DALLAS -- After a long time away, it was obvious the Dallas Stars were happy to be home.

The Stars dominated the first period and then coasted to a 5-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night at American Airlines Center.

Returning home from a five-game road trip, the Stars led 4-0 midway through the first period and never looked back.

Radek Faksa, Antoine Roussel and Tyler Seguin each had a goal and an assist as the Stars (8-6) improved to 5-1 at home. John Klingberg had three assists and Gemel Smith added two.

"It was really big, I mean we responded the way we needed to. We had a little bit of a meeting yesterday too. It needs to be better, and I think we cleared that up today," Klingberg said. "We hold on to a lot of more pucks, get into a lot of more battles. That was a really huge win, and I feel like this was a really good team game, probably the best 60 minutes we played so far this year."

Kari Lehtonen made 27 saves for his second win of the season and said it was relaxing playing with a big lead.

"You have to treat it more like a practice. When it gets to four goals or five goals, just go shot after shot," Lehtonen said. "Don't think too much, because you know they're gonna have some good chances, and stay in there. Stay calm and if they score one, so what?"

Remi Elie gave Dallas a 1-0 lead at 3:09 of the first period when he scored on a rebound.

Buffalo's Robin Lehner misplayed the puck and turned it over to Roussel, who fired a high wrist shot. Elie went hard to the net and scored his first goal of the season.

Faksa scored on a rebound at 7:07 of the period to make it 2-0. Smith carried the puck into the offensive zone and slipped past a check from Jake McCabe before taking a bad angle shot that Lehner couldn't handle.

"I give (the Stars) credit. They went to the net hard," Sabres coach Phil Housley said. "The second one bounces over (Matt) Tennyson's stick and it goes right to their guy. Would we have wanted to change that? Yes, because I thought our guys played well and did a lot of good things. I thought we played good, it was just unfortunate we got bad bounces."

Stephen Johns pushed the lead to 3-0 10:27 into the game on a rush after an assist from Smith. Johns received the pass above the faceoff circle and beat Lehner with a wrist shot.

That was the final shot Lehner faced. He was replaced by Chad Johnson after allowing three goals on seven shots. Johns stopped 13 of 15 shots in relief.

"This is the life I choose. This happened to a lot of goalies," Lehner said. "We've just got to throw this out and go to the next game, because I think we've been playing some decent hockey lately."

Dallas made it 4-0 at 12:51 of the period when Seguin scored on the power play. Seguin beat Johnson with a one-timer after a pass from Klingberg at the point.

Buffalo cut the lead to 4-1 at 11:51 of the second period. After a faceoff win, Ryan O'Reilly collected the loose puck and beat Lehtonen with a wrist shot.

Roussel gave Dallas a 5-1 lead at 18:50 of the second period on a redirection in the slot. Klingberg had the primary assist and connected with Roussel as he drove through the middle of the ice.

Faksa left the game in the second period after getting tangled up with Kyle Okposo and didn't return. Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said Faksa is day-to-day and would be further evaluated Sunday.

NOTES: Stars RW Brett Ritchie missed his second game with an upper-body injury. General manager Jim Nill said Ritchie will be out "five to seven days." ... C Martin Hanzal missed his third game with a lower-body injury. He practiced Saturday morning but won't play against the Winnipeg Jets on Monday. ... Sabres D Rasmus Ristolainen sustained an upper-body injury against the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday and missed his first game of the season. ... Jamie Oleksiak was the healthy scratch for Dallas. Nicholas Baptiste was the healthy scratch for Buffalo. ... Dallas and Buffalo met in the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals, with Dallas winning its only championship in six games.