DALLAS — Message sent, message received.
With so much at stake in a mid-November game, the Stars responded with their strongest performance of the season – a 5-2 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers in front of a sold-out crowd of 18,532 at American Airlines Center on Saturday night. It might’ve only been game No. 13 of 82, but the pressure to win was peaking for a club that had dropped six of its past seven.
Video: Hintz scores a goal and earns an assist in a 5-2 win
Prior to the game, Stars head coach Rick Bowness said the team would need a great game from Anton Khudobin. The veteran netminder delivered. He kept the Stars afloat in the first period with several highlight-reel saves, including a right-pad stop on Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim. Had he scored, the game would’ve been tied. Who knows how the game would’ve shaken out.
Instead, Khudobin was dynamite. He finished the game with 31 saves on 33 shots to improve his record this season to 3-2-1. Khudobin also padded his all-time mark against the Flyers to 6-3-1 in 10 career appearances.
His teammates repaid the favor with a season-high five goals from five different players: Luke Glendening, Roope Hintz, Tyler Seguin, Joe Pavelski and Radek Faksa.
Second periods have been rough for the Stars all season, but it was their best 20-minute frame on Saturday. Perhaps the biggest goal came from Seguin, who regained the team’s two-goal lead just 26 seconds after the Flyers cut a two-goal deficit in half.
The Stars opened the scoring with 6:37 remaining in the first period when Glendening’s tip-in snuck past Flyers goaltender Martin Jones for his fourth goal of the season. It temporarily placed him in a tie for the team lead in goals with Seguin.
Video: PHI@DAL: Glendening redirects a shot into the net
Dallas doubled its lead at the 12:22 mark of the middle frame when Hintz tapped home his second goal in as many games, pushing his point streak to three in a row.