Heika’s Take: Win streak comes to an end as Devils thoroughly outplay Stars

The Stars were dominated from start to finish by the New Jersey Devils Tuesday at American Airlines Center, taking a 5-1 loss.

“For sure, our worst game of the season,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said.

This ironically came on the heels of one of their best games – a 6-3 win over the Islanders on Sunday that stretched their win streak to five games. But, none of that positive momentum could be found on Tuesday, as the Devils had a 27-18 advantage in shots on goal, a 60-38 edge in shot attempts, and twice as many scoring chances.

It was a tough night.

“We stunk and they were good,” captain Jamie Benn said. “They played good, and we just couldn’t get anything going tonight. Credit to them.”

The Devils are 8-4-0 on the year and were welcoming the first start for goalie Connor Hellebuyck, who was acquired in a trade with Winnipeg last Friday. They did a great job protecting their netminder and helped ease him into the new job.

“I thought the guys in front of me played a perfect game for me to get acclimated,” Hellebuyck said. “They had a low amount of shots, blocking everything, keeping everything on the outside, letting me see things, let me touch the puck a lot. I know I’ve got work to do, a little bit of rust, but I thought it was a perfect game from top to bottom.”

The Devils had a great team effort with two goals from Nico Hischier and a goal and an assist each from Luke Hughes and Jack Hughes, and that was a big reason for the statistical dominance. But Dallas looked slow, lost puck battles, and really didn’t challenge Hellebuyck that much.

“We didn’t win a battle all night,” Gulutzan said. “It wasn’t one guy, we were littered with guys like that. We couldn’t get our footing and once they smelled the blood in the water they turned it up a little bit. That’s a good hockey team over there. Again, the spread in that game was that we were poor and they were a good team and they were good tonight.”

Maybe the most ironic stat was that Dallas – the best faceoff team in the NHL – won the battle of the circle, 28-24, and had a 2-to-1 edge in the first half of the game. Still, Dallas rarely had the puck when it mattered.

“Usually when you get more wins, you get something out of it, but…yeah…,” said Roope Hintz said with a shrug.

Justin Hryckowian scored his second goal in as many games, and the penalty kill stopped all three Devils power plays, so there were a few highlights, but Gulutzan said there is much work to do.

“It’s concerning, but it’s less concerning when it’s everybody,” Gulutzan said. “It was from the top-down on our team. We have to look at ourselves and ask what we did in the last few days that we would come out that flat. It was lopsided, they brought their A-game, and we brought a C-game and that’s what happens.”

Dallas (7-4-1) has two more games remaining in a six-game homestand, so the Stars want to right the ship pretty quickly before meeting Montreal on Thursday. And while it’s easy to say “just forget it,” Benn felt there needs to be some introspection.

“I think you’ve got to look in the mirror and figure out why the result was what it was,” Benn said. “Then come back and make sure it’s only one.”

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on X @MikeHeika.