Basisphilosophie » DALLAS (AP) — First-year Dallas Stars coach

Jim Montgomery called out the franchise for a “culture of mediocrity Jaycob Megna Jersey Womens ,” led a feedback-sharing session with players and briefly benched one of his top-scoring forwards.And this was all in less than a week, not long after team CEO Jim Lites profanely ripped the performances of captain Jamie Benn and fellow high-priced forward Tyler Seguin.While they will never say Lites’ somewhat shocking comments about his highest-profile and most expensive players have anything to do with it, the Stars clearly are eager to escape a rut of missing the playoffs in eight of the past 10 seasons. Dallas has a precarious hold on one of the final two Western Conference playoff spots at the All-Star break.“Right now we’re getting challenged as a group and individually,” forward Jason Spezza told The Associated Press. “As a veteran guy, it’s exciting because it means they want us to push and they’re not happy with where we’re at. When you’re older, you’re trying to win now. You’re not really worried about the future. I like the way the message is going to help us win now.”Perhaps it’s easier for Spezza to pick a word such as “exciting” because the 35-year-old player, now in his 16th season, wasn’t the target of Lites’ rant late last month.The longtime team executive sought out some of the reporters who cover the team regularly and used plenty of profanity along with “terrible” and “embarrassing” to describe the play of Benn and Seguin. Lites turned down an AP request for an interview Thursday.Asked what he made of the events of the few weeks that started with Lites’ bombshell, Benn smiled through apparent disdain for the question and said, “Nothing.” Seguin wasn’t available to reporters after the last practice, morning skate and game before the team’s seven-day break.The day after the criticism from Lites, Benn and Seguin said they needed to play better while taking issue with some of Lites’ more pointed jabs. Both said they played for their teammates, not Lites.“We’re trying to push the envelope Max Jones Jersey Womens ,” Montgomery said. “Everybody is, from their respective positions, and trying to make us better and trying to get more consistent at what we are.”Montgomery met with players and the coaching staff on Jan. 14, the same day Dallas traded young forward Devin Shore to Anaheim for 12-year veteran Andrew Cogliano, a move to add experience and speed.Three days later, Montgomery benched Alexander Radulov for the last half of the first period after the Russian forward said he talked back to the coach. In that 2-1 loss to the last-place Los Angeles Kings, the Stars came within 64 seconds of getting shut out in two straight games, both at home, for the first time in 20 years. He wasn’t very happy five nights earlier either after a second straight loss to an also-ran, 3-1 to St. Louis at home following a 2-1 defeat at Philadelphia.The coach making the rare transition from college to the pros wasn’t scathing with his comments on the level of Lites, but his reaction was notable nonetheless.“Two games in a row where we don’t compete at a level that is acceptable, and it is everybody and unfortunately, I am very frustrated that I have not been able to gain consistency in our performance and I haven’t been able to change the culture of mediocrity Andrej Sustr Jersey Womens ,” Montgomery said.Lites picked Benn and Seguin because he believed they were underperforming for a team falling short of expectations, and because Lites said he had the support of equally frustrated owner Tom Gaglardi.It also had a lot to do with money. Benn is on an eight-year, $76 million contract that started in July 2016, and Seguin signed an eight-year, $79 million extension before this season that kicks in for 2019-20.While Benn and Seguin are tied for the team lead with 18 goals apiece, neither is in the top 40 in the NHL in points after both finished among the 25 best their first five seasons together. This is also the first time at least one of the two didn’t make the All-Star game since they’ve been teammates.The timing of Lites’ comments was curious, with Dallas in the playoff picture and coming off a 2-0 win at Nashville that was notable for backup goalie Anton Khudobin’s club record for saves in a shutout with 49.General manager Jim Nill said he agreed with the message , although not with the use of profanity. Then came the “mediocrity” line from his third coach in three seasons .“My biggest thing is, what’s our identity?” Nill said. “We’ve seen we can be fast. We’ve seen we can be a heavy, hard team. Are we that? Or are we a mix of that? That’s what we have to find out right now. And it’s the consistency of the game.”Consistency is what Montgomery seeks. The question is how many more times the quest will be displayed in such raw terms for everyone to see.“I think it’s a coach trying to push buttons and trying to figure out how to get us from being the middle team to being a team that’s comfortably in the playoffs and looking for bigger things,” Spezza said. “It wasn’t a shock at all to me because we all feel like we’re trying to push the right buttons to get this group to take another step.” SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) Marcus Sorensen and Joonas Donskoi delivered the fast start San Jose coach Peter DeBoer wanted and Martin Jones did the rest to help the Sharks tie their playoff series with Vegas at two games apiece.Sorensen and Donskoi scored in the first period and Jones made 34 saves for his sixth career postseason shutout as the Sharks bounced back from an overtime loss to beat the Golden Knights 4-0 in Game 4 on Wednesday night.”We’d been chasing the game the whole series,” DeBoer said. ”We talked about it Barrett Hayton Jersey Womens , but it’s easier said than done. I think we’ve had chances in the last two games to get out in front, but (Marc-Andre) Fleury has I think been exceptional, especially early in games, in order to keep us off the board. It’s nice that we’ve stuck with it, and hopefully we see some cracks.”Tomas Hertl added his team-leading fifth goal of the playoffs and Joe Pavelski scored a power-play goal in the third to set up a best-of-three for a spot in the Western Conference Final.Game 5 is Friday night in Las Vegas.Fleury made 30 saves and Vegas failed to convert on all five power-play chances while losing for the second time in eight games this postseason.”They were a little more competitive than we were tonight,” Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant said. ”We didn’t play a bad game, but we didn’t play well enough to win and they did, and they really did. I think we played well enough to win all of the first three, but tonight? No.”Jones was a big reason for that, starting with a key save early against Reilly Smith. Jones was helped on a delayed penalty when Brent Burns cleared a puck off the goal line and when James Neal hit the post on a power play in the first period.But the San Jose goalie also delivered some big-time saves, including back-to-back stops against William Karlsson and Jonathan Marchessault on a Vegas power play in the final minute of the second. Jones then turned aside Smith on a power play in the third.Jones tied Evgeni Nabokov’s team record for most saves in a playoff shutout, and the Sharks have turned things around following a 7-0 loss in the opener.”I thought we probably managed the puck a little bit better for the whole game,” Jones said. ”We won battles on the boards Michael Grabner Jersey Womens , we got pucks out when we needed to and we got pucks in when we needed to. That was big for us tonight.”Hertl helped give Jones a cushion with his goal early in the second. Logan Couture won an offensive zone faceoff against Erik Haula, and Mikkel Boedker took the puck behind the net for a wraparound attempt. Hertl was in front and knocked in the loose puck to make it 3-0.Pavelski’s goal on the rebound of Couture’s shot sealed the game midway through the third.The Sharks made some changes from Game 3, with defenseman Joakim Ryan returning to the lineup for the first time since March 16 in place of Paul Martin, and Donskoi getting back in after missing the previous game with a lower-body injury.After an early giveaway led to a scoring chance for Vegas, Ryan fared well and stripped William Carrier of the puck to thwart a chance for the Golden Knights.San Jose then scored twice in the final five minutes of the first period. Sorensen struck first, using a pick from linemate Eric Fehr to get loose from the corner and then skate around two defenseman to beat Fleury with his fourth goal of the playoffs.The Sharks added to the lead with 5.1 seconds to go when Donskoi skated from his own zone and beat Fleury with a wrist shot from the high slot.”At the start of the game they actually had some better looks than we did. I think they came out hard and better than we did and then Marcus scored and Joonas’ goal was big as well,” Couture said. ”The 2-0 goal was a massive goal heading into the first intermission.”Vegas was never able to recover from that early deficit.”We got caught a little bit sleeping in the first period and they took advantage,” Marchessault said.NOTES: Nabokov made 34 saves in playoff shutouts against Calgary in 2004 and Detroit in 2007. … Vegas had outscored the opposition 7-1 in the first period through its first seven games this postseason. … Sorensen has five goals in 14 playoff games compared to six in 51 regular-season games.—