Trending: Wings' defense struggles in 5-1 loss to Stars

DALLAS -- The Red Wings are giving up too many goals of late and are paying the price for it.
The Stars came alive in the second period and beat the Wings, 5-1, at American Airlines Center on Saturday night.

It was the third straight game the Wings have given up five goals.
Detroit is now 1-6-2 in its last nine games and has lost four in a row.
Dylan Larkin (power play) scored for the Wings.
Blake Comeau, Alexander Radulov (two, one on power play), Tyler Pitlick and Jason Spezza scored for the Stars.
Detroit goaltender Jonathan Bernier, making his second start of the season against the Stars, had 37 saves.
Dallas netminder Ben Bishop had 33 saves in his second start against the Wings this year.

The Wings fell to 15-19-6 while the Stars improved to 20-16-3.
Up next for the Wings is their annual New Year's Eve home game, this time against the Florida Panthers. It is the first of a five-game homestand.
The Stars are also playing on New Year's Eve and will host another Atlantic Division team, the Montreal Canadiens.
1. Dylan Larkin: It has been said that now that Henrik Zetterberg can no longer play due to a degenerative condition in his back, the Wings are now Larkin's team. Although serving as alternate captain only at home, Larkin has accepted that mantle gracefully. Each night, Larkin's line plays against the other team's top line and yet Larkin leads the Wings in scoring. With Brett Ritchie in the box for elbowing, Larkin went to the net and backhanded a rebound past Bishop at 3:52 of the third period. Gustav Nyquist and Frans Nielsen picked up the assists. The goal was Larkin's team-leading 17th and is one more than he had in 82 games last season. Larkin extended his point streak to 13 games, the longest current streak in the NHL. He has seven goals and nine assists in that span. Larkin finished with 26 shifts for 17:12, had nine shots, three blocked shots, was 7-of-21 in face-offs and was even.

Quotable: "It's good to see. He's been consistent all year. He competes every night. You can put a finger on that. He shows up and he works as hard as he can. It's good to see. You can see he's determined. He wants to be that guy who's going to carry this team for a long time. It's fun to watch him grow as a player." -- Nielsen

Quotable II: "That's what happens when you give up goals. We gotta be better as individuals I would say. I thought too many guys didn't play good enough. They gotta play better. That's just the reality of it. We talked to the group after the game, the coaching staff and said 'Why are we giving up so many?' And it's not necessarily one thing or another thing, it's a combination of bad plays. We gotta get it corrected in a hurry." -- Wings coach Jeff Blashill
2. Frans Nielsen: Nielsen was playing in his 800th career game but it was probably one he'd like to forget, even though he assisted on the Wings' only goal. Nielsen is now third on the team in assists with 16. Nyquist leads the team with 24 and Larkin is second with 21. In 17 career games against the Stars, Nielsen has four goals and six assists. Nielsen finished with 27 shifts for 18:23, had one hit, one giveaway, two blocked shots, was 7-of-15 in face-offs and was minus-2.

Quotable: "Get the forecheck going, I guess. We still tried to get pucks behind tonight and we just didn't. They were breaking out against us. I think when you look at the previous games we did a really good job of getting on their D and finishing our hits and doing those little things. Having the D come up ice and pinch on any rims coming around. But we were backing up a little bit today and they just kept coming at us. We couldn't sustain any pressure once we got pucks behind them." -- Nielsen
Quotable II: "Yeah, we deserved to lose 100 percent. They outplayed us no question. They were faster than us all over the ice. I don't think they are faster than us, so that's the way we played. We gotta be better than that." -- Blashill
3. Gustav Nyquist: For a minute, it appeared that Nyquist had scored his 10th goal of the season at 11:18 of the third period, beating Bishop with a shot from the right circle. But the Stars challenged that Justin Abdelkader had interfered with Bishop and after the review, overturned the goal and kept the Stars' four-goal lead intact. Nyquist did assist on Detroit's only goal, adding to his team lead, which now stands at 24. Nyquist finished with 24 shifts for 16:29, had seven shots, which was second on the team to Larkin's nine, had one giveaway, three blocked shots, was 0-for-1 in face-offs and was minus-2.
Quotable: "Anytime you lose it's disappointing. Now we've lost a few here, we got to dig ourselves out of it. It's not good enough to show up for games and then show up for a period or something like that. We got to find a way here to win some games." -- Nyquist
Quotable II: "They said after I got pushed I didn't get right out of the crease. I thought after I was in, I made an effort to get out, but the way they're calling it now, I thought they'd let it go but that's how it goes." -- Abdelkader