Pavelski scored 12 points (6 goals, 6 assists) during this period.
“It was a good 60 minutes and a good start,” Dallas captain Jamie Benn said. “Our penalty kill did a great job. We gave up one goal, but it was a great power play. We’ll take the two points.”
Jason Robertson scored twice for the Stars (14-5-3), and Ben, Mason Marchment and Thomas Hurley each had a goal and an assist. Jake Oettinger made 32 saves for Dallas, which is 7-2-2 in its last 11 games.
Victor Hedman scored and Nikita Kucherov had an assist and the Lightning (10-10-5) extended their winning streak to nine games, but suffered a season-high four-game losing streak. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 19 saves on 25 shots in the first two periods, and Jonas Johansson made seven saves in the third period.
Tampa Bay won 19-5 during a slump.
Lightning coach Jon Cooper said, “In 82 games, when you feel like every shot goes into the (opponent’s) net and everything you hit doesn’t go into the net, it stinks some. It’s going to happen,” he said. “Normally you can just burn the tape and turn the page to move on to the next game. The hard part is that three out of the four games where you could have definitely won two of them, you won’t get the points in the last three. That’s what we earned. Then it’s not like that and all of a sudden you’re losing four in a row, so this time it’s a lot trickier.”
Kucherov scored 17 points (4 goals, 13 assists) during the scoring streak. He appeared in 23 games and became the fastest player in Lightning history to reach 40 points in a season (15 goals, 25 assists). Steven Stamkos took 25 games to reach 40 points in the 2010-11 season.
Tyler Seguin gave the Stars a 1-0 lead 1:01 into the game by scoring a rebound from the air near the left post.
