Matt Duchene helps Stars rally from 2-goal deficit in a 5-2 victory over the Blue Jackets
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Matt Duchene scored the go-ahead goal in the second period and the Dallas Stars rallied from a two-goal deficit, beating the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-2 on Thursday night and snapping a two-game losing streak.
Mason Marchment, Craig Smith and Jason Robertson also scored, and Tyler Seguin contributed a goal and an assist. Duchene and Nils Lundkvist each added a pair of assists, and Jake Oettinger stopped 28 shots in his sixth win for Dallas. The Stars have 11 road points in eight games.
“We’ve been playing some good hockey as a group, but it’s crazy how much better we can play,” Seguin said. “We’re finding ways to get points, and we haven’t come close to hitting our stride.”
Boone Jenner and Kirill Marchenko scored, and Spencer Martin stopped 27 shots for Columbus, which has lost three straight and seven of its last eight games, including falling in Dallas on Oct. 30.
The Blue Jackets looked to dominate early with a pair of first-period goals. Jenner slid a pass from Johnny Gaudreau through traffic with 1:08 elapsed for his team-leading seventh goal of the season. Marchenko buried a feed from Adam Fantilli at 8:43 for his third goal in four games.
After that, it was all Dallas, which cut the lead in half less than two minutes later when Marchment scored from the slot off a give-and-go with Duchene.
“We had a great start,” Blue Jackets coach Pascale Vincent said. “We’re moving, we’re fast, we’re playing with pace. The structure is right, and then individual mistakes that we don’t need to make — they made us pay every time. Then there’s a shift in the momentum of the game.”
Smith pulled the Stars even at 10:20 of the second period, and former Blue Jacket Duchene gave Dallas the lead with 3:26 left in the second after his shot got through Martin’s pads.
“Every time he hits the ice, he’s demanding the puck and he’s attacking the middle of the ice and holes in the defense and creating room for other people,” Stars coach Peter DeBoer said of Duchene. “He’s playing at a high level right now.”
Sequin made it 4-2 at 3:47 of the third period, and Robertson added an empty-netter at 17:04.
“They play a simple hard game,” Jenner said of the Stars. “We got away from our game a little bit and that’s what happens. They come back and we’re not able to get back in the game.”
Dallas is 6-0 when leading after two periods and has won seven of its last nine games against the Blue Jackets.
UP NEXT
Stars: Visit Winnipeg on Saturday night.
Blue Jackets: Visit Detroit on Saturday night.
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