Antoine Roussel makes most of limited minutes and top-line opportunity in Stars victory

DALLAS — Antoine Roussel made the most of limited minutes in the Dallas Stars 6-3 win against the Edmonton Oilers.

The left winger only had 15 shifts for 7 minutes, 14 seconds of ice time. During that time he scored, had two assists, and racked up 12 minutes in penalties.

Roussel started the game on the third line Martin Hanzal and Jason Spezza, but was quickly moved up to the first line and replaced Mattias Janmark on the left wing with Jamie Benn and Alexander Radulov.

“I looked at our body language, fourth game in six nights, and I just felt I had to give us every chance to win the hockey game,” Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said of the move. “I didn’t like our energy. At the start, we looked tired. We looked lethargic.”

At that time the Stars were still without a shot, and Roussel instantly provided a jump as he helped Dallas score on it’s first two chances of the game.

On the first goal he won a race to the puck and took a chance as he banked the puck off Cam Talbot’s foot and into the net. Dallas then took a 2-0 lead when he left a drop pass for Radulov and went hard to the night.

Roussel, who added an assist in the third period, recorded the third three-point night of his career and embraced the opportunity to play on the top line.

“Playing with Rads and Chubbs is a great experience,” Roussel said. “Every time you get a chance to play with those guys you have to ramp up the intensity and play simple and go to the net and good things happen. That’s exactly what happened tonight.”

Radulov and Roussel actually make an ideal pairing. Both players are highly-emotional and both play with a physical edge. You’d be hard-pressed to find a player that outworks either Roussel or Radulov on a nightly basis.

Saturday’s result should be taken with a grain of salt — the Oilers are struggling right now — but it was a step in the right direction after a downright miserable road trip to Carolina and Florida.

Dallas scored in the third period for the first time in eight games, they actually looked competent at five-on-five play, and they got balanced scoring throughout the line-up.

“You saw today how we’re built. This is what we’ve got, this is our team,” Hitchcock said. “This is the way we’re built and we can really play greasy hockey. We’re going to have to, that’s a hard way to play but it’s effective. We needed more participants in that role and that would open up space for other people and that’s exactly what it did today.”

While Roussel was the main story on Saturday, the Stars also finally got a goal from Devin Shore.

Shore has had a difficult season so far, and while he’s been part of an effective power play, he hadn’t scored in the first 19 games and had been missing out on some quality Grade-A chances. That changed in the third period when he tied the game at 3-3 with wrister that deflected off Oscar Klefbom and into the net.

“It’s good for the confidence, I think. The things I worry about are not getting the puck out as a winger on the boards, or not creating chances. If the chances aren’t there you’re starting to worry. There’s a lot of different ways you can affect the outcome of a game besides scoring goals,” Shore said. “But you just trust it if you keep doing the right things, whether it takes 50 games or the next one, usually things have a way of working it out. You just tell yourself all the time to just try to play the right way and not worry about that stuff. Let it take care of itself.”