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Stars Flop, Lose 5-0 to Washington Capitals

On Sergei Zubov night! Jamie Benn sacrificed teeth for this!

After a successful road trip where they pulled 8 of 8 possible points, the Dallas Stars are back home tonight for the first game of a six-game homestand. Their opponents: the Washington Capitals, who at the start of the night were holding on to their wild card spot with the skin of their teeth.

Though the Capitals are a strong team and had a great start to the season, they’ve gone 2-6-2 in 2022 and the Stars are straight off a four-game winning streak on the road. Things were definitely looking up for the Stars.

The operative word here being “were.”

With commercial breaks, two intermissions, and 60 minutes of gameplay, the time commitment to watch a Stars game broadcast is roughly three hours. Here are other things that one could do with three hours rather than watch the Stars get absolutely murdered on the ice:

Watch most of Titanic (you’d miss about 14 minutes, just fast forward through some Billy Zane chewing on the scenery)

Assemble something purchased at Ikea

Drive to Oklahoma City (from Dallas)

Cook a tiered wedding cake (probably, the internet is unclear on this)

Run an incredibly fast marathon or a glacial paced 10k

The point being: on SERGEI ZUBOV NIGHT?

First Period

Joe Pavelski scored 42 seconds into the game, immediately after which the Washington challenged for offsides. It was determined by goal review that Jason Robertson was indeed offsides and did not have control of the puck when crossing the line. The goal was waved off. It was the only goal the Stars scored.

Roope Hintz took the first penalty of the game, a tripping call against Evgeny Kuznetsov. Tom Wilson scored on the power play, completely stealing all of the Stars mojo.

Miro Heiskanen took the next penalty, for holding Connor McMichael. John Carlson scored on that power play. Of note: the Capitals power play is currently sitting at 30th in the league. There are 31 teams in the league.

Trevor Van Riemsdyk scored his first of the season at 5 on 5.

Carl Hagelin took the Capitals’ first penalty of the night when he tripped Pavelski.

The Stars got six shots on goal during the power play but were unable to solve the riddle of placing their shots in the areas around Vitek Vanecek and not straight into the logo on his chest.

Shots: Stars 14, Capitals 20
Goals: Stars 0, Capitals 3

Second Period

Carlson smacked Jamie Benn in the mouth with his stick, costing Jamie at least one and maybe several teeth in the process, also a bit of blood. The Stars took the ensuing four-minute power play and managed a single shot on goal before allowing several shorthanded breakaway opportunities to the Capitals. Needless to say, the Stars did not score.

But Connor McMichael did, about four minutes later.

Another four minutes after that, Nicklas Backstrom scored.

It cannot be stressed enough that the Stars struggled with the puck a lot during this game. A lot of dumping into the zone with little follow up or turning the puck over to the Capitals.

Just the barest hint of effort.

Shots: Stars 22, Capitals 27
Goals: Stars 0, Capitals 5

Third Period

Jake Oettinger was in the net to begin the third. No one scored, no one took a penalty, and there were less than 10 shots on goal between both teams. Instead, here’s what friends on Twitter said they’d rather have been doing for the last three hours:

Shots: Stars 29, Capitals 29
Goals: Stars 0, Capitals 5

The Stars will be back in the American Airlines Center on Sunday night to play the Boston Bruins. Puck drop will be an early 6 pm CST.

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