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Dallas Stars Daily Links: Stars “Weren’t Good Enough” In Game 3

Posted on by Kathleen Tibbetts

Despite a late surge and two big goals, the Dallas Stars couldn’t take Game 3 to overtime. Their next job is to even up the series with the St. Louis Blues while they still have home ice.

Can the Victory Green gang beat the Blues at their own game? Discipline is the key, says one playoffs vet in Sean Shapiro’s latest post-game roundup:

“I thought we weren’t good enough tonight,” Ben Lovejoy said. “I thought they were the more desperate team. The last 48 hours I’m sure they’ve heard how big and how fast we are, and maybe we’ve heard it too. And we weren’t good enough. I thought they outworked us, they got to tougher areas than we did and they were more disciplined in their play. They kept getting pucks deep, kept working us down low and we had a chance, but I thought they were a better team tonight.”

The Patrick Maroon – Tyler Bozak – Robert Thomas line tied the team in knots with regularity, with Maroon scoring the late goal that killed the Stars’ third-period surge:

“That [third] line, it didn’t matter who we put out against them,” [head coach Jim] Montgomery said. “They seemed to have their way with us. We’ve got to do a better job of taking away time and space. We’ve got to have our second layer there quicker, which means when they move it and we’re able to get pressure on the puck, we’ve got to have someone coming there to win that loose puck battle.”

It has to be a good sign that the team’s leaders are already planning how to even the score:

“When was it, a week and a half ago?” Tyler Seguin said. “It was the same story. We’re going to be excited to respond. We’ll take tomorrow to regroup and come back with a better effort.”

“They’re playing their hearts out too.” John Klingberg said. “I think both of the teams really tried to make a difference out there today, and obviously it was a wild third period, but if we look at ourselves here we showed some character coming back in the game, two, three times, just gonna stay even-keel there. It’s gonna be ups and downs through this whole series.”

There’s more behind the paywall. [The Athletic DFW]

Mark Stepneski has more from the Stars’ postgame presser.

Stars Stuff: Second Round Edition

Here’s one way the Stars have broken out during the playoffs, as posted by Matthew DeFranks.

In other news, the team has signed 25-year-old LHD Emil Djuse, a “late bloomer” from the SHL, to a one-year ELC. Shapiro reports he’ll have a chance to win an NHL spot out of training camp.

Miro Heiskanen is finally getting the national media love, now that he’s officially out of Calder Trophy race.

I’ll just leave this Anton Khudobin moment here.

Hands up, who knew Greg Wyshynski spoke Kazakh?

And here’s Zeke with the big assist.

Around The League(s)

The Stars and Blues were the only game in town – any town – last night, so what’s going on in other news? Let’s check in with former Star Brenden Dillon, who has a pretty sweet gig with the San Jose Sharks right now.

Paul Campbell has applied #fancystats to the Vezina Trophy race.

How do you like this? Toronto Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas is taking recruitment directly to the crowd.

The World Juniors gave hockey fans a long look at some rising draft-eligible players, from the USA’s Cole Caufield to Belarus’ Vladislav Kolyachonok to Latvia’s Arturs Silovs.

Also at THN: Ryan Kennedy takes a look at how new NCAA rules going into effect May 1 will change how college programs compete with each other, and the major juniors.

Finally

They also serve who sit and wait. Enjoy.

Talking Points