Five games into the season and the Dallas Stars have yet to win or lose by more than a single point (until tonight). Could all of the teams they’re facing be that evenly matched? Why no, they’ve already faced the Anaheim Ducks this season. The Stars clearly have some kinks in their system that they’re still working out, and that was no less obvious than in the first period tonight.
1st Period
The first part of the first looked pretty even, for the most part. Up until the last three minutes of the period, the shots on goal were evenly matched. Mason Marchment and Drew O’Connor took matching minor penalties and Wyatt Johnston alone gave up two additional power plays before the end of the period.
Disaster started after the first penalty kill but before the second, which happened around when Bryan Rust scored his 5th of the early season.
The Penguins had the last seven shots on goal in the period, all within the last three and a half minutes, and only 7 seconds of that was power play time. Expected goals to end the first, which is a measure of the likelihood of a shot being converted to a goal, was deeply in favor of the Penguins, at 1.7 vs the Stars 0.5.
Shots: Stars 9, Penguins 18
Goals: Stars 0, Penguins 1
2nd Period
The Stars killed off the remaining penalty time in the beginning of the second, and got their own chance when Jake Guentzel took an interference penalty again Wyatt Johnston.
Stars coach Pete DeBoer put the lines from the first period in a blender, and the Stars outshot the Penguins 10-8 after that change was made. Also outscored them 2-0, which we’ll get to.
Just over seven minutes into the second, Roope Hintz finds Jason Robertson in front of the goal. Alex Nedeljkovic blocked Robertson’s first attempt, but was no match for Robertson’s second attempt after picking up his own rebound.
There was a scary moment midway through the period when John Ludvig, in his NHL debut, laid an open ice hit on Radek Faksa and ended up knocking himself out on Faksa’s helmet. He was down on the ice for a while and then had to be helped down the tunnel for concussion protocols.
Tyler Seguin and brand new Star Matt Duchene connected in front of the net for Evgenii Dadanov to finish the goal.
Almost like the first period didn’t even exist.
Shots: Stars 20, Penguins 30
Goals: Stars 2, Penguins 1
3rd Period
It cannot be stressed enough that the Penguins absolutely collapsed in the third. They didn’t register a shot on goal until almost halfway through the period, and the Stars scored one of their two goals in that time fram.e
First though, Kris Letang had a high hit on Mason Marchment against the boards. Letang ended up in the penalty box, but the Stars were not able to convert the man advantage. They had shots on goal, but didn’t have the net front presence needed to get anything past Nedeljkovic.
Sidney Crosby turned the puck over in the neutral zone, Nedeljkovic came far out of his crease to challenge Jason Robertson streaking in with the puck. Makes sense, since Robertson had almost scored twice about a minute prior, but he was so far out of his crease that when Thomas Harley got the puck in front of the net from Joe Pavelski along the boards, there was no one in net to keep Harley from scoring.
Then, as if to make up for the penalty trouble of the first period, Johnston puts the puck off the bar, Nedeljkovic gets spun around, and ends up hitting puck in the net himself.
Unfortunately for the Penguins, own goals still count.
Shots: Stars 35, Penguins 39
Goals: Stars 4, Penguin 1
TL;DR
The Stars won!
After a rough first period, they got their groove back in the second, and Jason Robertson scored his first of the season.
The Penguins suffered a third period collapse.
First Stars win in Pittsburgh since 2015.