Playing in their third game in four nights, the start to the Dallas Stars game versus the Winnipeg Jets wasn’t that good. They were sluggish and had difficulties finding their shooting posture.
It would take them roughly half of the first period just to get a shot on goal.
The Jets’ first goal was kind of a feeling of inevitability, as they peppered Jhonas Enroth with shots early. A weird puck bounce off of someone in front of the net on the power play was the one that finally got the Jets on the board.
A big change for the Dallas Stars came in the second frame, however. They held Winnipeg to zero shots on goal for about 14 minutes. They put up eight of their own against Andrew Hutchinson. The Stars were dominating the Jets, skating by them as if they were standing still at times.
Erik Cole finally sniped one to even it up, but that good feeling was short lived. Winnipeg would get the lead back about two minutes later, and the game was pretty much out of reach by that point.
The Stars struggled with puck possession. Too many turnovers and too many passes that didn’t hit tape was crippling in the bid to get some offense working for Dallas.
They struggled with winning the battles within the game. Jason Spezza only had 43% on the faceoff dot tonight. There were missed chances to use the body to keep a play from developing. Stick placement and body positioning all helped add to another frustrating defensive effort.
With the loss, the Stars now look up at the Minnesota Wild and Winnipeg Jets in the standings needing to make up ground on each, with no games left against either. They’ve struggled to find consistent offense outside of Jamie Benn, and the depth scoring has been nearly non-existent since Tyler Seguin’s knee injury. Excluding the weirdness of the Detroit Red Wings game, the Stars have scored 1, 4 (Jamie Benn hat trick night), 2, 2, 2 in five of their last six games. They’ve allowed a combined 20 goals against in those same games.
A -9 differential in the goal scoring department is not the recipe for success if the Stars want to make the playoffs. And their margin of error has declined immensely during this stretch of losses.