{"id":219555,"date":"2026-03-25T10:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T10:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/219555\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T10:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T10:36:08","slug":"stars-cant-recover-from-sluggish-start-vs-devils-see-losing-skid-extend-to-three-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/219555\/","title":{"rendered":"Stars can\u2019t recover from sluggish start vs. Devils, see losing skid extend to three games"},"content":{"rendered":"

As far as starts to games go, Tuesday\u2019s might\u2019ve been the worst the Stars<\/a> had all year.<\/p>\n

Maybe even in years.<\/p>\n

Stars goalie Jake Oettinger<\/a> allowed four New Jersey Devils goals on the first five shots he faced before being benched in the first intermission. It wasn\u2019t all his fault, by any means, as he faced Grade A after Grade A allowed by a defense that simply didn\u2019t show up for the first period. But the Stars\u2019 starting netminder didn\u2019t make the saves to bail his teammates out that he had in his previous 14 starts where he went 12-0-2.<\/p>\n

The Stars\u2019 night got better from there, closing the gap to a 6-4 final, but they were never able to fully recover. Dallas has now lost three games in a row and four of its last five.<\/p>\n

Sports Roundup<\/p>\n

Get the latest D-FW sports news, analysis and opinion delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, Kevin Sherrington’s A La Carte.<\/p>\n

By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n

Oettinger was benched at American Airlines Center for the first time since Pete DeBoer pulled him minutes into the Stars\u2019 final game of last season\u2019s Western Conference finals<\/a> against Edmonton \u2014 a consequential move contributing to the coach\u2019s firing<\/a> weeks later. New coach Glen Gulutzan<\/a> had benched Oettinger once before, on the road at Carolina on Jan. 6.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t good enough for him in the first,\u201d Stars forward Wyatt Johnston said. \u201cHe\u2019s such an important part of our team, and he\u2019s such an amazing goalie. It\u2019s not fun to see your goalie get pulled. That\u2019s on us to do a better job in front of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olympic golden goal scorer Jack Hughes beat his former Team USA teammate twice in the first period. Jesper Bratt and Connor Brown added the other two for New Jersey when they were given far too much space by the Stars\u2019 skaters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made too many mistakes as a D-corps and let lots of guys in behind us tonight,\u201d Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. \u201cWe knew that going in, just how they can get in behind you and use their speed. I thought, collectively, we weren\u2019t good back there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnston matched Hughes\u2019 two goals, scoring the lone Dallas goal in the first period before adding a second on the power play the next period. The goals brought Johnston to 40 on the season, making him the first Star to pass the 40-goal mark since Jason Robertson in 2022-23.<\/p>\n

Robertson scored a goal to bring him to 39 and recorded assists on each of Johnston\u2019s goals for a three-point game. With one more goal, Robertson and Johnston will be the first Stars teammates to record 40 goals in the same season.<\/p>\n

Backup goalie Casey DeSmith filled in well for the Stars, giving them a chance to fight back and close the New Jersey advantage to one goal entering the third period. DeSmith stopped 15 of 16 shots he faced, but Timo Meier snuck a puck in early in the third period to put the game near out of reach.<\/p>\n

Mavrik Bourque closed it to a one-goal margin again with 6:52 remaining, but Dallas couldn\u2019t find the equalizer.<\/p>\n

After scoring an average of 2.2 goals per game in their five prior contests, the Stars found some of the offense they were lacking. But their defense couldn\u2019t contain a New Jersey team comfortably out of the East Coast playoff picture. <\/p>\n

The Stars now head east to face four teams fighting in a neck-and-neck battle for spots in the postseason. The four-game road trip begins against the New York Islanders on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly don\u2019t think this is a lack of effort. It\u2019s a lack of execution,\u201d Gulutzan said. \u201cI don\u2019t think this is going to be a quick reset. I think we\u2019re going to have to work our way out of it and execute our way out of it. Usually, the way we get out of these is play a real stingy road game. We\u2019re going to have to find one of those quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Find more Stars coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As far as starts to games go, Tuesday\u2019s might\u2019ve been the worst the Stars had all year. Maybe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[732,102,104,103,1115,3633,3627,3628,2484,154,2486,3632],"class_list":["post-219555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-article","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-dallas-stars","tag-glen-gulutzan","tag-jake-oettinger","tag-jason-robertson","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-stars","tag-wyatt-johnston"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}