Through 20 minutes of play Thursday night, the Dallas Stars seemed poised to cruise to their fourth consecutive victory to start the season.
But a four-goal second period by the Vancouver Canucks, including three goals in 3:26, stunned the Stars. Dallas could never recover and dropped its first game of the 2025-26 season, 5-3.
“The problem we’re getting into a little bit isn’t so much structure. It’s just managing the game. We need to manage leads,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. “It’s being able to push back when their push is on to stop their momentum, and we’re not doing that.”
After wins over three probable playoff teams, the Stars fell to the team that many wouldn’t be surprised to see miss the field in April.
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Stars backup goaltender Casey DeSmith made some solid saves but also struggled at times in his first appearance of the season, making 21 saves on 25 shots. While some of the Canucks’ goals were on high-danger chances, DeSmith wasn’t stopping direct some shots that his team needed him to.
The Stars’ defensive play in front of him was ugly as well.
Around four minutes into the second period, defenseman Miro Heiskanen saved a goal when the puck got behind DeSmith. Vancouver immediately committed a slashing penalty at the other end, and the Stars had a chance to go up 3-0 on the power play.
Instead, Vancouver swung the momentum in its direction, killing the power play and immediately scoring on a stretch pass from Evander Kane to Filip Chytil. Seventeen seconds later, Radek Faksa took a hooking penalty, leading to a Canucks power play goal by Brock Boeser. Just over a minute after that, Max Sasson made it 3-2 Canucks. Conor Garland scored off a Stars turnover in the defensive zone later in the second period to give Vancouver a 4-2 lead.
“They had the momentum. They were pushing,” Stars defenseman Thomas Harley said. “I think we have to do a better job of weathering the storms.”
It was the first time all season the Stars trailed by multiple goals.
Wyatt Johnston scored with 2:03 remaining in regulation on a late power play, extending his season-opening goal streak to four games. But Dallas couldn’t find the equalizer in the final two minutes, and Vancouver added and empty netter with 36 seconds remaining.
The Stars fell victim to a similar problem as they had in their other games. After taking a lead, they watched it fade away. The Stars led 2-0 at the end of the first after a goals by Mavrik Bourque and Mikko Rantanen. Vancouver’s Elias Pettersson deflected in Bourque’s shot toward the net. Rantanen made it 2-0 in the last minute of the first period, scoring on the power play.
The Stars led 5-1 against Winnipeg and 3-0 against Minnesota, but both of those opponents made it a one-goal game in the third.
Harley assisted on Bourque’s goal and has now recorded points in all four of the Stars’ games — one goal and five assists.
After Bourque’s goal, 12 different Stars have now scored in Dallas’ four games. The defensive game is the bigger question.
The Stars were also without three forwards — Jamie Benn and Oskar Bäck, who remain on IR, and Matt Duchene, who was ruled out for Thursday’s game after taking a big hit in Tuesday’s win over the Wild. Adam Erne made his first appearance for the Stars this season in Duchene’s place.
Dallas will hit the road again to face St. Louis Saturday night before returning for a three-game homestand next week.
Dallas Stars forward Matt Duchene will not play Thursday vs. Vancouver
Duchene was day-to-day after exiting Tuesday night’s win over Minnesota in the third period.
Stars HC Glen Gulutzan talks special home opener, franchise’s ‘remarkable’ turnaround
Gulutzan’s first night back at American Airlines Center was quite a bit different than his first stint as the team’s head coach.