Even before Sunday night’s 6-3 loss at Vancouver was over, Dallas Stars coach Rick Bowness knew what his team’s practice plan would be when they arrived back home.
“We’ll have to address this on Tuesday morning when we go back to the rink,” Bowness said. “We’re going to have to fix the penalty kill, we’re going to have to fix the discipline and we’re going to have to fix the consistency with which we play the game.”
The Stars open a three-game homestand Wednesday against Central Division rival Nashville.
It’s safe to say Bowness wasn’t pleased by the Canucks going 3-for-6 with the man advantage. Joe Pavelski, Ryan Suter and Luke Glendening scored for the Stars, Jason Robertson had two assists and goaltender Anton Khudobin made 30 saves.
“Obviously, we got to stay out of the box,” Suter said. “You give skilled players like that that many chances on the power play, it usually ends up hurting you. It definitely did (Monday).”
The Stars are the lone team in the NHL without a regulation victory, as all four of their wins have come in overtime or a shootout.
“That’s not good. It’s crazy to think that,” Pavelski said. “So that’s on each and every one of us. We’ve got to find a way to be better. We’ve got to win a 1-0 game, a 2-0 game, we need that mentality. We’ve got to be a little more patient.
“For whatever reason, there are nights when you’re trying to do too much. We need to really settle back into our team game and work out of this together.”
After playing eight of their first 11 games on the road, the Stars will have nine of their next 11 at home.
“Going home, we need to make sure we’re ready to go and start putting some full games together,” Suter said. “We have the skill on the team, the goalies are great, guys are starting to score now, guys are starting to skate well. We’re close, we’ve just got to put it together now.
“It’s such a long year, but yeah, we’ve got to get to it sooner than later.”
The Predators are coming off a 2-1 overtime loss Sunday at Chicago.
In the midst of a six-game road swing, the Predators returned home after that game as they weren’t scheduled to play again until Wednesday.
“It’s important for the guys to be able to get home and get a day off,” Predators coach John Hynes said. “You know, it’s a difficult trip, obviously from the U.S. to Canada and all the things that go into that. Very competitive opponents. And so I think it’s a well-deserved day off (Monday), and let them get back and see their families and get away from it a little bit and then we’ll come back energized on Tuesday and get ready for a big game again.”
The players seemed to appreciate it.
“Just being home for a day, that’s going to be nice — just to have a breath,” said Alexandre Carrier, who scored the lone goal against Chicago. “November is our toughest month, playing 15 games in 30 days, and then we’re on the road a lot. So just getting ready for our back-to-back against Dallas and St. Louis. … We didn’t get the result (Sunday), but we’ll focus on Dallas and get ready.”
–Field Level Media
