DALLAS — The Canadians settled on five-for-five in the eyes of their coach, but they shot themselves in the foot by racking up penalties at the American Airlines Center on Friday night.

Wyatt Johnston broke the tie in the third half by scoring the team’s third goal on the power play, and the Dallas Stars defeated the Montreal team 4-2.

Michael Pezzetta and fourth-row partner Jake Evans gave the Canadians a 2-0 lead with his first goal of the season. However, Pezzetta was in the dungeon when Johnston scored the winning goal.

“It was one of our best five-a-side games in a long time, but we gave five power plays to a well-functioning unit,” said Canadiens head coach Martin St-Louis.

Evgenii Dadonov had made way in the formation of Canadian Pezzetta.

“’Pezz’ is a guy who takes care of the team. It’s a penalty that hurts, but there were also tough decisions tonight,” said St-Louis in defense of Pezzetta.

St-Louis had also revised its lines, notably separating Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield for the first time this season. The result was not particularly convincing, but the head coach was satisfied.

“I liked the game of a lot of everyone,” stressed St-Louis. we were engaged We played against a good team. It’s nice to see our support players producing. I’m happy with our lines.”

Roope Hintz had a power play double for the Stars (20-9-6) while Jason Robertson had two assists. Joel Kiviranta added a blank net while Jake Oettinger stopped 22 shots.

Jake Allen made 32 saves in front of the Canadiens’ net (15-16-3).

The Canadian will take the collar on December 28 when he makes the first stop of a four-game trip by visiting the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The battle of the special forces

Evans got going at 4:04 of the game and scored on the power play with a breakthrough between the Stars defenders, then a nice feint past Oettinger.

Everyone cheered Evans returned to the attack a little later. Despite covering defender Ryan Suter in a one-on-one attack, Evans was able to challenge Oettinger but he missed the target.

Evans then set the table for the shorthanded Pezzetta, but Oettinger parried.

Pezzetta returned to attack early in the second half. This time he beat Oettinger 2:24 with a perfect shot.

Quietly, the Stars began to increase the pressure on the Canadian.

They eventually reduced the deficit to 2-1 with 4:41 left in the second period during a power play. Hintz cleverly deflected a throw-in from Jason Robertson into the goal.

The Stars then leveled the game at 2:27 in the third period, again on the power play. Again, a Robertson shot deflected off Hintz’ bat before surprising Allen.

The Canadian goalkeeper saved the deadlock a little later with a nice save against Jamie Benn when the Stars were outnumbered.

However, Johnston was the hero with 5:00 to go while Pezzetta was in the box for bringing down a rival in the Star Zone.

Kiviranta completed the goal in an empty net with 17 seconds left.

Dressing Room Echoes

Jake Evans was frustrated to see the Canadian gamble away a two-goal lead.

“We improve when we’re in the lead. We played against a good team and we shot ourselves in the foot with penalties. We played well five against five in the first two periods. If we had continued like this, the story would certainly have been different.

Evans was relieved to finally have scored his first goal of the season.

“It feels good, especially before the break. But it’s not like I think about it all the time. I don’t think I did things differently tonight.”

Michael Pezzetta spoke about the message from coach Martin St-Louis before the game.

“We know our style of hockey and we are successful when we play fast and hard. We’re a good team and we showed that over long stretches of the game. That was his message tonight: play fast and aggressively and level up.