The Stars opened their season in a way nobody inside American Airlines Center wanted to see: flat, messy and stuck chasing the game almost immediately. By the time the final horn sounded on Friday night, Dallas had been beaten 4-0 by the St. Louis Blues, and the mood around the building had long since gone from hopeful to heavy.
St. Louis landed the first punch just 1:34 into the game, and Dallas never really got the energy back.
The Stars did have stretches where they controlled play, especially in the second period, but a costly sequence in the middle of the night undercut all of it. Roope Hintz clipped goalie Jake Oettinger’s skate, and the Blues cashed in on the empty net to make it 2-0.
“I didn’t even know that I had hit him,” Hintz said. “I was going to go to the other side and then it was unlucky that I hit his skate.”
Dallas had its chance to respond in the third period, too. After a five-minute major early in the frame and then a two-minute minor on the Stars, the club got two minutes of 4-on-4 play and then nearly three full minutes on the power play.
For a team that led the league in power play goals last season, it produced nothing. The Blues killed the momentum, closed the door and added two empty-net goals to finish the job.
“I think we had our looks there, but we have to find a way to get it in the net,” said defenseman Miro Heiskanen. “I think everything starts with the battles, winning puck battles and having the puck a little more.”
The final score was ugly, but the game wasn’t short on little things to dissect. Dallas won 62 percent of the faceoffs, limited St.
Louis to 50 shot attempts and finished with 21 hits. Still, none of that translated into goals, which left the evening feeling even more frustrating.
“It’s about little things,” coach Glen Gulutzan said. “It’s still winning battles and getting pucks into the right area that becomes really important. Nobody has figured anybody out yet.”
Hintz said the group’s focus has to be bigger than simply trying to run the system cleanly from shift to shift.
“I think it’s not about that,” Hintz said. “I think it’s all about how we win the battles and how we stick together and I think then that’s the thing that follows that when we are competing together and that’s the biggest thing that comes from the group and then the system is how we play on top of that and think that’s a good mix.”
There was another tense moment early in the third when Hintz took a knee-to-knee hit from Blues defenseman Brandon Carlo, a play that brought a five-minute major and a game misconduct. Hintz stayed down for a minute, headed to the dressing room and then returned to the ice to help on the power play.
“I was quite concerned with the knee on knee,” Gulutzan said. “You never know with those things, so I was glad he came back.”
The Stars now have to turn around quickly and do it again Saturday in Nashville, with a back-to-back waiting and a roster stretched thin by the salary cap crunch. For Dallas, the opener was a reminder that the schedule is going to keep coming fast.
“There were miscues,” Seguin said. “That’s on us.
We have to do a better job of being prepared - it’s not preseason anymore. It’s one game, and let's get ready for tomorrow.”
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