DALLAS – The 2020 Winter Classic was all that and more for 85,630 fans stuffed into the venerated Cotton Bowl.
Ben Bishop made 31 saves as the Dallas Stars needed to rally from a 0-2 deficit in th3e first period to get a 4-2 victory in the annual event.
“If I was out there watching that game or I was watching this on television I would say, ‘That was awesome, man,'” Stars head coach Rick Bowness said. “The whole thing was awesome.”
Matt Duchene and Dante Fabbro capitalized on the Stars’ sloppy early play and connected for the 2-0 lead.
Nashville’s Ryan Ellis was knocked out of the game by an elbow to the head from Dallas’ Corey Perry.
“After Ryan left the game, I thought we did what we needed to do regarding the power play, capitalizing and taking advantage of that,” Predators head coach Peter Laviolette said. “After that, we carried on playing a decent first period. The second period, even though we left it 2-1, they started to create more than we were creating in the offensive zone.”
As a side note, it was the fist game misconduct leveled against a player in the history of the Winter Classic. Perry had a long walk to the dressing room from the ice surface.
In a span of 7:43, from the late second period to the early minutes of the third, the Stars rallied for four goals.
The outburst started with Blake Comeau‘s strike in the middle frame.
“I think it’s the way that the guys buy into the style of play that we have to play,” Comeau said. “Even if we’re down two or three goals I don’t feel like anyone goes off on their own page. We want to play a hard, good defensive game and we feel like we’re going to get our chances. It’s a good job by us lately of just sticking with it.”
With fresh ice, Dallas added goals from Mattias Janmark, Alexander Radulov and Andrej Sekera. 
“That goal (Comeau) was huge for us,” Stars forward Jamie Benn said. “We went into the dressing room with some confidence. The boys were excited to come out in the third and start the period with a power play. We just tried to keep the momentum on our side.”
[WATCH: All Predators vs. Stars highlights | RELATED: Complete 2020 NHL Winter Classic coverage]
Pekka Rinne made 31 saves in the loss.
“The building was great, the fans and the environment,” Laviolette said. “The National Hockey League did an unbelievable job putting on this event and we’re very fortunate to be a part of it. Hockey down in Texas and a couple of southern teams, to fill the building the way we did, it was an incredible day. You want the score to go in a different direction if you’re part of the game, but the game overall, the ice, the atmosphere was excellent.”
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