Faksa's hat trick leads Stars over Vegas, 3-0

The Dallas Stars played their first ever regular season game in Las Vegas Tuesday night and delivered a few firsts. Radek Faksa scored the first hat trick at T-Mobile Arena, and Ben Bishop made 34 saves to hand the Vegas Golden Knights their first shutout loss ever as the Stars ended a four-game road losing streak with a 3-0 win.
Faksa's three goals came over a 6:46 span of the second period, including two goals in eight seconds during the final minute of the frame that turned a 1-0 lead into a 3-0 margin heading into the second intermission.

\[WATCH: Full Stars vs. Golden Knights highlights\]
"I am very happy for the goals. I get very emotional when I score. But the most important thing is the team win," Faksa said. "I am glad we had a greasy win on the road. We needed it."
Before Faksa's goal-scoring heroics, Bishop was key for the Stars, especially in the first period when the Golden Knights put 15 shots on goal and had some quality chances. The shutout was Bishop's second of the season.

"The first period was important, holding the team in there and then in the second period we found our way and took over," Bishop said. "It was a good team win."
The Stars, who are being accompanied by the fathers of 15 players on the trip, won on the road for the first time since Oct. 30 and improved to 13-10-1 on the season.
"[The message was] don't let our dads down," said Stars captain Jamie Benn. "We didn't want to hear it from them after the game. We just stuck to our game plan, and we had a good one."
The Golden Knights (15-7-1) had a five-game overall winning streak come to an end as well as an eight-game winning streak at home. Vegas, which came into the game ranked second in the league in goal scoring, was shut out for the first time this season.

"We couldn't get to the net tonight," Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said. "There were some pucks, especially in the first 30 minutes, that we could have got to in the crease, but I thought their [defense] did a really good job tonight of boxing us out and keeping us away from the front of the net. We had some scoring chances, but not a whole lot of great ones."
For the first half of Tuesday's game, it was a goaltending duel between Bishop and Vegas netminder Malcolm Subban. Bishop had strong stops on Tomas Nosek, James Neal, and Brendan Leipsic. Subban answered with back-to-back stops on Tyler Seguin and Jason Spezza, and then a slick pad stop on a point-blank chance by Devin Shore.
But the Stars finally broke through at the 12:55 mark of the second period with the two teams playing at four-on-four. Greg Pateryn fired a pass to Dan Hamhuis in the bottom of the left circle and Hamhuis set up Faksa who scored off a one-timer from the slot to put the Stars up 1-0.
Faksa then scored two goals eight seconds apart in the final minute of the second to put the lead to 3-0. After Hamhuis pinched in to keep a play alive, Brett Ritchie put a puck on net, Gemel Smith backhanded it to Faksa who scored from close range to make it 2-0 at 19:33 of the second.

After winning the ensuing faceoff, the Stars quickly entered the Vegas zone, and Faksa finished off a nice passing sequence with Tyler Pitlick and Antoine Roussel to make it a 3-0 game at the 19:41 mark.
"Those two goals in the last minute of the period were huge," said Bishop. "Going into the third it gave us a buffer zone."
The Stars played well with the lead in the third period, and Bishop made 11 more saves to keep the Golden Knights from gaining any traction over the final 20 minutes.
"We'll enjoy this tonight," Bishop said, "and then get ready for Chicago (on Thursday)."

Notes

What's Next

The Stars play at Chicago on Thursday. It will be the first meeting of the season between the Stars and Blackhawks this season and the opening game of a home-and-home series between the two teams who also play in Dallas on Saturday.

Stars Lineup

Devin Shore - Jamie Benn - Alexander Radulov
Mattias Janmark - Tyler Seguin - Jason Spezza
Antoine Roussel - Radek Faksa - Tyler Pitlick
Gemel Smith - Martin Hanzal - Brett Ritchie
Esa Lindell - John Klingberg
Dan Hamhuis - Greg Pateryn
Stephen Johns - Julius Honka
Ben Bishop
Kari Lehtonen
Scratched: Remi Elie, Jamie Oleksiak
Injured: Marc Methot (knee)

This story was not subject to approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club. Mark Stepneski is an independent writer whose posts on DallasStars.com reflect his own opinions and do not represent official statements from the Dallas Stars. You can follow Mark on Twitter @StarsInsideEdge.