"Every game has a different opportunity to win, and you have to find a way to win," Tippett said. "We looked like we were chasing the game with our hands and our feet only, and we didn't find a way to win."

Not much went right for the Stars in their 5-1 loss to the Nashville Predators. Like opening night, the Stars found themselves facing a three goal deficit after two periods. The goaltending was shaky. And there was no power play to help them get back in the game this time.

The power play was a major problem Saturday night. It missed three times in the first period and Nashville scored after the first one had expired to take a 1-0 lead.

Down 3-0 in the second the Stars had a chance to crawl back into it with a five-on-three chance for 48 seconds, but couldn't take advantage. There were a couple of more missed opportunities early in the third period.

"We didn't get the extra effort to get the extra chances," Tippett said.

Mike Smith, making his first start of the season, wasn't particularly sharp. But he didn't look much different from the rest of the team.

"I got outplayed,'' said Smith, who allowed four goals on 21 shots. "You've got to make big saves at the right times in the game and I didn't do it."

Tippett wasn't ready to throw Smith under the bus on this one.

"I don't think you can blame the game on Mike,'' Tippett said. "But certainly a couple of big saves wouldn't have hurt our cause. It was more our execution as we tried to create any type of chances.''

Execution hasn't been a strong suit at time for the Stars, even in the win over Boston the Stars looked sluggish and out of sync at times.

Tippett went with basically the same lineup as Friday night, except he replaced Todd Fedoruk with Krys Barch. The feisty winger provided two of the Dallas highlights, going after Predators forward Jordin Tootoo in a fight and scoring Dallas' lone goal on a breakaway late in the third period to give the Stars a breath of life.

But an empty net goal by Martin Gelinas and David Legwand's third goal of the night shut the door on the Stars and sent them to their second defeat in the three games to open the season.

Give credit to the Predators. They played a solid game and improved to 2-0. Both their wins have come over teams that have played the night before, but it's not like they have squeaked out wins. They've played well, cashed in on their chances and received outstanding goaltending from Chris Mason.

The Stars will get a few days between games. They don't play again until Wednesday, when they host the Los Angeles Kings. That's a team they beat all eight times last season.

"I just thanked him." Robidas said during the first intermission interview on the Stars broadcast network. "Last year the coach told us not to go after him because we wanted to win the game. This year he got a chance to go after him, he did it and I just thanked him for that."

The Predators did have a response. Nashville forward Darcy Hordichuk challenged Brad Winchester to a fight on the ensuing faceoff.

"I wanted to send a message right back – if they want to start the game like that we have enough guys that are willing to go," Hordichuk said. "It got both the team and crowd into the game."
 

• Krys Barch's goal was the fourth of his NHL career.
• Steve Ott's assist was his first point of the season.
• The last time the Stars lost two of their first three games to start the season was 1995-96.
• Niklas Hagman had his two-game goal scoring streak snapped and was a minus-three in the game.