Anton Khudobin did not have a busy weekend.
Khudobin, who returned a false positive COVID-19 test result on Saturday morning, was isolated in his Raleigh hotel room for two days pending two negative test results. He made his first start in a week on Thursday, making 38 saves in a 5-1 Stars win over Chicago.
“You’re just staying in the room, ordering food,” Khudobin said. “Talking to friends. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Eat. Watch TV. Watch computer.”
It's the "I'm like 'Thanks,'" for me. pic.twitter.com/1tdQ2J939f
— Matthew DeFranks (@MDeFranks) April 9, 2021
The routine is probably familiar to many people across the last 13 months of the coronavirus pandemic. Khudobin said in preseason camp that he had COVID-19 during the offseason back in Russia.
“You come to the rink and they call you out and they say ‘You gotta go back to the hotel. That is the policy,’” Khudobin said. “There’s no timeline how long you’re going to be. Hopefully, it’s a couple days, both be negative and you’ll rejoin the team.”
What’s even more familiar: Not being able to watch Stars games on TV. Khudobin said Saturday’s Stars game was blacked out of his hotel television, so he ended up watching on his phone. Once the game ended, the channel re-appeared on the TV.
“I’m like ‘Thanks,’” Khudobin said.
Fox Sports Southwest and Bally Sports Southwest have been tough to stream thanks to both Sinclair’s negotiations with streaming services like YouTubeTV or Hulu, plus Bally’s recent glitch through their app.
Big saves early: Khudobin made 15 saves in the first period to keep the Stars in a game that Chicago mostly controlled at 5 on 5. Dallas cashed in on the power play, but the Blackhawks dominated shot attempts (25-13) and shots on goal (15-6) in the first period.
“He made some big saves for us,” Blake Comeau said. “He was able to keep us in it without getting out of hand.”
Stars coach Rick Bowness said the Stars adjusted both their forecheck and defensive zone coverage during the first intermission, a product of allowing the Blackhawks easy exits from their own zone and shoddy coverage that resulted in Dominik Kubalik’s goal.
“Didn’t like our forecheck, didn’t like our d-zone coverage,” Bowness said. “We had to move some bodies around a little bit. … We had to settle down the forecheck.”
Shutdown line: Two days after Chicago’s top line tore through the Stars with three goals and two assists, the Stars held Alex DeBrincat, Kirby Dach and Patrick Kane off the scoresheet on Thursday night.
A big reason was reuniting the checking line of Andrew Cogliano, Radek Faksa and Blake Comeau. The trio were separated on Tuesday as Rhett Gardner centered Cogliano and Comeau.
“Tonight for the most part, we tried to find our matchup when we could, change when we could,” Comeau said. “Those are some elite players with DeBrincat, Kane, Dach. Tough to keep off the scoreboard, we just tried our best to stay above them, take away their time and space and try to frustrate them the best that we could.”
At 5 on 5 on Thursday, Cogliano-Faksa-Comeau spent 5:16 on the ice with DeBrincat-Dach-Kane. The Stars had more shot attempts (7-5), shots (4-1), scoring chances (5-2) and expected goals (0.34-0.11), according to Natural Stat Trick.
Getting going: Comeau scored twice on Thursday to snap a 23-game goal drought. The goals were just his second and third of the season, the first coming on a breakaway after a Duncan Keith turnover and the second coming after Roope Hintz fed him on a 2 on 1.
“I wouldn’t be honest if I told you that not scoring wasn’t starting to bug me a little bit,” Comeau said. “It felt good to get those two tonight. A bit of a lucky break with Keith falling on the first one and Cogs made a great little pass up to me and I was able to finish it. The last one, obviously, a great pass by Roope and I just had to shovel it in.”
