Home not so sweet for Stars
In what seems to be an oft-repeating storyline, if the Stars are going to end a three-year playoff drought this season, then they will need to win as much as possible at home down the stretch.
That makes Sunday's 4-2 loss to the Kings at American Airlines Center pretty tough to take for first-year head coach Glen Gulutzan.
"They're all tough losses this time of year when you're trying to catch anybody in the standings," Gulutzan said.
Dallas trailed 1-0 after the opening period and was down 2-1 after 40 minutes of play, something the Stars head coach attributed to something that has become all too common with this club, self-inflicted wounds.
"Turnovers hurt us again, seven turnovers in the first period and one turned into a goal," Gulutzan said. "Then a turnover at the nine-minute mark of the third turned into a goal, so some self-inflicted wounds once again."
In last Tuesday's 4-1 loss to Phoenix, he lamented what he saw as a lack of team effort on a grand scale. Gulutzan didn't issue a similar indictment after Sunday's loss, but did say he had several players who weren't ready to go against the Kings.
"You've got to take away ice time from guys if they're not ready and we tried to do that tonight," he said. "We had some guys going. Some guys were chugging but we need everybody going. We've done everything to changing practices to no practices to conserve energy but at this time of year, you have to play a certain way. Guys have to be ready to go. There's no excuses for it."
But the good news is the Stars won't have to wait long to atone for Sunday's loss. On Tuesday they visit Detroit, which hasn't lost at home in 19 straight games.
And for this Dallas club to right the ship at home, maybe it needs to adopt a mentality similar to the one it has when it's away from the Lone Star State.
"I think we just have to take that road mentality and bring it home," Gulutzan said. "We've played way better on the road. We talked about that today, more of a team game. It's not going to come easy."
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