In Dallas, five different skaters scored for the Stars on Monday as they took a 5-0 lead over the visiting Nashville Predators.
A late goal from the Preds ruined a shutout bid for Scott Wedgewood, who made 26 saves in the win.
“We got off to a great start, so everyone kind of assumed we were going to be a playoff team,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “If you rewind to the beginning of the season, a lot of people were picking us as a bubble team. The guys put in a lot of work, and it’s an accomplishment in this league to punch your ticket for one of those 16 playoff spots. It was a lot of work. I’m glad we’re in, and that gives you a chance now.”
Jason Robertson had a goal and four points in the win to pass 100 on the season.
“We want that first seed, but you have to clinch first,” Robertson said. “You’ve got to get that X on your name, then you can move forward. We kind of have the opportunity to really try to move up the standings in these next couple of games. Playoff hockey is coming back to Dallas, so that’s big, and [hitting 100 points is] a special milestone.”
The win pushed Dallas into a tie with the Minnesota Wild for first in the Central Division, the Wild lost to the Vegas Golden Knights, 4-3, on penalties on Monday.
Cal Foote was the lone striker for the Predators, he scored with less than five minutes left in the game to spoil the shutout.
“I thought we had a good effort,” Nashville coach John Hynes said. “I thought we had some opportunities early in the game to score and we didn’t. Obviously, I thought the third goal was a little bit of a killer for us. Overall, I didn’t think it was an effort thing. I just thought special teams played a big part of it, and we didn’t score on our opportunities earlier in the game that I thought would have kept it a little bit tighter and maybe gave us a little bit more momentum.”
Roope Hintz scored in the opening stanza to give Dallas a 1-0 lead.
Colin Miller extended the advantage to two goals at 12:31 of the middle frame.
Nashville dropped to 38-30-8.
“They’re a fast team, they’re great off the rush,” Foote said. “They have a lot of talented guys that are really speedy. I don’t hate our start, I think our first was pretty good even though we were down 1-0. … But I thought we had a decent start, and throughout the game they just kept coming at us. We’ve got to find a way to bog down the neutral zone and get out of our zone quicker and spend more time in the [offensive] zone.”
Four minutes later, Joe Pavelski made it 3-0.
Nashville failed to close the five-point gap between themselves and the Winnipeg Jets for the second wild card in the Western Conference.
“We’re normally in a lot of tight games, and I think when you’re taking 4-5 penalties a game, it’s too many,” Hynes said. “It’s much too taxing on the penalty killers. We’re down some penalty killers that are out of our lineup, so we have other guys coming in. It’s something we’ve got to clean up for sure going into tomorrow (against the Vegas Golden Knights).”
Robertson scored his goal in the third period to push the lead to 4-0 for Dallas.
“It’s big for the guys to get out to the lead,” Wedgewood said. “[Heck] of a third period by us. I think they had maybe one shot until they scored, and there were a couple after that with the penalty. Got a little bored back there. It’s a testament to how good this team is. No one’s looking for points or anything like that, regardless of guys getting them. It was no odd-man rushes, no breakdowns, it was a smart hockey game.”
Tyler Seguin made it 5-0 to Dallas at 14:23.
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Juuse Saros made 21 saves in the Nashville loss.
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