The Stars (38-26-7) are in search of their first victory on a season-long, six-game road trip. Dallas opened the trip with regulation defeats in Pittsburgh and Montreal, before falling 6-5 in a shootout Wednesday in a wild game in Toronto.
Dallas fell behind early, but rallied to score two in the first period and two in the second period to take a 4-2 lead at second intermission. In the third period, the Maple Leafs got a pair of goals from James van Riemsdyk, who capped his third-career hat trick to tie the game 4-4. Once again the Stars responded, reclaiming the lead on a Brett Ritchie goal with just under seven minutes to play. The Leafs surged in the closing minutes, and the Stars -- who were playing their third game in four nights -- could not hold them off, surrendering the game-tying goal to Patrick Marleau with 15.3 seconds remaining.
"We came back and won the hockey game about three times, but we ran out of gas," Stars head coach Ken Hitchcock said. "It's tough."
Before Wednesday, the Stars had been 29-1-1 this season when leading after two periods.
"This is disappointing to not two get two out of this, but points are points," Hitchcock added. "We got another point. We've got to go back into Ottawa, and see if we can keep building on this."
The Stars' offense went into Toronto with just five goals in their prior four games combined, and finally got the breakout game it had been searching for. Dallas scored five for the first time since Feb. 3, getting goals from five different players. Among them was Tyler Seguin, who matched a career-high with his 37th goal of the season. Seguin had three points, giving him 17 (8 goals, 9 assists) in his last 11 games. Radek Faksa and Jamie Benn each scored for the second consecutive game. Benn has goals in three of his last four.
Wednesday marked the fourth time the Stars have gone to overtime in their last eight games. Dallas has fallen in the extra session in three of those, including a 3-2 overtime loss to Ottawa on March 5 in Dallas. Overall, the Stars are 8-7 this season in games decided beyond regulation.
Kari Lehtonen was making his fifth straight start in place of the injured Ben Bishop, and stopped 28 of 33 shots. On Wednesday before the game, Bishop skated in full pads for the second straight day. The team had an off-day on Thursday, and there has been no exact timetable given regarding Bishop's status. He was injured in the first meeting with the Senators.
The Stars enter Friday in the Western Conference's final wild-card spot, one point behind Colorado and one point ahead of Anaheim.
Injuries: In addition to Bishop's unconfirmed status, C Martin Hanzal (back) and D Marc Methot (Hand) are both out. Friday's game was slated to be Methot's return to Ottawa after spending the last five seasons with the Senators, but he was injured blocking a shot in Tuesday's game at Montreal.
