The Dallas Stars did not need a long film session to identify Friday's problems. St. Louis left American Airlines Center with a 4-0 win, Joel Hofer's 25-save shutout and an early Mason McTavish goal that drained the opener before Dallas's legs arrived. Coach Glen Gulutzan said the Blues got to their game faster and stayed there.
Tyler Seguin, back for his first game since a torn ACL last December, called the night closer to preseason than October hockey.
Saturday does not wait for the critique to age. The Stars are at Bridgestone Arena at 7 p.m. Central against the Nashville Predators, the first night of a back-to-back and the first of four meetings with a club Dallas swept 3-0 last season. Casey DeSmith is expected to start, giving Jake Oettinger a breather after 20 saves in the shutout loss.
The power play that never landed
Dallas went 0-for-4 on the man advantage Friday after leading the league in power-play goals a season ago. The failure mattered most in the third period, when a five-minute major on Brandon Carlo for a knee-on-knee hit on Roope Hintz and a subsequent minor created extended special-teams time. Miro Heiskanen said the looks were there and the finishes were not.
Hintz returned after the hit; Gulutzan admitted he was concerned until the center came back.
That sequence is the opener's lasting image more than the empty-netters Jimmy Snuggerud and Pius Suter added late. A team built to punish penalties instead let St. Louis squeeze the game dry.
Nashville's penalty kill was 75 percent through its own opener, a 3-1 loss to Minnesota, so Saturday is not a soft reset for Dallas's unit - it is another early test of whether Friday was rust or a structural stall.
Seguin's return, DeSmith's night, Duchene's absence
Seguin logged 14:55 with a minus-2 and six penalty minutes in his return. He said the game felt fast early and slowed later, the familiar rhythm of a long layoff meeting real NHL pace.
His availability is a win for a roster Gulutzan has described as thin under the cap; Matt Duchene remains out, among other absences noted on the Predators' game-day materials and earlier Stars coverage.
