Mavrik Bourque put the Stars up 2-1 at 12:35 of the second period on the power play. After Thomas Harley’s point shot was deflected in the slot by Stankoven, it ricochetted off Bourque’s leg at the side of the net.
Duchene pushed it to 3-1 at 1:06 of the third period on the power play when he took a pass from Wyatt Johnston at the side of the net, pulled the puck to the middle and shot past Woll’s blocker.
“Start of the game they were taking it to us a little bit and then they got one early and then we weathered the storm and got one, a big goal from Stankoven,” Duchene said. “I think we drew a lot of energy off of that, he’d been snake-bitten bad, and it was nice to see him get one to go and from there, I thought we played a really good game.”
Dallas went 2-for-3 on the power play; Toronto was 0-for-2.
“It was a special teams battle tonight, I thought 5-on-5 pretty even game, pretty tight game, not much going on either way,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “We’ve got to win that [special teams] battle. But we’re not getting the bounces I don’t think but we’re not executing good enough. I think we can execute better. We seem a little off on the execution part of things.”
The Stars went up 4-1 at 2:54 when Duchene’s shot was deflected in the slot by Stankoven.
“It’s impossible not to [have the goal drought weigh on him],” Deboer said. “The thing with him though is it never changes his effort. He was due to have a game like this and get out of it, he’s had a lot of really good looks lately so nice for him to cash in.”