It took a Dallas Stars team that’s just about as hot as the New York Rangers to finally end the Blueshirts’ impressive run at eight straight wins. Dallas won by a slim margin, edging the Rangers 3-2 on Monday.
With this win, the Stars have now won six of their seven games, with Dallas’ only blemish being a 4-0 home loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
If anything, the Stars might look to their opponents as inspiration to keep this going; the Rangers were 7-7-4 on Nov. 17 but have since gone 12-4-0 to improve to 19-11-4. Dallas is 16-14-5, so again ... they have a long way to go.
The win must be a confidence-booster for Kari Lehtonen in particular, as he didn’t give up a goal since Kevin Hayes found the net 16:46 into the first period. Antoine Roussel’s 3-2 winner came less than a minute into the middle frame, so Lehtonen didn’t have a significant margin for error.
Neither team is out of the woods yet by any means - the Stars dug themselves a big hole while the Rangers face a lot of road games - but both are playing closer to the form they showed during their best moments last season.