Stars take first loss

In Raleigh, the Carolina Hurricanes put on a defensive show and James Reimer needed to make only 10 saves as the Canes defeated the Dallas Stars, 4-1, on Saturday night.

It was the first loss of the season for the Stars.

“The effort, that’s what’s been really special,” Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We’re just digging in, to a man.”

Vincent Trocheck struck twice for the Canes.

“I thought our power play has been real good this whole start to the season,” Trocheck said. “We’re moving the puck really well, getting our looks. It was just a matter of time before they started going in.”

Reimer entered the game with less than three minutes gone in the first period after Petr Mrazek left the game with an upper-body injury.

Joe Pavelski scored the lone Dallas goal.

“They were good, we weren’t,” Pavelski said. “They seemed to be skating. They were kind of on top of us all night. We knew it was going to be a tough game. We’ve got to produce a little bit more. We’ve got to be a little better, a little harder and even the game out a little better.”

The Stars dropped to 4-1-0 on the season.

“I don’t blame [Khudobin],” Stars head coach Rick Bowness said. “It was the five guys in front of him and the four guys on the penalty kill. We just didn’t play very smart and we didn’t play hard enough.”

The Hurricanes had a 4-0 lead before the Stars broke through.

“Finally, we’re finding some chemistry it seems like,” the Canes’ Martin Necas (two assists) said. “We’ve just got to keep building on that. Hopefully we’re going to keep scoring more and more goals.”

Andrei Svechnikov and Ryan Dzingel had the third and fourth goals of the night for Carolina.

“[Trocheck] has been great, and that’s one of the reasons we got the win tonight,” Brind’Amour said. “He was really good. You can’t say enough about it. That center position is so important.”

Anton Khudobin got the start and surrendered all allowed four Canes goals, making 12 saves.  He was given the hook in the second period.

Jake Oettinger, made 10 saves in a mop up role.

“We made a lot of wrong decisions,” Bowness said. “I saw guys wide open and all they had to do was put in on the net. That’s got everything to do with a player making a bad decision.”