DALLAS (WIVB) – Buffalo players knew that Dallas liked to start off strong, and the Stars did just that against the Sabres Sunday afternoon. They scored goals in the first and second periods to take a 2-0 lead, and they held on from there to take a 4-2 victory.

Tage Thompson scored his sixth goal in eight games to pull the Sabres within one in the second period, but he agreed the team got off to a slow start.

“The first period though we’ve got to come out better than that,” Thompson said. “We get on our heels a bit there in the first, now we are chasing the game and unfortunately that is why we got the result that way. Can’t be chasing games.”

Thompson also said he felt the team bounced back after the early onslaught from Dallas.

“I felt like we let them get set up too much and when we do that they come at us pretty hard and it makes it difficult to make plays and find guys that are open and I think we made that adjustment and the rest of the game I thought we played pretty well,” Thompson said.

Head coach Don Granato spoke highly of the Cody Eakin line, but said the Sabres’ top line didn’t play as well as they have recently.

“They were not sharp early and competitive early and that was a big difference and the Eakin line on the flipside who hasn’t gotten a lot of ice time, they were outstanding,” Granato said. “They were engaged immediately and you could see the contrast even in those two lines tonight was based on playing fast, competitive and hard and that showed. We progressively got better but it was too late.”

Eakin also got a goal in the third period, but the Sabres were already down 4-1 at that point.

The Sabres finish the month of February with a 2-7-1 record and a six-game losing streak. They face the Toronto Maple Leafs on the road on Wednesday.