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Wrap: Stars notch another shutout, beat Kraken 2-0 |
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The Dallas Stars improved to 3-0-0 for the 2024-25 season as they blanked the Seattle Kraken by a 2-0 score at American Airlines Center. Having beaten the New York Islanders on Saturday, 3-0, the Stars pulled off the uncommon feat of notching shutouts in both games of a back-to-back set.
It should be noted that the Stars and Kraken both played on Saturday. While the Stars were home to play the Islanders, the Kraken had a road game in Minnesota. So with no travel involved for the Stars, Dallas had a slight fatigue factor edge but it was balanced off by being the third game in four nights (road, home, home) for Pete DeBoer's team.
The Stars only took a single minor penalty in Saturday's win against the Islanders, which helped not only in-game but also in terms of staying fresher for Sunday. Also very helpful: Although the Stars put a modest 21 shots on Philipp Grubauer's net in Sunday's game, the Stars struck for two closely spaced goals late in the first period. It's exponentially easier to roll personnel when your club is playing with a multi-goal edge as opposed to chasing the game.
After Jake Oettinger recorded a 34-save shutout of the Islanders, backup Casey DeSmith followed it up with a 24-save blanking of Seattle. The Stars held Seattle to a mere 15 shots through 40 minutes and then DeSmith made 10 saves in the third period (the Stars had just four of their own) in the final stanza.
Special teams were a wash on Sunday night. The Stars went 4-for-4 on the penalty kill and 0-for-3 on the power play. All penalties on both sides were stick-related minor infractions (hooking, tripping, cross-checking, high sticking). There were two minutes of 4-on-4 manpower on both sides on early first-period coicidentals (Mason Marchment/Ryker Evans).
At 16:17 of the first period, the Stars fourth line chipped in the game's first goal. Sam Steel (1st goal of the season) had a slam dunk at the right post after a nice cross-seam feed from Colin Blackwell for a 1-0 lead. Defenseman Thomas Harley had the secondary assist.
Just 13 seconds later, the Stars extended the lead to 2-0 on Wyatt Johnston's first goal of the season. Breaking out of the defensive zone, Logan Stankoven (fourth assist through the season's first three games), chipped the puck ahead to Jamie Benn. In the attack zone, the captain passed to Johnston and, importantly, took a defender with him toward the net. With an open shot from the right dot, Johnston snapped puck home.
That would be all the scoring the Stars would need -- or receive -- on this night after more than doubling up the Kraken on shots (13-6) in the opening period. There are nights where shots on goal do not accurately reflect the actual territorial play. In this instance, however, it was true to the actual flow of play.
Over the final 40 minutes, the Stars looked at times like a team playing its third game in four nights. There wasn't in the way of attack. A couple of the better looks that Dallas generated went for missed nets or blocked attempts (led by former Dallas defenseman Jamie Oleksiak's five blocks). The Stars had a combined 10 shots on goal over the final 40 minutes of the game.
On the back end, Brendan Smith (subbing for the injured Matt Dumba) had some turnover issues on Sunday. For the most part, however, the five-man units continued to do a good job in front of their goaltender. DeSmith stepped up as needed in net and made the most of his first start of the season.
The Stars have not trailed at any point during their first three games of the season. In two of the games (opening night in Nashville, last night against Seattle), the Stars bunched a pair of goals spaced very closely apart to grab 2-0 leads. The offense has been spread around very nicely, too.
Against Nashville, the top line led the way offensively. In the Islanders game, the Stars' old guard (Tyler Seguin and Benn) delivered the goals. Last night, the fourth line grabbed the all-important first goal of the game. One could hardly draw it up better than having different offensive heroes in three straight wins.
There are not many negatives to discuss right now. The Stars will have to figure out how to account for filling Dumba's minutes (because he is still capable of logging hefty ice time). They'd like to have a bit more consistent territorial control than in significant portions of the first three games. Right now, however, those are pretty minor quibbles. The process overall has been reasonably solid and the results are coming with it.
The Stars have a much-deserved complete day off on Monday. Tomorrow night, the club will wrap up its three-game homestand against the San Jose Sharks (0-1-1). San Jose is coming off a 2-0 home shutout loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday. The game was scoreless until the third period when Isac Lundestrom and Trevor Zegram (empty netter) tallied for Anaheim.
The Sharks will not have Macklin Celebrini in the lineup when they visit Dallas. The first overall pick of the 2024 Entry Draft was placed on injured reserve with a lower-body injury. Celebrini had two points (1g, 1a) in his NHL debut against St. Louis.
Dallas Stars Blogger • 
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