*Photo from AP News*
Apparently, the recipe to winning in Montreal is the elder statesman. Jason Robertson had a goal and an assist, Joe Pavelski recorded a hat trick, and the Dallas Stars defeated the Montreal Canadiens with a 5-2 victory on Saturday night in Montreal.
The win on the road continues a torrid start to the season for the Stars, who find themselves with a 4-0-1 record in the first 5 games of the season. Statistically, Robertson's goal and assist made a two point night, with Jamie Benn and Roope Hintz also adding two assists to the pile.
However, the spotlight was on Pavelski, who recorded his first hat trick of the season in the road win. The 38 year old Pavelski notched his 6th career hat trick on Saturday, and his first since February 24, 2019, during the 2018-2019 season. He scored a natural hat trick for the San Jose Sharks in that game, beating the Detroit Red Wings by a 5-3 score.
Dallas head coach Pete Deboer said of Pavelski that "It's incredible what he's doing. He looks exactly like he did five, six years ago, like the clock stopped. And he looks like he could do it for another five years. It's hard to explain. He's just a special athlete."
On the power play early in the game, Pavelski scored his second goal of the season 4:24 into play, giving the Stars a 1-0 lead with assists coming from Robertson and Benn. A little over 11 minutes later, Mike Hoffman got the Canadiens on the board, tying the game 1-1 at the 15:35 mark of the first, assisted by Arber Xhekaj and Jake Evans.
Just 18 seconds into the second period, Pavelski gave the Stars a 2-1 lead on his second goal of the night. Robertson then scored on the power play 4:31 into the period to make it 3-1. Xhekaj then scored his first NHL goal, cutting the Canadiens deficit to a 3-2 margin. Esa Lindell scored with 17 seconds left in the second to make it 4-2, and Pavelski scored the lone goal of the 3rd to make it a 5-2 final.
Pavelski said of beating Montreal that "They have a lot of firepower. They're playing fast, they're playing with some confidence, so the challenge for us was, it's early, we've been playing good, don't take these guys light because they've put it on some teams early. If you mess around with the puck, they can turn and burn and get to you. And you saw that at times. When they had the momentum, they were coming."
Drawing the start in net for the Stars was once again Jake Oettinger. He put together a strong outing, saving 32 of the 34 shots he was tasked with stopping, good for a .941 save percentage. The win keeps Oettinger's record a perfect 4-0-0 to open the season.
Starting opposite Oettinger was Jake Allen for the Canadiens. Allen could not match what Oettinger was doing, taking the loss to move his record down to 2-2-0. Allen turned aside only 25 of the 30 shots the Stars sent his way, recording a mere .833 save percentage in the loss.
After the game, Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis offered his thoughts, saying that "We had an offensive push in the first and we got scored on twice in the second. We kept pushing and I thought we had a few bounces that could have come our way and it could have been a tie game. But we leave the second trailing by two, it’s tough to get back in the third in this league."
Up next, the Stars get back in action with a Monday night road matchup with the Ottawa Senators, with Oettinger likely to get another start. Allen is the probable starter for the Canadiens when they face the Minnesota Wild at home on Tuesday night.
Comments
Post a Comment