Stars lose to Lightning

In Tampa, Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves and the Lightning defeated the needy Dallas Stars, 6-2, on Wednesday.

The loss was a blow to the Stars’ efforts to chase down the fourth playoff spot in the Central.

“We’re playing pretty decent defensively,” Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper said. “When you’re playing the same teams over and over again and they are all defensive and have pretty good structure in their defensive games, you’ve got to be on your game in that regard, and it’s probably helped us.”

Dallas is 0-3-2 in their last five.

“I mean, we understand we need to win, and we need help,” Dallas’ Joe Pavelski said. “We have to win our next game and focus from there and see what happens. That’s the biggest thing. We have to have a narrow focus, have to win a game and go from there. We’re not going to get all three at once, so focus on the first one.”

Tyler Seguin and Andrej Sekera scored for the Stars.

“Well, three turnovers led to three of their goals,” Dallas coach Rick Bowness said. “We didn’t give them very much all night. They didn’t need much. It’s as simple as that. They’re a very highly skilled team that can score on the rush, on the forecheck. They don’t need many opportunities to score four goals.”

Tyler Johnson,  Alex Killorn and Brayden Point helped the Bolts to a 3-1 lead in the game.

“You have to be comfortable in [low-scoring, tight-checking] games,” Johnson said. “That’s how you win championships. We were very good at it last year and hopefully we’re learning this year and getting better at it.”

Erik Cernak (three points) also scored for the Lightning.

“That was a team that was hungry and desperate,” Killorn said. “There was a ton of offense out there, but I don’t think we gave up a ton. We were pretty opportunistic.”

Ross Colton and Mikhail Sergachev scored empty-net goals late to seal the win.

“They are on life support for the playoffs … a proud team that came out and pushed in the third,” Cooper said. “They get that goal. … I liked our response after that. Even just the shift after we kind of had it in their end a bit and then we ended up scoring. That was probably a frustrating one to give up for them.”

Jake Oettinger made 14 saves in the loss.

“Our details haven’t been sharp enough,” the Stars’ Jason Dickinson said. “You see we’re giving up goals that are uncharacteristic of us, letting their D-men step into one-timers a lot. They’re getting a lot of shots through, stuff like that. We’re trying hard to do the right things and we’re trying hard to cover up some mistakes, but it’s opening up others.”