With a full fight card and an EBUG, Stars win a weird, or fun, game against Panthers

DALLAS — This one was weird.

Ok, well, Ken Hitchcock didn’t agree with me.

“I didn’t find it weird,” Hitchcock said. “In a very sick way, it was fun.”

So, I guess we’ll go with fun.

In the first period alone there were four fights, a goalie injury, 84 penalty minutes, a pair of game misconducts, and at one point the Stars nearly had to call the fire marshal thanks to overcrowding in the penalty box.

In the end, and after a local emergency back-up goalie suited up for the Florida Panthers, the Stars skated away with a 6-1 victory to extend a five-game point streak.

Per NHL rules, the Stars have an emergency back-up goalie on-call at each game that either team can use. Dallas has four rotating goalies that come to the game with their gear, sit in the stands, and if the situation arises they suit up.

It was Thomas Hodges turn in the rotation on Tuesday.

A 23-year-old that moved to the United States when he was 12 from England, Hodges was sitting with his friends when Panthers goalie James Reimer got hurt on an innocent looking shot just 3:48 into the game.

“They were a bit more panicked than I was,” Hodges said.

Hodges got the call, sprinted to his car — he gets a pair of tickets and parking in the player’s garage when serving as the emergency back-up goalie — grabbed his bag, and sprinted to the Panthers locker room to change.

“The hardest part was probably sprinting with the 60-pound bag,” Hodges said.

Hodges has experience in this fill-in role. He’s practiced “three or four times,” with the Stars as a fill-in goalie, most recently when Kari Lehtonen was sick, while the Allen Americans put him in an ECHL game for one minute on New Year’s Eve 2016 on a night he filled in as the emergency back-up.

While Hodges was suiting up, the Stars and Panthers were discarding gloves and sticks during the opening stanza.

It started right after Reimer was injured, and the Panthers apparently thought Antoine Roussel had caused the injury to their goalie. Roussel rag-dolled Keith Yandle, sparking four more fights in the period.

“This was emotion and feistiness and people angry at each other, I think a lot of it started that they thought we hit the goalie, which we didn’t,” Hitchcock said. “I think that started the ball rolling and then what are you gonna do? You gotta get on the ride and hope nobody gets hurt.”

Radek Faksa fought twice, perhaps the Panthers confused No. 21 with No. 12, and Dillon Heatherington was tossed from the game when he and Alex Petrovic fought as the second altercation of a stoppage.

“It just happens sometimes,” Faksa said. “I just finished a check and I don’t know who that was, and he didn’t like it and he just came to me and it just happens sometimes.”

Michael Haley, who fought Faksa first, was later ejected from the game in the second period. His stellar stat line — six shifts, six penalties, 39 penalty minutes, and one hit in 2 minutes, 43 seconds of ice time.

When the game settled down and turned back into, well, a hockey game, the Stars were the better team.

Alexander Radulov had two goals and an assist, John Klingberg had a pair of assists, and Devin Shore has finally found the right role as a depth left-winger — delivering with a goal and an assist.

“He’s really starting to play well, I think the move to left win has really helped him,” Hitchcock said of Shore. “He’s got speed, he’s got tempo, he’s got patience with the puck, now he looks like a real player right now. He looks like a guy that’s got a lot of 200 foot game in him.”

The Stars turned it into a laugher in the third period, turning a 3-1 lead into a 6-1 blowout. After Tyler Pitlick made it 6-1, the side-show started to come back into play and featured two more fights in the final three minutes by Brett Ritchie and Stephen Johns.

“That’s kind of what I mean when I say just having each other’s backs,” Shore said. “They brought a physical game and credit to them. They’re pretty intense but I think we did a great job of answering that and sticking up for each other. I think when you see games go like that, that helps a team bond and mesh and it shows that guys in this room really care about each other and that’s going to be big the next few months here.”

For the record, it’s unofficially the second most fights since the franchise moved from Minnesota to Dallas. The Stars had seven fights against the Chicago Blackhawks on Dec. 31, 1993.

Filling a role

While it was an odd game to judge, it was a chance for the Stars to figure out life without Martin Hanzal, who was out with a lower-body injury.

Jason Dickinson, recently recalled from the AHL, only played 7 minutes, 52 seconds, and took a pair of penalties. But he’s still going to get another chance against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday.

“Both penalties were poor stick penalties, those were correctable, those are teachable moments,” Hitchcock said. “I like his quickness and his separation skating is really gonna help us, I like how he can get us out of trouble, he’s got to clean up the stick part and he’ll do that in time.”

Jason Spezza played 14 minutes on Tuesday and likely would have played more if not for all the penalty kills. He had an assist on the power play, and Hitchcock said his play is going to be key with Hanzal out.

“We need Spezza to continue to improve and we need Dickinson to step up and really grab this opportunity,” Hitchcock said. “He’s got the size, he’s got the ability, he’s got the hockey, for me this is a real opportunity for Dickey.”