Stars road struggles continue in another "embarrassing" loss

There was an upbeat feeling when the Dallas Stars were practicing in Frisco on Sunday.

The Stars were fresh off a 5-0 home victory. Sure the road hadn’t been kind this season, but the Stars felt they had identified the issues and this three-game road trip would be a positive building moment for the team.

Roughly 36 hours later there was a much different tune.

“It’s embarrassing and there needs to be some changes around here,” Stars captain Jamie Benn said. “Starts with myself and we need to figure it out as a team here.”

On Monday the Stars opened that road trip with a no-show performance and lost 5-1 in front of a sparse crowd in Carolina.

The third period was the most disappointing element of the loss.

While they had struggled throughout the first 40 minutes, the Stars were still tied with the Hurricanes at 1-1 heading into the third period.

“It’s a lot easer to play at home than it is on the road than. If we’re going to get to another level, we’re going to have to play a much firmer on the road,” Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said.” And we get beat off the boards, they took the puck off the boards, they outplayed us in the third period. The game was an even game after two periods — right where you wanted it — and we did not answer the bell.”

In the final stanza Carolina scored four straight goals, three on a natural hat trick from Teuvo Teravainen, and a toothless power play found it’s bite for the Hurricanes.

But before we break down the third period, let’s look at the first goal, which embodied Stars road hockey over the past two seasons.

A poor drop pass by Radek Faksa led to a turnover by John Klingberg, and when you mix in a little bit of bad luck — Esa Lindell tripping over the blue line — the Stars were down 1-0.

The goal was bad, but the response was worse. Dallas only registered four shots over the next 15 minutes of play, and only tied the game when Alexander Radulov — who has been very good this season — capitalized on a power play.

With a stronger response in the first period, or even in the second period at five-on-five, and the Stars are a better team heading into the third period.

In the third period Dallas didn’t have a shot in the first five minutes and didn’t have a response when Carolina started it’s offensive onslaught.

Not good.

The good news?

Dallas still has two games left on the road trip. And a win against the Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning — arguably the NHL’s best team so far this season — would make the loss in Carolina a bad memory, and ideally one that the Stars have learned from.

“I don’t want to put it behind us,” Hitchcock said. “I want us to remember it and I want us to grow from it.”