DALLAS, Jan. 26 (UPI) -- Hours after firing the coach that guided them to five straight division titles and a Stanley Cup, the Dallas Stars had their most embarrassing effort of the season Friday night, a 6-1 rout at the hands of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.
The Stars fired coach Ken Hitchcock Friday afternoon and replaced him on an interim basis with assistant Rick Wilson. General manager Bob Gainey also stepped aside, reducing his role to that of a consultant.
"It was a long day followed by a long night," Wilson said. "It's obviously not the start you want but well get back at it tomorrow. This was not pretty."
If the Stars were trying to impress the new regime, they did not do a good job, taking numerous penalties and allowing Anaheim to score five times in the opening 27 minutes.
"We got behind the 8-ball really quick tonight and it just seemed to spiral down from there," Stars center Joe Nieuwendyk said. "Everyone has to realize that this is the bottom of the barrell and were going to find out a lot about ourselves now. It's the lowest we've been in a while."
Matt Cullen scored twice and Oleg Tverdovsky had three assists for Anaheim, which won for just the third time in 20 games in Dallas.
The win was the 500th for Ducks coach Bryan Murray -- making him just the eighth coach to reach the plateau.
Anaheim wasted little time setting the tone, scoring three times in the opening 10 minutes. German Titov opened the scoring with his sixth goal, 5:58 into the contest.
Cullen made it 2-0 just under three minutes later with his 11th goal. Tverdovsky rifled a shot on net and Dallas goaltender Ed Belfour made the initial save but the puck trickled to Cullen, who banged home the rebound.
Dallas defenseman Sergei Zubov took an obstruction interference penalty 7:53 into period and Anaheim cashed in with his 18th goal. After his backhander from the slot hit Dallas defenseman Richard Matvichuk in the shin, Kariya pounced on the rebound and beat Belfour over the right shoulder with a wrist shot.
Mike Leclerc had a power-play tally 6:25 into the second and Marc Chouinard made it 5-0 with his fourth goal of the season 41 seconds later.
Matvichuk got Dallas on the board with a power-play goal midway through the second period but the Stars did little else right.
Cullen capped the scoring with a power-play goal in the third period, beating Marty Turco with a slap shot from the left circle.
