them were quality chances, too, and he was just denied by Varlamov each time. Alex Chiasson had five shots on goal. The chances were there, they just couldn't put enough past the Avalanche goaltender to get the equalizer.

But they're trending in the right direction.

Yes, the power play was ugly still at times. It somehow connected anyway against a team that hadn't allowed any power play goals in the first seven chances against them this season. Dallas at times early on seemed to be on the penalty kill instead of the power play, allowing several quality shorthanded chances. Dan Ellis stood tall to make sure those didn't connect.

The penalty kill killed off every chance against. Dallas was also pretty good at staying out of the box, giving the Avalanche only two chances with the man advantage.

The breakaway chances against were still there, something that happens when the defense gets aggressive when pinching in the offensive zone. The defensive pairing of Alex Goligoski and Sergei Gonchar were the worst on this tonight (again.)

Battles against the boards was better tonight than we've seen in most games previously. The one on one battles were more often won than lost. Chiasson said in the pre-game interview that they needed to battle better, and they did tonight.

They shot the puck. They had quality chances. They were the better team for most of the game. And while it would have been great to pull a point out of an effort like tonight, some nights the luck dragons aren't with you and you don't. It's frustrating, for sure.

But they're trending in the right direction.

A few more observations from tonight...

• Rich Peverley had a great chance from a Seguin pass to get his first goal as a Star.
• Brenden Dillon could use a reset after these last two games. He has had some rough shifts defensively lately. He seemed to settle down in the third period.
• Chiasson's chance to tie it right at the end of the game was so close. So incredibly close.
• The Stars didn't roll four lines tonight -- the fourth line saw less than ten minutes in ice time for the first time since the home opener (when Ryan Garbutt was tossed from the game early on due to a game misconduct.)
• Seguin has points in his last four games and leads the Stars in scoring with six points (2g, 4a).
• The Stars will play against another undefeated team, the San Jose Sharks, on Thursday.