'A real good team win': Stars blank Coyotes in Montgomery's debut

Jim Montgomery's first game behind the Dallas Stars bench as the team's new head coach was a good one.
Ben Bishop stopped 30 shots for his 25th career shutout and Devin Shore, Alexander Radulov, and John Klingberg scored goals in a 96-second span of the second period as the Stars opened the 2018-19 season with a 3-0 win over Arizona at American Airlines Center on Thursday night.
"Players win games. I don't know why coaches have records. And I am honest with that," Montgomery said. "Players win championships, I've always believed that, and coaches give them opportunities to do that. The win, I immediately started to think about what we needed to work on and for us to keep getting better."

WATCH: [All Stars vs. Coyotes highlights]
Jamie Benn and recently acquired defenseman Connor Carrick both chipped in two assists for the Stars. Bishop's shutout was his sixth as a Dallas Star. He was particularly strong in the second half of the second period when the Coyotes made a strong push to get back in the game.

"Once we got ahead 3-0, I thought the air came out of our balloon, and they came at us," Montgomery said. "If it wasn't for Bishop being so great, it could have been 3-3 by the end of the second."
There was no scoring in the first period. The Stars had a couple of good chances, but Coyotes goaltender Antti Raanta turned away Benn from the slot off a Tyler Seguin faceoff win and Roope Hintz on a good look on the rush. Coyotes forward Clayton Keller hit the crossbar.
The Stars took control of the game with three goals in 96 seconds in the second period. After Carrick put a shot on net from the point, Shore scored off the scramble in front of Raanta to put the Stars up 1-0 at the 4:21 mark. Twenty-eight seconds later, as the Shore goal was being announced in the building, Radulov backhanded the puck through Raanta on the rush, and it was 2-0 Dallas. And then 68 seconds after that, Klingberg picked a corner from the right circle off the rush to make it a 3-0 game.
Bishop turned away 10 shots in the third period, including a nice save on a point-blank bid by Michael Grabner midway through the period to keep Arizona off the scoreboard.

Turning point

At 3:46 of the second period, Coyotes captain Oliver Ekman-Larsson just missed scoring the game's first goal, rattling the puck off the post from the left circle. Moments later, Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen carried the puck deep into the Arizona zone, dropped the puck back to the point where Stars defenseman Connor Carrick put a shot on net that Radek Faksa tipped, and Devin Shore then put it into the net to give the Stars a 1-0 lead. The time between Ekman-Larsson's shot hitting the post and Shore's goal was 35 seconds. The Shore goal ignited a stretch of three Dallas goals in 96 seconds that turned out to be the difference in the game.

Players of the game

Ben Bishop, Dallas:The Stars goaltender turned in a superb performance in net, stopping 30 shots for the shutout. He had several sharp saves, including one on Brendan Perlini in the second period that kept Arizona from cutting the Dallas lead to 2-1. His puckhandling in the game was outstanding.

Connor Carrick, Dallas: Strong first game as a Star for Carrick, who was acquired from Toronto earlier this week. He picked up assists on Dallas' first two goals and played an excellent overall game. He played a total of 16:14 and was a plus-two.

John Klingberg, Dallas:The Stars defenseman scored one goal, led the Stars with eight shot attempts and logged a game-high 27:14 of ice time.

They said it

"Not just Monty, but Miro (Heiskanen), Roope (Hintz), those guys (playing their first games), too. But for sure Monty. It was a real good team win, I'd say. Everybody was a part of it today. We played really well as a team." -- Stars defenseman John Klingberg on getting a win for coach Jim Montgomery in his first game
"It was good to get a win. The rink was rocking with the fans, so we wanted to give them a good effort. I just tried to pass to the guys in green tonight, and it was a lot of fun. Playing with Roman (Polak) helped because I knew who he was from the Maple Leafs." -- Stars defenseman Connor Carrick
"I thought he was really good. Really poised with the puck, made crisp passes. Made (Stars GM) Jim Nill look like a genius (acquiring him) for a seventh-round pick. Two assists in his first game, a plus-two. I thought that was pretty good." -- Stars coach Jim Montgomery on Carrick
"It's nice to start off with a win. I thought we did a lot of good things out there tonight. We'll enjoy this one for a little bit, and then we have a really good team in Winnipeg coming in (Saturday). That will be a real good test for us."-- Stars goaltender Ben Bishop
"We had some chances. Bishop played really well. They had a stretch there where they were banging us around, and our push-back wasn't good for about seven or eight minutes. … We hit a couple of posts, and there were six or seven guys where I didn't like their game tonight, and that was the difference for us." -- Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet

Notes

Up next

The Stars play their second game of the season when they take on the Winnipeg Jets at American Airlines Center on Saturday evening. Dallas struggled against the Jets last season, going 0-4-0 and getting outscored 18-8.

Stars lineup

Jamie Benn - Tyler Seguin - Alexander Radulov
Mattias Janmark - Jason Spezza - Blake Comeau
Devin Shore - Radek Faksa - Tyler Pitlick
Jason Dickinson - Roope Hintz - Brett Ritchie
Esa Lindell - John Klingberg
Marc Methot - Miro Heiskanen
Connor Carrick - Roman Polak
Ben Bishop
Anton Khudobin
Scratched:Julius Honka, Gemel Smith
Injured:Valeri Nichushkin (lower body), Stephen Johns (post-traumatic headaches), Martin Hanzal (back)

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mark Stepneski has covered the Stars for DallasStars.com since 2012. Follow him on Twitter @StarsInsideEdge.