5 things to know: Stars blank Panthers behind Khudobin, Seguin

Anton Khudobin stopped 30 shots for his second shutout of the season, and Tyler Seguin recorded three points (two goals, one assist) to lead the Dallas Stars to a 3-0 win over the Florida Panthers at BB&T Center on Tuesday night.
Esa Lindell also scored for the Stars, who snapped a two-game skid, improved to 6-1-1 in their last eight games, and are now 29-22-5 on the season.
Here are five things from Tuesday's game.

1. Khudobin shines, Stars get him enough offense

With Ben Bishop still day-to-day with an upper-body injury, the Stars can just turn to Khudobin, and he never disappoints. Khudobin was outstanding Tuesday in stopping all 30 shots he faced for his second shutout of the season.
"It's probably a tighter game than 3-0 without the saves he made," Seguin said. "He just makes those key saves at big moments."
Khudobin dodged a couple of bullets early in the game. Frank Vatrano shot wide of the net on a quality chance 15 seconds into the game. Derick Brassard hit the crossbar six minutes in after a giveaway by Jamie Oleksiak.
But overall, the Stars didn't give up a ton of quality chances. Dallas skaters had 20 blocked shots in the game with John Klingberg and Roman Polak leading the way with four apiece.
The Stars had only 19 shots on goal, but they generated enough offense in the game, and both goals came off nice plays. Seguin opened the scoring at 11:47 of the first, redirecting a slick feed from Roope Hintz into the net on the rush.
"Great play by Roope Hintz. He made that pass," said Seguin. "The only way that goal was going in was because of him."
Lindell made it a 2-0 game at 12:39 of the second, scoring from close range after a slick passing sequence that ended with Seguin backhanding the puck to Lindell.
Seguin sealed the win with an empty-net goal late in the third period.
"I liked how everybody battled so hard," said Stars coach Jim Montgomery. "Obviously, Dobby was excellent."

2. Penalty kill thwarts Panthers' power play

Florida came into Tuesday's game with the league's second-ranked power play, and the Stars were focused on staying disciplined and not giving Florida too many opportunities with the man-advantage. Well, the Stars put the Panthers on four power plays, more than they wanted.
But the Stars survived, thanks to their penalty kill and Khudobin.
Florida had nine shots on a goal and a couple of quality chances during the four power plays, but Khudobin was sharp and got help from guys like Lindell (6:37) and Polak (6:39) who logged big time on the PK.
"[The Panthers] are creative. They tried to put the puck to the net and stay in front of me," Khudobin said. "We did a pretty good job to help me find the puck and to get into my position."
The Stars defenders also did a good job of coming up with some big blocks while killing penalties.
"The blocked shots we had on the PK, we had a couple of guys that had to x-rays just to make sure that bones weren't broken from the blocked shots," Montgomery said. "That's a team commitment to our identity. Just really proud because of the positive talk on the bench. It was a really good group effort. It's not pretty, but it's the way we play."
The Stars are 22-for-25 (88.0 percent) on the penalty kill over the last eight games.

3. Seguin on a roll

With his two goals and one assist in Tuesday's game, Seguin now has nine points (six goals, three assists) in his last six games. In other words, he's been on a roll since the Stars returned from their long break for the bye week and All-Star Break.
"Over the break, I took some time to, I don't want to say reset, but it was a good break," Seguin said. "It was refreshing for me. Going to the last five All-Star games, it was a nice break. Coming out of that I felt a little boost of energy and personally was feeling good. I'm just glad the puck is going in."
Seguin's impressive run dates back farther. If you go back to the start of the calendar year 2019, he has 20 points (13 goals, seven assists) in 16 games. During that 16-game stretch, he has five games where he has scored two goals and seven games where he has recorded two or more points.

4. Win keeps pace in playoff race

Tuesday's win was a big one for the Stars because teams below them in the playoff race aren't going away, especially one in particular.
The St. Louis Blues won their seventh straight game Tuesday, rolling over New Jersey, 8-3, so they remain two points behind the Stars in the race for third place in the Central Division. Minnesota lost, 5-4, to Philadelphia, so the Stars move four points ahead of the Wild, who are in fifth place in the Central and hold the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference. And those two points they picked up in Florida pushed the Stars six points ahead of the ninth-place spot in the West, which is currently held by Vancouver.

5. Stars rack up another shutout

Tuesday's shutout was the sixth of the season for the Stars. ... The Stars have allowed 14 goals over their last eight games (1.75 per game). ... The Stars rank second in the league in goals against at 2.50 per game. The New York Islanders rank first at 2.34 per game. ... Florida outshot the Stars 30-19 and had a 59-45 advantage in shot attempts. ... The Stars had a 12-6 advantage in high-danger chances, according to naturalstattrick.com. ... The Stars were 0-for-2 on the power play and 4-for-4 on the penalty kill. ... The Stars won 21 of 56 faceoffs (38 percent). Radek Faksa won 6 of 14 (43 percent). Seguin won 6 of 18 (33 percent). ... Lindell led the Stars with 27:26 of ice time. Miro Heiskanen was next with 24:36. ... Hintz missed the last 12 minutes of the second period after taking a puck to the knee off the stick of Panthers forward Mike Hoffman. Hintz returned for the third period.
Here is the lineup the Stars used to start the game along with scratches and injuries.
Roope Hintz- Tyler Seguin - Alexander Radulov
Jamie Benn - Jason Dickinson - Blake Comeau
Andrew Cogliano - Jason Spezza - Brett Ritchie
Mattias Janmark - Radek Faksa - Valeri Nichushkin
Esa Lindell - John Klingberg
Miro Heiskanen - Roman Polak
Jamie Oleksiak - Taylor Fedun
Anton Khudobin
Landon Bow
Scratched: Connor Carrick, Julius Honka, Denis Gurianov
Injured: Ben Bishop (upper body), Tyler Pitlick (wrist surgery), Martin Hanzal (back), Marc Methot (knee surgery), Stephen Johns (post-traumatic headaches)

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.