Lightning score in third period, hand Stars seventh road loss in row

TAMPA-- The Dallas Stars lost their seventh straight road game, 3-1 to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena on Saturday.

Esa Lindell scored for the Stars (18-15-2), who are 4-12-1 on the road this season and lost 7-1 at the Florida Panthers on Friday. Anton Khudobin made 26 saves in his first start since Nov. 18.
"[Khudobin] was great, he gave us a chance to get a point out of a game," Dallas coach Rick Bowness said. "I mean, we're not going to win anything on the road until we get more than one goal. Anton did his job and made some big saves when he had to."
Ross Colton scored a tiebreaking third-period goal for the Lightning (26-9-5), who have won five of six. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 19 saves.
"It's a good test, especially when a team has given up a few like they did the other night, you knew they were going to push," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "And they did. [We] defended really well and waited for their breaks, and if we did break down, 'Vasy' was there."

Colton gave the Lightning a 2-1 lead with 9:23 left after Nikita Kucherov made an outlet pass to set up a breakaway.
"I usually have a go-to move in a shootout, but in a breakaway I have less time to think about it," Colton said. "I was going to put it over the pad, but I missed my shot and got lucky that it squeaked under his arm."
Alex Killorn scored an empty-net goal to make it 3-1 at 19:19.
Lindell gave the Stars a 1-0 lead at 13:48 of the first period with a shot from inside the blue line.
"I think we played really well in the first period," Lindell said. "This was a step in a better direction. If we compete and play more like this today, we're going to score more goals and we're going to have more chances to win games."
Brayden Point tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal at 19:47 after Kucherov gathered the puck off the boards and passed to him in the low slot. With two assists, Kucherov has nine points (three goals, six assists) in five games since returning from lower-body surgery.
"[Kucherov] can beat you in so many ways," Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. "Whether it's shooting and putting the puck in the back of the net himself or finding the open guy."

Dallas has not won on the road since Nov. 27 (3-2 at the Arizona Coyotes).
"I was proud of the way we played," Bowness said. "We battled back. That last night was ugly, and we're not hiding from that, but we responded. We had a good meeting with the players this morning. We challenged them and they responded."
NOTES: The Stars have been outscored 27-9 during their road losing streak. ... Cooper said he hopes to get defenseman Erik Cernak (lower body) and forward Ondrej Palat (undisclosed) back to play Tuesday at the Los Angeles Kings. ... Stars forward Jason Robertson (lower body) was scratched and replaced by Riley Damiani, who had one shot attempt in 10:16 of ice time in his second NHL game. ... Point has scored eight points (five goals, three assists) during a six-game point streak.