The Dallas Stars have taken pride in being a defensive team that is hard to play against and can grind out victories. They got sucked into Chicago's high-skilled type of game Friday night at United Center, and it wasn't pretty as the Stars lost 6-1.
"I didn't like the way we played. We were sloppy," said Stars coach Jim Montgomery. "We tried to play a skilled game, which is not our game. We weren't tight defensively in our own end. We weren't able to make enough plays. We did cause a lot of odd-man rushes. I thought our neutral zone offensively was good, but we weren't able to make enough finishing plays. That kind of game that was played is not our style of hockey."
The Stars rested several key players including captain Jamie Benn, forward Mats Zuccarello, defenseman Roman Polak, and Ben Bishop Friday. The Stars had different forward lines and on defense and they never looked in sync. Montgomery discounted that as being a factor.
"Everybody has played a lot of games and everybody knows how we want to play," Montgomery said. "We chose not too."
The Stars, who clinched a playoff spot on Tuesday, close out the regular season Saturday against Minnesota and then begin the Stanley Cup Playoffs next week.
"We were probably looking too far ahead going into tonight," said Stars center Tyler Seguin. "I feel bad for our goalie. [Anton Khudobin] has done a lot for us this year and we would have liked a better showing in front of him. We'll regroup pretty quick here and finish strong at home tomorrow."
Patrick Kane gave the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead late in the first period, scoring from the right circle at the 16:45 mark.
Chicago blew the game open with three goals in a 6:50 span over the second half of the second period to push the lead to 4-0. Dominik Kahun scored on the rebound of a Brandon Saad shot off the rush at the 11:11 mark. Chris Kunitz put in the rebound of his own shot off the rush at 13:05. And then Chicago scored at the 17:51 mark when an Erik Gustafsson pass hit Stars defenseman Ben Lovejoy's skate and went to a wide-open Dylan Strome who scored from close range to make it a 4-0 game.
Chicago defenseman Slater Koekkoek scored 44 seconds into the third period to extend the lead to 5-0 before the Stars finally got on the board when Seguin set up Joel L'Esperance who scored from the left circle with the Stars on the power play. Kane rounded out the scoring by scoring a breakaway to make it a 6-1 final.
