The benefit of being 34 games into an NHL season is there’s no longer any need for guesswork. The Stars are exactly who their record says they are. At 14-3-1 inside the American Airlines Center and 4-11-1 away from home ice, the Stars are a good, maybe even great, home team. On the road, the title of almost every game is Dallas and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
“We have some guys who are very comfortable playing at home and very uncomfortable playing on the road,” head coach Rick Bowness said. “It’s very obvious.”
From top to bottom, the Stars came out flat in Florida Friday evening, culminating in a 7-1 debacle. They came out and put shots on goal early, but it was hardly a stressful day at the office for Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. More troubling was a team that prides itself on a defensive identity looked ill-prepared to counter a relentless Florida offense. The Panthers’ habit of running up the score is no secret; they’ve scored at least four goals in each of the past eight games (and they scored at least six goals in four of those eight). And yet, there was Jonathan Huberdeau finding Anthony Duclair — neither player facing much resistance — early in the second period to give the Panthers an early 2-0 lead.
“There was a lot.
