Dobes, Canadiens edge Stars to extend point streak to 6 

DALLAS -- Jakub Dobes made 32 saves for the Montreal Canadiens, who scored three straight goals to defeat the Dallas Stars 3-1 at American Airlines Center on Thursday.

“When I was in Laval (AHL), I wanted to be here. The one thing is that I want to prove that I belong here. The second thing is that I want to show them that they made the right choice,” Dobes said. “There were a lot of days in Laval that I wanted to be here. It’s kind of a motivation to show everyone that maybe they were wrong. I don’t want to say it in a confident way but I just want to prove myself.”

The 23-year-old goalie has allowed four goals while winning his first four NHL starts, including a 34-save shutout in his debut against the Florida Panthers on Dec. 28.

“It seems like everything that hits him just sticks to him,” Montreal captain Nick Suzuki said. “He’s having a great start to his career. It’s impressive to watch. Really confident goalie for a young guy.”

Juraj Slafkovsky, Alex Newhook and Joel Armia scored for the Canadiens (22-18-4), who have points in six straight (5-0-1) and are 11-2-1 in the past 14 games.

“[Dobes] played really good. It’s got to be one of those games where their goalie steals points, steals goals, and tonight was like that,” Dallas forward Jason Robertson said. “I thought we played really well. Pretty much all our forwards could have scored one today.”

Robertson scored, and Jake Oettinger made 21 saves for the Stars (28-15-1), who have lost two of three after a seven-game winning streak.

“We had a bunch of chances all night, we just needed one more to go our way,” Oettinger said. “You’ve got to try to look at [close games] as an opportunity to make a big save to keep it 1-1 or make a big save and then we go down and score. It’s fun and hopefully we’re playing in a lot of those down the stretch. Those have been going my way lately and tonight it didn’t.”

Slafkovsky tied it 1-1 at 4:37 of the first period. He tapped in a backhanded centering pass from Cole Caufield, who drove through the left circle and deked around a sliding Miro Heiskanen before finding Slafkovsky at the top of the crease.

“You feel better after that. Next shift, you feel better with the puck and make better decisions. You do a couple of good things and it leads up to good decision making hopefully,” Slafkovsky said. “Right now, I’m like one goal per month. Hopefully I can get two this month.”

Newhook put the Canadiens ahead 2-1 at 9:15 of the third, redirecting a point shot from Lane Hutson past a screened Oettinger. Huston has points in six straight games (one goal, nine assists) and leads all rookies with 36 points (three goals, 33 assists) in 44 games.

“It was a tight game. I think we started a little bit slow but then got going. Second was good. Then a tipped goal and we couldn’t tie it up,” Dallas defenseman Esa Lindell said. “I was trying to find it and I said check it [for high stick]. I now know how [Oettinger] feels when it gets tipped because it was coming right here [at my shoulder].”

Armia scored an empty-net goal for the 3-1 final with 17 seconds left.

“I think we have a big buy-in, more than just what is good for [individuals]. It becomes contagious, and when you have that mindset as a group, it’s kind of a pack mentality. You’re harder to play against, and we’re seeing that,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said.

Robertson gave Dallas a 1-0 lead at 3:50 in the first period when he finished a rebound at the bottom of the right face-off circle after Dobes knocked down Evgenii Dadonov’s shot from the left side.

“I thought we had more than enough chances to score a couple goals tonight, didn’t stick them in,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer. “Coming off a road trip with a quick turnaround, I liked our effort. I thought the first ten minutes we came out a little slow considering the situation, but I liked our game. At the end of two, we should have been up. We did a lot of things right tonight.”

NOTES: Dobes joined Charlie Lindgren of the Washington Capitals as the only goaltenders in League history to win their first four NHL starts with each of them on the road. … Dallas forward Roope Hintz missed the game after sustaining an upper-body injury in a 4-1 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday. He is listed as day to day.