'Self-reflection time' for Stars after shutout loss to Tampa Bay

Saturday was a test for the Stars.
They were coming off a gut-punch loss on Thursday, they were facing the Tampa Bay Lightning in their first meeting since the Stanley Cup Final, and they were in dire need of a big game.
So with all of that riding on the line, give them an "F" after a 5-0 loss at Amalie Arena.

Ironically, the Stars actually did some good things in the defeat, but the bottom line is they found a way to lose. They had a 39-32 advantage in shot attempts and won 21-of-40 faceoffs. And after playing 53 minutes of great hockey on Thursday and leaving with no points, this was a lot of the same.
"I think overall, we're just not in sync enough," said forward Andrew Cogliano. "Our 5-on-5 play was really good, but then our special teams is the problem tonight. It just seems every game is something different. It's not good enough. We're not getting points and we have to figure it out in a hurry."
The Stars fall to 6-4-4 while the Lightning jump to 14-4-1.

Florida is 13-4-3.
Carolina is 13-6-1
Chicago is 11-7-4.
Only the top four teams in the Central Division will make the playoffs, and while it's still very early in the season for Dallas, the hill is getting higher. The Stars are 1-5-3 in their past nine games. Yes, they had some moments of strong play 5-on-5 Saturday, but their inability to take advantage of opportunities continues to be a problem this year.
Dallas was 0-for-6 on the power play, including 0-for-4 in the first 23 minutes of the game, when the score was 1-0. In fact, the power play not only didn't provide any help, it also created the dagger against. Anthony Cirelli scored shorthanded 4:06 into the second period to give Tampa Bay a 2-0 lead, and that seemed like the back-breaker.
Dallas finished with six shots on goal in 11:48 of man advantage time, so they not only didn't score, they didn't really make it that hard on Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy.

"We had six power plays and we had eight forwards, all of our top end guys, who didn't even have a shot on net," said Stars coach Rick Bowness. "So specialty teams clearly cost us the game."
But why? The power play has been fairly productive in previous games, and the penalty kill has been improving. You would have thought after really looking in sync for most of Thursday's game, the Stars would be more instep after their fourth game in six days. You would have thought that in facing the team that took their Stanley Cup dream last season they would have been more intense and focused.
But something is wrong right now.
Yes, the team is missing Alexander Radulov (lower-body injury) and Tyler Seguin (off-season hip surgery), but they got Roope Hintz back Saturday from a lower-body injury and received a strong outing from the 24-year-old center. Teams are dealing with injuries throughout the league, so there really are no excuses for this level of inconsistency.
"Sometimes, you don't get the big goal, you don't get the big save, it's a little bit of everything, but that's what happens when you've been on the slide we've been on," Bowness said.
The hope is they hit rock bottom Saturday. They have two days off and then meet the Lightning on Tuesday in Dallas. That will start a stretch of six games at home, where the team is 4-1-3.

"We'll turn it around," Bowness said. "We've had a bad 10-game segment, we lost some games we should have won, now we have to go home and figure this out."
Players and coaches alike said everyone has to take a look in the mirror.
"It's just self-reflection time, really, for an individual, as a professional and as an athlete," Cogliano said "We're at a desperation moment to get things going in the right direction, but we play a lot of divisional games, and as fast as you go one way, you can go the other. I think we've all accepted that it's going to be a grind all season to make the playoffs. We're going to have to fight and it's going to come to the end. We have to accept that and it's going to be a lot of hard work from here on out."
Hard work that this team said it knows how to do.
"We're going to play every second day. It's going to be like the playoffs, we're going to see the same team a bunch of times, so not too high, not too low," said defenseman John Klingberg. "We've put ourselves in a worse position than we wanted, so we're going to have to dig out of it.
"This team has faced some adversity in the past, so we've got to find ways to get points and win games."

Up next

vs. Lightning; Tuesday 7:30 p.m. CT
American Airlines Center
TV:FOX Sports Southwest
Radio: The Ticket 96.7-FM, 1310-AM
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.