Jamie Benn made his 2013 season debut and Jaromir Jagr returned to the Dallas Stars’ lineup on Monday, but they couldn’t stop the team from dropping its third game in a row.
The Columbus Blue Jackets bottled the Stars up for the most part, winning 2-1. Benn was pretty quiet for much of the evening, although he did collect a secondary assist and was thrown out of the contest with four seconds left.
On the bright side, conditioning didn’t seem like a huge issue for the 23-year-old forward, as he logged more than 20 minutes, winning 12 out of 22 faceoffs and firing two shots on goal.
Jagr logged 17:46 of ice time but only managed one shot on goal. The 40-year-old future Hall of Famer hasn’t managed a point since his explosive two-goal, two-assist game on opening night.
Instead of getting an offensive boost, the Stars depended on Kari Lehtonen, who kept Dallas in the game even as Columbus out-shot the Stars 17-5 in the second period. Lehtonen, 29, made one of the highlights of the night with this save:
His effort fell short, though, leaving the Stars with just one point in their last three games and an overall record of 2-3-1.
Tuesday won’t be easy, either. They were already scheduled to face the Red Wings on a back-to-back, but things have gotten worse as the Dallas Morning News’ Mike Heika reports that the team won’t fly to Detroit until tomorrow morning.
At least Benn is back, though.