Stars thump Flyers, 5-1

PHILADELPHIA – In a Sunday matinee, the Dallas Stars’ Jake Oettinger made 37 saves in a 5-1 win over the Flyers.

The Stars took a 2-0 lead in the first period, and somehow manged to hold the lead.

“We knew we needed to win tonight,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “We look around the League and you see teams have these losing streaks, roll one into two, two into four or five. We wanted to make sure we didn’t do that. This was an important game for us, an important start to the trip.”

Matej Blumel and Esa Lindell scored in the first period to give the Stars the early two-goal advantage. Contrary to the rest of the NHL this season, Dallas managed to use that to drive them to the win.

“I’m just happy to help to score for the team,” Lindell said. “Nice to produce some in the [offensive] zone too.”

Dallas improved to 9-5-1.

The Flyers’ Travis Konecny cut the lead half early in the middle frame, his goal came with 54 seconds gone in the period.

“I think it’s just those little breakdowns that are beating us right now,” Konecny said. “If you look at the shots right now that we’re generating, and opportunities, it’s way different than when we were winning at the start of the year, and we probably shouldn’t have been. That’s going to come. The [coaching] staff has been positive with us as far as the opportunities we are getting and it’s just a matter of not beating ourselves.”

Philadelphia dropped to 7-6-2.

Joe Pavelski hit for a power play goal near the midway point of the second period for ma 2-3-1 lead to Dallas.

With the early scoring theme in mind, Dallas’ Luke Glendening hit for a shorthanded goal with just 57 seconds gone i the third period.

“The thing that bothers me the most is the shorthanded goal,” Flyers coach John Tortorella said. “What if we score on that power-play goal and it doesn’t go the other way? I think our effort is there. There are a lot of good things going on with the team. … That’s the only way we can stay in these games offensively, is get some goals kicked in by the power play.”

Jason Robertson  struck for a power play goal with nine minutes left in the game for the 5-1 final.

Felix Sandstrom made 26 saves in the Flyers loss.