The Dallas Stars may have the best record in the NHL but they are nowhere near the hottest team in this league in December. That honor belongs to the Calgary Flames, who extended their winning streak to seven games with a 3-1 win over the Stars at the American Airlines Center on Thursday night.
Although the Stars remain the only NHL team not to lose back-to-back games yet this season, the month of December has been uneven for Lindy Ruff's team. With Thursday's setback, the Stars dropped to 4-2-2 for the month; far from disastrous but also far from the standards the team set in October and November.
Bumps in the road are inevitable for every team during the marathon-like regular season but what has had Ruff vocally unhappy with his team of late is a recent tendency to revert to things that proved costly last season: too many players ending up on the wrong side of the puck and getting outplayed for lengthier segments of games.
Nevertheless, even with the loss, the Stars have an enviable 23-7-2 record and a 12-4-0 mark at home. More than anything else, Ruff and the locker room leadership group want to make sure that complacency does not set in when there are issues that to be corrected.
Dallas got off to a good start on Thursday but Calgary took over late in the opening period and the Stars never recovered on the scoreboard. Johnny Oduya's shorthanded goal stood as the lone tally for Dallas, while Kari Lehtonen may have wished for a second crack a short-side goal en route to stopping 24 of 27 shots. Karri Rà¤mo turned back 35 of 36 shots. Sean Monahan, Dougie Hamilton and Mason Raymond scored for the victorious Flames.
The Stars' play improved after the first-period lull, especially when playing with urgency in the third period as they applied heavy pressure but could not put another puck past Rà¤mo.
Offensively, the Stars are muddling through their first significant power play drought of the season. Over the last 14 games, Dallas has converted just 11.1 percent (5-for-45) of its power plays, including an 0-for-3 showing against the Flames.
As he is far from hesitant about doing either in-game or between games, Ruff changed up his forward line combinations significantly over the course of Thursday's game. Cody Eakin started the game centering Tyler Seguin on the right wing and Jamie Benn on the left. After the first period, Seguin moved back to his preferred center position, with Patrick Sharp moving from second line right wing to the revised top line. In the meantime, after starting the game with Sharp and Valeri Nichushkin as his wingers, Spezza played in the middle of Mattias Janmark and Patrick Eaves as the game progressed. Nichushkin was bumped down to the third line, with Eakin centering the Russian winger along with Patrick Eaves. After starting the game on third line right wing, Ales Hemsky dropped back to the fourth line with Vernon Fiddler and Colton Sceviour.
The lines may very well change again on Saturday. The Stars host the Montreal Canadiens in the start of a pre-Christmas break three-in-four gauntlet.