At 16:08 of the second period, Justin Hryckowian redirected Tyler Myers’ point shot past Connor Hellebuyck and gave Dallas its only plausible foothold in Tuesday’s game. At 16:36, Luke Hughes answered with a wrist shot. The Stars had 28 seconds to turn 3-1 into the beginning of a chase. Instead, New Jersey rebuilt the three-goal margin before Dallas could make the score feel unstable.
The Devils’ 5-1 victory at American Airlines Center was not decided by that interval alone, but it exposed the difference between scoring once and creating a comeback. A team down three goals does not need instant perfection. It needs the next shift to preserve the possibility of the one after it. Luke Hughes’ reply made that task substantially harder almost immediately.
Hryckowian’s goal deserved its place as Dallas’ clearest positive. It was his second goal in two games and his only shot of the night. The play began with a Myers point shot, with Colin Blackwell also receiving an assist, and it followed a Matthew Seminoff shot on goal at 16:02. Dallas had finally converted a brief offensive sequence into something measurable on the scoreboard.
The arithmetic changed before the Stars could add to it. Luke Hughes’ goal, assisted by Dougie Hamilton and Anthony Mantha, made the score 4-1. Dallas now needed three goals to tie, after having briefly reduced that requirement to two.
That distinction made the next defensive shift important in a very practical way: another Devils goal would turn a difficult comeback into a remote one, while a clean shift could have kept the door ajar.
New Jersey had built its cushion through three earlier even-strength goals. Nico Hischier opened the scoring 2:41 into the first period after the Devils created a 2-on-1 with Timo Meier. Hischier scored again 38 seconds into the second, finishing a Meier setup. At 11:45, Jesper Boqvist extended the lead to 3-0 on a wrist shot following Jack Hughes’ no-look pass.
The second-period numbers explain why Hryckowian’s finish stood alone. New Jersey put 15 shots on goal in the period to Dallas’ four. That does not mean every Devils attempt carried equal danger, nor does it establish that Dallas had no useful possessions.
It does show how little offensive repetition the Stars generated while the game was still within reach. A lone redirect cannot carry three goals of deficit when the surrounding attack produces so few tests.
New Jersey generated 60 attempts to Dallas’ 38, while the shot-on-goal margin favored the Devils 27-18. The 20 Dallas attempts that did not reach the net were blocked or missed; that count says where those possessions ended, not how threatening they were.
Still, 18 shots is a weak foundation for a comeback, particularly against Hellebuyck, who stopped 17 of them in his first Devils appearance of the season.
There is a fair counterpoint to any attempt to make the opposing goalie the entire explanation. Hellebuyck was beaten, and Dallas found the route with a redirect of Myers’ shot. The problem was not an inability to solve him once.
