Chicago's style of play can be a challenge to defend, and Saturday night the Stars had their issues, giving up too many rush chances, and the Blackhawks scored on two of them. That was all the goal scoring Chicago would need in winning the game, 2-1.
"We weren't together in our puck pressure and when I say together, I mean five guys," said Stars coach Jim Montgomery. "When the puck was in the neutral zone you didn't see five guys in the neutral zone. Our defensemen were at the top of the circles, forwards were not coming back hard, so that doesn't allow us to stop and go back at pucks, which led to a lot of odd-man rushes."
"I thought they did a pretty good job of stretching the zone," said Stars forward Andrew Cogliano. "It seemed like our forecheck, we really couldn't keep pucks in. They did a good job of rimming pucks by us, and it was tough for our defense to stay up, so it was tough to really create a sustained forecheck on them."
The first period was a high event 20 minutes with 25 combined shots on goal, 49 shot attempts, and 11 high-danger chances. The Blackhawks scored first when David Kamp finished off a 2-on-1 rush at the 5:10 mark.
Just 73 seconds later, the Stars tied it on a goal by Radulov, who backhanded home the rebound of a Tyler Seguin shot. Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford made two big stops to keep the Stars from taking the lead, denying a Jason Dickinson shot from the slot and then turning away a point-blank bid by Seguin. With 36 seconds left in the first, Chicago's Alex DeBrincat got behind the Dallas defense and scored on the rush to give the Blackhawks a 2-1 lead.
Chicago had the better of play for a good part of the second period, outshooting the Stars 15-11 but Khudobin had a couple of big saves to keep it a one-goal game, stopping Chris Kunitz from close range early in the period and then Dominik Kahun late in the period after a slick setup by Patrick Kane.
The Stars couldn't get much going in the third, generating just five shots on goal and they couldn't crack Crawford, who finished the game with 26 saves.
"We didn't have tons of energy," said Montgomery. "In the first period, it wasn't bad. The second period, that's where I thought the game got away from us. They outskated us and skated us into the ground. In the third period, we were smarter, but we still couldn't generate, we didn't have enough oomph in us tonight. So, regroup and get ready for the road trip."
