from Ted Kulfan of the Detroit News,

Critical mistakes on special teams were costly to the Detroit Red Wings on Friday night, and they began the second half of their season with a 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars.

Dylan Larkin opened the scoring but the Wings couldn’t generate another goal all evening, unable to build upon Tuesday’s rare victory.

Roope Hintz (short-handed), Radek Faksa (power play), Joe Pavelski and Andrej Sekera (short-handed) scored Stars goals as Dallas won the special teams battle with three such goals, and capitalized on Wings turnovers.

“We made what I would say totally preventable mistakes and gave away goals and chances for no reason,” Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. “We work too hard to try to create offense, work too hard to create offensive zone time, to give away those easy chances. We have to be better at that, and our specialty teams have to be better.”

continued