The Dallas Stars dropped to 1-4-0 on the 2015 preseason as they lost a 4-1 decision to the St. Louis Blues at the American Airlines Center on Tuesday evening. Icing something close to their probable opening-night lineup, the Stars played well for roughly the first 30 minutes of the game but then came apart over the latter portion of the game.
The Stars struggled on the power play, going 0-for-5 and generating few chances. They fared poorly on faceoffs, losing 55 percent of the draws. Overall, the team got outskated and outworked after getting off to a decent start.
Stars coach Lindy Ruff, as usual, minced no words in expressing his views on his team's performance. While it was only a preseason game, there were issues that need to be corrected by opening night.
“We didn’t compete hard enough. I thought some guys did. I was looking for this to be a good compete game for us, and it was for about 30 minutes," Ruff told Stars Inside Edge writer Mark Stepneski after the game.
Ruff was particularly peeved with what he saw on the power play; not the lack of goals per se but rather what he viewed as a lackadaisical overall performance that was not conducive to getting properly set up to create scoring chances.
"Our power play has no success unless you get pucks back. We never got any back. They won the puck battles. We threw some pucks away. I thought our power play played pond hockey. That was a frustrating part for me," he told Inside Edge.
The pivotal point of the game came at the 15:30 mark of the second period on a sequence that ended with Vladimir Tarasenko scoring the goal that put St. Louis ahead to stay. On the play, the Stars took exception to a neutral hit on Patrick Sharp by St. Louis defenseman Joel Edmundson. With the Dallas players on the ice, including both defensemen, abandoning their positions to start after Edmundson -- but never actually doing much about it -- play continued and the dangerous Tarasenko slipped behind all defenders to beat Stars goalie Antti Niemi on a breakaway.
Ruff was also unhappy about what he saw from his team on that entire sequence; the loss of focus combined with the lack of follow-through after they started to come to Sharp's defense.
“It looks like we are going to go over and fight somebody, but we don’t do anything. The game turned from that point,… Ruff said to Inside Edge.
Prior to Tarasenko's game-changing goal, the Blues got a game-tying tally from Dmitrij Jaskin at 9:38 of the second period. The goal erased a brief Stars lead the team established on an early second period tally by Mattias Janmark off a nifty feed from Jason Spezza. St. Louis built a 3-1 advantage on a line rush goal by speedy journeyman forward Scottie Upshall barely a minute after the Tarasenko tally. Troy Brouwer extended the lead to three goals early in the third period.
Winning goaltender Brian Elliott stopped 25 of 26 shots for St. Louis. Niemi turned back 24 of 28 in a losing cause.
There were some bright spots for the Stars. Team captain Jamie Benn and fellow forward Ales Hemsky made their first appearances of the preseason, and Benn had a good scoring chance in the opening period. The first period was evenly played. Then penalty kill went 3-for-3. Niemi made some tough saves.
The Stars go on the road for their final two preseason games, heading to Tampa Bay to play the Lightning on Thursday. The exhibition slate closes out on Saturday with an away game against the Chicago Blackhawks.
While preseason records are meaningless and both the pacing and intensity pale in comparison to in-season play, there are nevertheless areas the Stars need to show some urgency in addressing before opening night against the Pittsburgh Penguins next Thursday.
First and foremost, the Stars' biggest problems last season were the squad's spotty commitment to playing two-way hockey and equally inconsistent goaltending. It would be ideal for the Stars to close out the preseason with a pair of strong two-way efforts. Additionally, the Stars would benefit from at least one of Kari Lehtonen (0-2-0, 4.54 GAA, .816 save percentage in two preseason appearances) or Niemi (1-1-0 3.50 GAA, .851 save percentage in his two games) to have a stand-out game in their final tuneup before the season.
Through five preaseason games to date, the Stars have averaged 2.20 goals per game and tallied just a single power play goal, while shooting 9.2 percent. Opponents have averaged 4.00 goals per game, scored four power play goals and shot 15.2 percent.
While these numbers have to be taken with a fistful of salt -- Ruff has looked at a host of different players in camp, there a lot of veterans including the goalies who are mostly just getting their reps and playing minutes to get their legs and timing for opening night, and it usually only in the final few games that teams and their opponents alike send out their "A" lineups -- the Stars' coaching staff had hoped to use last night's game as a transitional one to shift from typical preseason mode to something closer to opening night readiness.
The only genuine takeaway from Tuesday's match is that team has a lot of work to do in every facet of the game to be ready to get off to a quick start once the games start to count for real.