yardbarker
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Two nights after a high-scoring 6-5 victory in Washington, the Dallas Stars found themselves on the wrong end of a low-scoring affair, dropping a 2-1 shootout decision to the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Thursday.
Zach Werenski leveled the score with just 3:14 remaining in regulation, erasing the 1-0 advantage the Stars had gained from Mikko Rantanen's goal 6:27 into the third period. The Blue Jackets ultimately prevailed in the shootout, leaving Dallas coach Glen Gulutzan frustrated about the lost extra point.
"We played them twice here in the last week and they've played some good hockey," Gulutzan said. "So, it was a good hockey game, tight-checking and it was back to our identity."
The contest marked the second meeting between the clubs in six days. On Tuesday in Washington, Jason Robertson recorded a natural hat trick—the seventh of his career—while goaltender Jake Oettinger surrendered five goals on 25 shots.
Columbus managed 30 shots on Thursday, but Dallas blocked 19 attempts, won 67% of faceoffs, and successfully killed both Blue Jackets power plays. The Stars had allowed five goals in each of their two previous losses before this trip: a 5-1 defeat to New Jersey on Oct. 27 and a 5-2 loss to Montreal on Oct. 29.
Through 16 games, Dallas has conceded 36 goals and killed 47 of 52 penalties, a 90.4% success rate.
Gulutzan was without Miro Heiskanen, who is dealing with an upper-body injury, and inserted rookie Trey Taylor for his second NHL game. The coach highlighted Taylor when discussing the team's limited chances allowed.
"I thought our defense all played well," Gulutzan explained. "When you give up that few of chances and you've got a young guy in [Trey Taylor], he played well. We're not happy with the result and not getting the extra point, but our game looked better."
Goaltender Casey DeSmith turned aside 29 of 30 shots and saw the group execute on its pregame focus.
"I thought we did a lot of good things, we defended well," DeSmith said. "There were a lot of things we talked about doing a better job, and I thought we did that tonight."
Rantanen netted the Stars' lone goal, his third in as many games. "Today, we played a pretty good 60," Rantanen said.
Columbus goaltender Cam Talbot stopped 31 of 32 shots as Dallas outshot the Blue Jackets 32-30. Werenski's equalizer came on a backhand over DeSmith's left pad after skating in from the left faceoff circle.
Columbus had trailed for a little over 10 minutes, and Werenski credited his team's resilience. "We stuck with it for 60 minutes," Werenski said. "It's a really good hockey team over there. We just kept coming and playing our game, it's 1-0 but I liked our bounce back."
Overtime was scoreless. In the shootout, Valeri Nichushkin and Kent Johnson scored for Columbus, while Talbot denied Robertson and Tyler Seguin. Dallas fell to 1-2 in shootouts this season.
Rantanen did not participate in the tiebreaker and attributed the outcome to chance. "Shootout is always a coin toss," Rantanen explained. "It could go either way."
Tyler Myers logged 19:50 of ice time and blocked five shots. He expects the team to review the game, even though there was much to like. "We did a lot of good things," Myers said. "We still left a point out there, so there's always room to get better."
Dallas dropped to 9-5-2 and sits third in the Central Division with 20 points. Myers saw plenty of positives from the group in Columbus. "We'll take a look and see how we can get better," Myers explained. "There were a lot of good things, a lot of good to take from it."
Forward Sam Steel missed Thursday's game for personal reasons and should return Saturday, which will mean more line changes. Gulutzan said Friday that the forwards have had to adjust all season. "We haven't had a lot of consistency with the lines because guys are coming in and going out," Gulutzan said. "But we've got to plug and play and just move forward. We pride ourselves on all guys doing the things that need to be done — the non-negotiable."
Dallas opens a four-game homestand against the San Jose Sharks at 7 p.m. CT on Saturday at American Airlines Center. Winnipeg visits Thursday, followed by Buffalo on Nov. 14 and Florida on Nov. 15.
Originally reported by yardbarker.