Recap: Late rally isn't enough for the Stars, who fall 3-2 to Senators

For the first time in this young season, the Stars find themselves mired in a losing streak. Though their performance on Sunday was better than Saturday, the result was the same - this time a 3-2 defeat to the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre.

Maybe fatigue was setting in because the Stars looked like a team out of gas as they tried mightily to tie the game in the final few minutes of regulation. Unfortunately, they never could get anything of quality on Senators goaltender Filip Gustavsson with the extra attacker on the ice.

BOXSCORE / GAME HIGHLIGHTS

Even if the Stars were skating with heavy legs, the Senators should've been, too. They also played the night before on the road, in Toronto, where they fell 3-1. As the minutes ticked off the clock, the Sens appeared to be the fresher team and perhaps that made the difference in the end.
Stars captain Jamie Benn tried to get his teammates engaged right off the bat when he dropped the gloves with Senators defenseman Josh Brown. His scrap appeared to rejuvenate his teammates because Michael Raffl responded shortly after with his first goal of the season off a nice feed from Alexander Radulov.

In fact, Raffl's goal came a shift after defenseman Jani Hakanpää and goaltender Anton Khudobin made a terrific goal-line stand to prevent a goal on Senators forward Josh Norris.

Dallas' lead was short lived, as the Sens responded 50 seconds later when Nick Paul's backhand from the bottom of the right faceoff circle sailed over Khudobin's shoulder to even the score at one apiece.
Khudobin entered the game riding a 10-game point streak against the Senators, having earned a point in all 10 career appearances. His record over that span was 8-0-2 and included a .935 save percentage and 2.17 goals-against average. That streak ended tonight despite making 24 saves on 27 shots.
His counterpart, Gustavsson, finished the game with 32 saves on 34 shots.
Chris Tierney scored twice with the man advantage in the second period to put an end to the Stars' perfect penalty kill.
The Stars, meanwhile, went 0-for-2 on the power play.
Joe Pavelski gave the Stars some life with a little more than five minutes to play. With the goal, Pavelski pushed his point streak against the Senators to nine straight games and gave him points in eight straight contests at Canadian Tire Centre.

Dallas will have a day to rest and regroup before closing out its season-opening four-game road trip in Pittsburgh on Tuesday.
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Kyle Shohara is the Digital Manager for DallasStars.com and writes about the Stars/NHL. Follow him on Twitter @kyleshohara.