By Mary Walsh
DALLAS– The San Jose Sharks lost 5-0 to the Dallas Stars Monday. Miro Heiskanen, Joel Kiviranta, Jamie Benn, Jason Robertson and Mikko Rantanen scored for Dallas. Jake Oettinger made 13 saves for the shutout win. Yaroslav Askarov made 21 saves in the loss. Macklin Celebrini was a late scratch due to a lower body injury.
Sharks defenseman Darnell Nurse talked about the challenge of playing without a key player:
“It’s by committee. Everyone’s got to step up and pick up a little bit of slack. When you lose one of your top players. So there’s going to be moments over the course of the season if you want to be a good team, you’ve got to be able to weather those storms.”
Ty Dellandrea, who drew into the lineup when Celebrini was scratched, talked about the loss: “They’re a good team coming off of two losses. They were desperate for a win, so they wanted it more, they were desperate, smothering us, making it hard for us to get to our game plan.”
Miro Heiskanen, scored the lone goal in the first period, giving the Stars the lead. Heiskanen caught a pass off the back boards and used a backhand to score on the right side of Askarov. Assists went to Roope Hintz and Jamie Benn at 18:51.
Dallas outshot the Sharks 11-2 in the first. The Sharks took the only penalty in the period and gave up two shots.
Joel Kiviranta made it 2-0 at 3:17 of the second. His shot was the third try as Dallas skater swarmed the Sharks net. Oskar Bäck and Radek Faksa got the assists.
Jamie Benn made it 3-0 at 6:19. The Stars made two quick passes close to the net and Benn snapped it in. Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz got the assists.
Jason Robertson added another for Dallas at 16:30. Robertson intercepted a pass just below the Sharks blue line, skated in and shot from the slot.
The shots were 9-5 Dallas in the second. Each team took one penalty and each penalty kill gave up two shots.
Mikko Rantanen scored the fifth goal for Dallas at 15:22 of the thrd period. Rantanen carried the puck in and evaded two Sharks defenders on his way to the net for a wrist shot. Sam Steel got the assist.
The shots were even at 6 in the third period. Each team again had one penalty to kill.
The Sharks next play on Thursday at 5:00 PM PT in St. Louis against the Blues.
