Stars pull away in 3rd period, hand Kings 9th loss in 10 games

Roope Hintz, Wyatt Johnston and Evgenii Dadonov each had a goal and an assist, and the Dallas Stars defeated the Los Angeles Kings 5-1 at American Airlines Center in Dallas on Tuesday.

Jason Dickinson had two assists, and Jake Oettinger made 31 saves for the Stars (26-12-5), who are 4-1-0 in their past five games.

“We did what we were supposed to do against a team on the end of a [six]-game road trip coming off a back-to-back, and that was start well and finish well,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said.

Drew Doughty scored, and Cam Talbot made 23 saves for the Kings (21-12-8), who are 1-5-4 in their past 10 games. They won 5-2 at the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday.

“Listen, nothing’s going for us right now, and we’re going to come out of it and we’re going to be stronger for it,” Los Angeles forward Trevor Lewis said. “We’ve just got to keep fighting and keep working through it.”

The Stars’ new top line of Hintz, Robertson and Johnston combined to give them a 1-0 lead at 9:20 of the first period. They came into the offensive zone off the rush before Robertson fed Hintz in the right face-off circle for a wrist shot through traffic.

“He’s a lot of fun to play with and can obviously shoot the puck really well,” Johnston said of Hintz. “I think, for me, it’s just trying to find him. He’s pretty good at finding open spaces and good at finding you when you’re in open space. He’s just a really special player.”

Dadonov made it 2-0 at 15:21 when his pass across the crease went in off the skate of Kings defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov.

Doughty cut it to 2-1 on a power play at 1:31 of the second period. He scored on a slap shot from the top of the slot with Talbot pulled for an extra attacker during a delayed penalty.

“Sometimes when you play back-to-back (games) and travel like we did, it does take a little bit to get your legs going,” Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan said. “In the second, we were well connected. We looked fast. We were on top of them.”

Johnston pushed the lead to 3-1 at 5:49 of the third period on a wrist shot from the left face-off dot that was set up by Hintz and Robertson. DeBoer said he put Johnston on that line with the idea it could help the 20-year-old forward get more chances in the offensive zone.

“You want to give, especially the groups with history, as much runway as you can to try and get it together,” DeBoer said. “But you’re halfway through the season now, so it’s time to make some changes if things aren’t turning around with some of the groupings.”

Joe Pavelski extended it to 4-1 at 6:52, scoring from the slot after Thomas Harley’s shot caromed off the end boards.

Sam Steel scored a short-handed goal on a 2-on-1 at 9:33 for the 5-1 final.

“You have to just be patient, don’t force it, and the chances will come,” said Dallas forward Radek Faksa, who had the lone assist on the Stars’ 10th short-handed goal of the season. “Even the PP makes mistakes sometimes.”

Dallas has scored an NHL-best 64 goals in the third period.

“It’s not really a secret,” Johnston said. “The third period of the second night of a back-to-back is always the toughest, so I think we always like to try to wear teams down, especially in this scenario.”

NOTES: Robertson reached 30 assists for a third straight season. … Faksa was plus-3 in his 600th NHL game. … Stars defenseman Jani Hakanpää was plus-4. … Pavelski has four points (three goals, one assist) during a four-game point streak. … Doughty became the second defenseman in Kings history to score 150 goals (Rob Blake, 161).