The Dallas Stars got out the late this season, but came out fast. After early success the club has fallen on hard times. On Monday night, Dallas lost to the Panthers in Sunrise, 3-1, and dropped top 5-4-4.
Florida made it difficult for the Stars by taking 52 shots on goal including 29 in the middle frame. That was a franchise record.
“It was fun to watch,” Panthers head coach Joel Quenneville said. “Guys really had a lot of energy, had great speed. That was one of those periods that you’ll always remember.”
Blake Comeau scored the lone goal for Dallas.
“Every game is different,” Florida’s Aleksander Barkov said. “Obviously, we don’t want to go back and think about what happened before. For example, [the] Detroit [Red Wings], we beat them 7-2 (on Friday) and then the next game we lost 2-1. That can’t happen again. We’re going to be a lot more ready than we were against Detroit. Dallas is a great team. If you give them chances, they’re going to capitalize. We’ve just got to keep doing what we did this whole game and do it again in the next game.”
Aaron Ekblad and Keith Yandle were the Panthers’ strikers in the second period.
Barkov added an empty-net goal to ice the win.
“We’re a resilient team this year,” Florida’s MacKenzie Weegar said. “A lot of competitors in the room. It’s fun. We’re bouncing back well, and that’s what we need to do to be a really good team in this league.”
Dallas had only four shots on goal in the second period.
“We just fell apart,” the Stars’ John Klingberg said. “It’s sports, it happens, but it’s not acceptable the way it happened. Just shift after shift we just cracked everywhere. We’re not in the right spots and we turned the puck over in the wrong places all the time. We get long shifts out there, so we have to ice it or chip it out and we have to stay out even longer, so it’s a bad circle.”
Anton Khudobin made 49 save to stifle the Stars in the loss.
“That’s his best performance,” Dallas head coach Rick Bowness said. “We wasted a great goaltending performance. I feel bad for Anton. That’s the best game he’s given us all year. That’s probably an 8-1 game without Anton. Let’s not be fooled by the empty-netter, 2-1. We won’t be fooled by that. That’s Anton’s best performance by far.”
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