At the end of the season, a mark of 3-5-0 after eight games would not necessarily feel as momentous, as games that should have been won would have been won and games that should have been lost get stolen over the course of the full 82.
But a 4-4-0 mark feels a little better, like not being behind the eight ball quite as much.
The Dallas Stars beat a desperate team in a desperate situation. They didn’t want to drop to 3-5-0 to start the season and fall further behind their division mates by a wider margin.