No dice: Stars' win streak snapped in loss to Golden Knights

The Dallas Stars' power play scored twice in a game for the first time since the middle of October, but it wasn't enough as they saw a four-game winning streak come to an end with a 4-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena on Sunday night.
"I thought they out-competed us tonight," said Stars coach Jim Montgomery. "Our energy and emotion the last two games hasn't been what it was."
While the Stars did get two goals on the man advantage, they were unable to generate much at even strength -- and what they did muster was shut down by Vegas goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, who stopped 22 shots.

MIKE HEIKA: [Stars have little room for error with emotion, details right now]
Martin Hanzal and Esa Lindell scored on the power play for the Stars, and Miro Heiskanen had two assists. Ben Bishop got the start in goal and stopped 24 of 27 shots for the Stars, who fell to 16-11-3 on the season and lost in regulation for just the second time in the last eight games (5-2-1).
"It wasn't that bad of a game. They got a couple of bounces and a couple of breaks tonight," Bishop said. "We had a good run there. We'll just have to start another one."
The Golden Knights (17-14-1) won their fifth straight game at home and improved to 8-2-0 over their past 10 games overall. Fleury has been the goalie of record in all 17 of Vegas' wins this season.

"[Fleury] has been lights out all year," said Vegas forward Alex Tuch. "He's leading the league in wins, somebody told me, so that is pretty cool."
The Stars appeared to score 53 seconds into the game on a Tyler Seguin blast off a Dallas faceoff win, but a video review showed that the puck hit the crossbar and stayed out of the net.
The Stars did eventually get the first goal, cashing in on the game's first power play. Heiskanen put a shot on net from the top of the right circle that deflected off Hanzal and bounced past Fleury to put Dallas up 1-0 at 6:29 of the first period.
"That's what they want me to do, be in front and screen the goalie," Hanzal said. "I was lucky it hit me in the pants."
The Golden Knights answered at the 16:12 mark of the first on a goal by Ryan Carpenter, who put home a rebound to make it a 1-1 game.
The Stars had a couple of good chances to take the lead in the second, but Fleury stopped a quality chance by Alexander Radulov and then turned away Seguin on a breakaway. But overall, the second period belonged to Vegas.

Vegas got the only two power-play chances in the second period and scored just seconds after both of them expired to take a 3-1 lead. Three seconds after an interference penalty on Hanzal ended, William Karlsson scored from the left circle to put the Golden Knights up 2-1 at the 11:48 mark.
Then, nine seconds after Brett Ritchie exited the penalty box for roughing, Tuch's shot hit Heiskanen's skate and slipped through Bishop's legs during a scramble in front of the net to make it 3-1 at 18:17 of the third.
Fleury came up big again, stopping a point-blank bid by Blake Comeau with 1:09 left in the period to keep Vegas up by two going into the final 20 minutes.
The Stars cut the lead to 3-2 by scoring their second power-play goal of the night at 8:33 of the third period. Jason Spezza sent the puck to the net from the right circle, putting it into the net off Lindell.
The Stars had a great chance to get the equalizer with 7:44 remaining when Vegas defenseman Shea Theodore took a double minor for high sticking Taylor Fedun, giving the Stars a four-minute power play. But the Stars couldn't take advantage.
The Stars then took a too-many-men penalty while trying to pull Bishop and Vegas forward Reilly Smith sealed the win with an empty-net power-play goal.

Turning point

After an evenly played first period, the Golden Knights dominated the second period, outshooting the Stars 14-7, out-chancing them by a wide margin as well, and scoring the only two goals of the period to take a 3-1 lead.
Both goals came just seconds after the Stars killed off Vegas power plays.
Karlsson got a clean look from the left circled as Hanzal was just getting out of the penalty box on the first goal and then a broken play led to Tuch bouncing a puck off Heiskanen's skate and through Bishop's legs on the second one.

Three stars of the game

Marc-Andre Fleury, Vegas:Golden Knights goaltender made 22 saves, including some sharp ones, for his 17th win of the season.
Alex Tuch, Vegas:Game-winning goal, three shots on goal, three scoring chances for Golden Knights winger.
Nate Schmidt, Vegas: Golden Knights defenseman tallied one assist, a plus-two rating and had six shot attempts.

They said it

"I am a little concerned because our energy and emotion the last two games hasn't been what it was there. We were playing consistently with energy and emotion and with a lot of competitiveness, which comes with those two qualities. The last two games we haven't had it." -- Stars coach Jim Montgomery
"I thought it was a great night for the Spezza (power-play) unit. I thought every time they were out there they created something. The top unit, I don't know if they had a scoring chance." -- Montgomery on the team's effort during its power-play opportunities
"We thought [Ben Bishop] was coming to the bench. I don't know yet; I haven't spoken to Bish. Maybe he thought there was going to be an icing, so just stay in his crease. Marty Hanzal jumped. That's my responsibility to make sure that everybody knows what we're doing. That one's on me." -- Montgomery on the too-many-men-on-the-ice panalty late in the game
"You got to talk to people on the bench. I don't know. Six guys went out there, and I was still out there. I don't know what happened. We'll have to watch it. Got to wait, I guess, until I get there before you go out there. It's a tough break to have that happen. It's one of those things that shouldn't happen, and we'll have to see what happened."-- Bishop

Fast facts

What's next

The Stars play Game 2 of their road trip Wednesday in Anaheim. This will be the third and final meeting of the season between the Stars and Ducks. The Stars won the first two meetings, which were both in Dallas, 5-3 on Oct. 13 and 5-2 on Oct. 25.

Stars lineup

Jamie Benn - Tyler Seguin - Alexander Radulov
Devin Shore - Jason Spezza - Brett Ritchie
Mattias Janmark - Radek Faksa - Tyler Pitlick
Jason Dickinson - Martin Hanzal - Blake Comeau
Esa Lindell - Miro Heiskanen
Gavin Bayreuther - Roman Polak
Joel Hanley - Taylor Fedun
Ben Bishop
Anton Khudobin
Scratched: Julius Honka, Valeri Nichushkin
Injured: John Klingberg (hand), Connor Carrick (foot), Marc Methot (lower body), 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.