St. Louis Blues forward David Backes is nothing if not self aware.

The captain dropped some real talk after his team dropped Game 1 on Friday to the Dallas Stars to open their second-round series.

"This was a good game by them," Backes said. "They outplayed us, they deserved to win this one."

The Blues woke up after 40 minutes, but the Stars were able to eke out a 2-1 win. It would have been much, much worse if not for the stellar play of Brian Elliott in the Blues' goal.

"We've got to play for a full 60 the way we did in the first series and we'll be just fine," Backes said. "They came out with tons of speed and pressure on us. It took us 40 minutes to start to look like ourselves."

Head coach Ken Hitchcock agreed.

"I didn't like the way we played in the last 10 minutes of the first and the whole second," Hitchcock said. "After the second period, (Elliott) gave us a chance, gave us a real chance. We needed to punch through."

Coming off an emotional Game 7, a letdown was expected. But there's so little room for error in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

"I don't think anybody is really pleased with the type of game that we played," Elliott said. "We grinded it out. I think once we do get to the Blues' style of hockey, I think that will serve us well."

They'll have to play Blues hockey on Sunday, or face a 2-0 series deficit against a very good Stars team.

- With H/T to Lou Korac

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