{"id":309775,"date":"2025-10-17T04:03:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T04:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/309775\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T04:03:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T04:03:22","slug":"nightmare-second-period-dooms-dallas-stars-vs-vancouver-canucks-in-first-loss-of-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/309775\/","title":{"rendered":"Nightmare second period dooms Dallas Stars vs. Vancouver Canucks in first loss of season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Through 20 minutes of play Thursday night, the Dallas Stars<\/a> seemed poised to cruise to their fourth consecutive victory to start the season.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem we\u2019re getting into a little bit isn\u2019t so much structure. It\u2019s just managing the game. We need to manage leads,\u201d Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. \u201cIt\u2019s being able to push back when their push is on to stop their momentum, and we\u2019re not doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

After wins over three probable playoff teams, the Stars fell to the team that many wouldn\u2019t be surprised to see miss the field in April.<\/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

Stars backup goaltender Casey DeSmith<\/a> 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\u2019 goals were on high-danger chances, DeSmith wasn\u2019t stopping direct some shots that his team needed him to.<\/p>\n

The Stars\u2019 defensive play in front of him was ugly as well.<\/p>\n

Around four minutes into the second period, defenseman Miro Heiskanen<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Crashing down to Earth: See photos from the Dallas Stars’ loss vs. the Vancouver Canucks<\/p>\n

\"DallasView Gallery<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had the momentum. They were pushing,\u201d Stars defenseman Thomas Harley said. \u201cI think we have to do a better job of weathering the storms.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the first time all season the Stars trailed by multiple goals.<\/p>\n

Wyatt Johnston<\/a> scored with 2:03 remaining in regulation on a late power play, extending his season-opening goal streak to four games. But Dallas couldn\u2019t find the equalizer in the final two minutes, and Vancouver added and empty netter with 36 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. Vancouver\u2019s Elias Pettersson deflected in Bourque\u2019s shot toward the net. Rantanen made it 2-0 in the last minute of the first period, scoring on the power play.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Harley assisted on Bourque\u2019s goal and has now recorded points in all four of the Stars\u2019 games \u2014 one goal and five assists.<\/p>\n

After Bourque\u2019s goal, 12 different Stars have now scored in Dallas\u2019 four games. The defensive game is the bigger question.<\/p>\n

The Stars were also without three forwards \u2014 Jamie Benn and Oskar B\u00e4ck, who remain on IR, and Matt Duchene, who was ruled out for Thursday\u2019s game after taking a big hit in Tuesday\u2019s win over the Wild. Adam Erne made his first appearance for the Stars this season in Duchene\u2019s place.<\/p>\n

Dallas will hit the road again to face St. Louis Saturday night before returning for a three-game homestand next week.<\/p>\n

\"Dallas<\/a>Dallas Stars forward Matt Duchene will not play Thursday vs. Vancouver<\/a><\/p>\n

Duchene was day-to-day after exiting Tuesday night\u2019s win over Minnesota in the third period.<\/p>\n

\"Dallas<\/a>Stars HC Glen Gulutzan talks special home opener, franchise\u2019s \u2018remarkable\u2019 turnaround<\/a><\/p>\n

Gulutzan\u2019s first night back at American Airlines Center was quite a bit different than his first stint as the team\u2019s head coach.<\/p>\n

Find more Stars coverage from <\/b>The Dallas Morning News<\/b> here<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Through 20 minutes of play Thursday night, the Dallas Stars seemed poised to cruise to their fourth consecutive…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":309776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,1320,24883,71991,71990,293,62,4810,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,123520],"class_list":{"0":"post-309775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-stars","11":"tag-glen-gulutzan","12":"tag-mikko-rantanen","13":"tag-miro-heiskanen","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-stars","17":"tag-texas","18":"tag-tx","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-wyatt-johnston"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115387525096941307","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}