'Big homestand' awaits as Stars come up short to cap road trip

The Stars did a lot of things right Thursday night -- just not enough.
While Dallas had a 62-39 advantage in shots attempts and killed three Columbus power plays, goalie Anton Khudobin had an off night, and the scorers were not able to convert enough golden chances against Joonas Korpisalo.

The result was a 4-3 loss to the Blue Jackets to end a 1-2-1 road trip.
It felt like a game that got away for head coach Rick Bowness.
"We certainly played well enough to get a point, at least one point," Bowness said. "We out-chanced them, we had a lot of shot attempts, we deserved a point out of that game, that's how I assessed it."

After the Stars were dominant in a 6-3 win on Tuesday, Columbus came out with a fast start in the rematch at Nationwide Arena. Oliver Bjorkstrand squeezed a hard angle shot between Khudobin and the post just 2:23 into the game to give the Blue Jackets the all-important first goal.
"It hit me in the worst spot," Khudobin said. "Just unlucky."
Then, at the other end of the ice, Korpisalo turned away several key chances from the Stars, opening the door for his teammates to stretch the lead to 2-0 late in the first period.
It was a tough night for Khudobin, who allowed four goals on 25 shots, and he said he felt bad about it.
"I hate to lose, I hate to play like this," Khudobin said. "I don't know what happened, but it wasn't my night. I felt pretty good, physically, mentally, but there's something that wasn't going my way."
Asked how he felt about Khudobin's comments, Bowness said: "We win together, we lose together. We lose, we all have to find a way to be better."

The game was a fantastic example of how momentum can shift. The Blues Jackets played hard, but they also caught some breaks. The Stars seemed to be battling upstream all night, but they twice wrestled momentum away with great penalty kills. In the second period, Dallas was killing an Alexander Radulov penalty when Blake Comeau had a stick break. Columbus took advantage and kept the puck in the Stars' end of the ice for almost the entire power play. However, Comeau shadowed Patrik Laine and kept the puck away from the dangerous sniper to frustrate the Blue Jackets.
Then, when Radulov came out of the box after serving the penalty, he was able to help create a transition to the front of the Columbus goal that led to a puck that deflected in off the skate of Jason Dickinson and cut the Columbus lead to 3-2 after two periods.
"I thought our penalty kill stepped up and did the job," Comeau said.
Asked about his thinking when his stick broke, Comeau said he just trusted his instincts.
"That was in the moment, improvising," Comeau said. "I lost my stick and I just thought it would probably best to take away their best weapon on the power play. So I figured if I could just stay with (Laine), we could just play the 4-on-3, and the other three guys did an awesome job. Nothing that was planned, just kind of how it worked out."
That was clearly one of the good things the Stars will look at in the game. However, they also took a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty when they were chasing a one-goal game in the third period, and then failed to convert on a late power play with the goalie pulled and a two man advantage.

Still Bowness said he liked the overall effort.
"We did not deserve to lose that game," he said. "If we lose it in overtime or a shootout, that's fine. But we carried the play a lot of the game. When you look at that first period, we're carrying the play the whole thing and we're down 2-0. That's hockey. You persevere and you get ready for the next one."
The Stars will have two days off and then will play the next eight games at home. It's the longest homestand of the season, and also a stretch where the Stars need to pick up points in the standings.
"If anyone asked us if we would be happy with a 5-2-1 start, we would have been happy with that," Comeau said.
"We're disappointed we're not going home with a win tonight, but we get to go home and we get to play in front of our fans. It's going to be a big homestand, an important one. You've got to take advantage when you're playing at home. If we can have a good homestand, we're going to set ourselves up in a good spot."

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This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heikais a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika, and listen to his podcast.