DALLAS _ The Stars took chaos Tuesday night and shaped it into a victory.
And there's something to be said for that.
In a game that included six fights and 138 penalty minutes, Dallas remained calm and took a 6-1 victory over the Florida Panthers. That pushed the Stars to 4-0-1 in their past five games and 28-17-4 overall. That's a big deal for a team that is caught in a very tough Central Division battle for playoff positioning.
"We got woken up pretty quickly, and we had to respond. We had no choice," Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said. "Because if we didn't wake up and we didn't respond, we would have gotten pushed right out of the building."
Florida lost starting goalie James Reimer early in the game and felt that Antoine Roussel might have had something to do with it. And while replays showed Roussel didn't touch Reimer, the game still unraveled.
"I think it started because they thought we hit the goalie, which we didn't, and that started the ball rolling," Hitchcock said. "This was emotion and feistiness and people angry at each other."
The Stars stayed focused, and that helped create a big win. Alexander Radulov ran his scoring streak to eight games and tallied two goals and an assist. He now has 15 points (six goals, nine assists) in his scoring streak. Devin Shore had a goal and an assist. John Klingberg had two assists and now leads the Stars in scoring with 48 points in 49 games. Klingberg also leads all NHL defensemen in scoring.
Ben Bishop made 33 saves to get the win.
"Bishop was solid all night," Hitchcock said. "To me, he was very quiet in his position. I thought he really managed his crease well and made some big saves."
It was a nice team effort, and a fun night at the arena.
"You love games like that," said center Radek Faksa who took place in two fights. "It's like playoff games, and we were ready and I think we showed that. It was great game by us."
