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First Regulation Win This Season As Stars Blowout Flyers 5-2

Posted on by Ann Atkinson

The Dallas Stars continued their home stand tonight against the Philadelphia Flyers, fresh off a come-from-behind win against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night.

With the Stars still seeking their first regulation win, the team had a players only meeting after the 4-2 loss to the Nashville Predators. Media was not privy to the outcome of the meeting, but their play in the early part of this season has to have been the topic of conversation.

Whatever was said, the Stars had a lousy first period, despite going up 1-0, before coming out roaring in the second period to dominate the next forty minutes.

First Period

The Stars gave the Flyers an early power play opportunity for a face off violation, which isn’t a penalty seen too often. This happens if the same team gets thrown out twice on the same draw. Joe Pavelski, second into the circle, was visibly upset with referees as he argued the call. Alexander Radulov served the penalty. The team had a solid penalty kill, and what got through the defense was easily handled by Anton Khudobin.

The penalty kill was followed by two breakaway attempts by the Stars but Martin Jones kept them out of the net.

Luke Glendening got his fourth of the year as he tipped in a slapshot from John Klingberg.

Pavelski went to the penalty box for high sticking against Justin Braun, giving the Flyers their second power play of the night. The Stars also killed this penalty, but it was a much harder battle that involved Ryan Suter saving on an empty net.

The Flyers very nearly made the score 1-1 before the end of the first, but the referees called no goal on the ice. After review, the NHL agreed.

Even though the Stars ended the first up a goal, the first period woes seemed to continue. They managed only 7 shots to the Flyers’ 19, and only a little of that can be attributed to trying to turtle after the goal, since that happened so late in the first.

Shots: Stars 7, Flyers 19
Goals: Stars 1, Flyers 0

Second Period

Tyler Seguin opened the second period with a tripping penalty against Scott Laughton, but Sean Couturier followed this up thirty seconds later with a tripping penalty of his own against Esa Lindell, completely negating the man advantage.

Jamie Benn rang a shot off the goalpost, the Dallas Stars’ true nemesis, but couldn’t otherwise take advantage of any power play time on this penalty.

Back at 5-on-5, the Flyers turned the puck over in their zone. Jason Robertson dangled around the defense and passed the puck to Denis Gurianov in front of the net, who passed across the goal to Roope Hintz, who buried it behind Jones.

Four minutes later, on a scramble in front of the Stars goal, Glendening tried to pass the puck back to Khudobin so he could freeze it, but instead knocked the puck into the Stars goal with his hand. The goal was attributed to James van Riemsdyk as he was the last Flyer to touch it.

Thirty seconds later, on literally the next shift, Tyler Seguin scored his fifth of the season to stop the Flyers’ momentum in its tracks, although this goal was entirely Jacob Peterson’s.

Kevin Hayes took a penalty for cross checking against Michael Raffl, but though the Stars had some good chances, they were unable to convert anything.

Whatever was said in the locker room after the first period seemed to work. Despite the early penalty, the Stars came out swinging in the second. They weren’t quite able to catch up to the Flyers in shots on goal, but they kept their opponent to only five shots on goal in the second, and didn’t let up the pressure even as they pulled further ahead.

Shots: Stars 17, Flyers 24
Goals: Stars 3, Flyers 1

Third Period

The Flyers took the early penalty this time, Joel Farabee went to the box for interference against Hintz by trying to set a pick, which you can’t do in hockey. He ended up throwing his shoulder into Hintz’s face, which Hintz took exception to. Hintz got away with swinging his stick into Farabee’s shinpads on his way to the box.

On the ensuing power play, Hintz got the best revenge for the headshot with a major assist on Pavelski’s goal. Hintz took the initial shot, it was blocked by Jones, he followed up on his own rebound and passed to Pavelski, who was streaming in. Pavelski found the net as Jones cheated toward Hintz.

This gave the Stars their first three goal lead of the season. This is also the first time since February 2020, just before the covid pause, that the Stars have scored a power play goal in six consecutive games.

As is tradition, a 4-1 lead is one of the most dangerous in hockey, and Radulov helped prove the rule by giving the Flyers a power play opportunity early in the third. Provorov scored on the penalty, his first of the year.

The scoring pretty much ended here but the Stars maintained pressure, which is why they won the game. The defense was fine, the goaltending was great (especially in the first) but the good part about the second and third periods is that neither had to be anything special, because the Stars kept trying to score instead of turtling up and protecting their lead.

With the Flyers goalie pulled in the dying minutes of the game, Radek Faksa scored an empty netter to really bury the victory.

Shots: Stars 31, Flyers 33
Goals: Stars 5, Flyers 2

The Stars finish their homestand on Tuesday night against the Detroit Red Wings. Puck drop will be at 7:30 pm CST.

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