Heika’s Take: Stars kick off road trip with gritty win in Arizona

“Trust the process,” is a phrase you hear a lot around the Stars.

Whether it be in building the team, managing the season or simply surviving a tight game, there is a big emphasis on patience for the lads in Victory Green. Sunday’s 4-2 win over the Arizona Coyotes was a great example of why that works.

Dallas outplayed the Coyotes for most of the game, but found themselves tied at 2-2 with 12 minutes remaining in the third period. Then, they had to kill a long stint at 5-on-3 and did just that. A minute later, Miro Heiskanen popped the go-ahead goal in and the Stars were able to move their record to 44-19-9 (97 points).

“It was a good road game,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “They’re a good team at home, they’ve got a good record and this is a hard place to win. I thought they were scrappy, they hung around, their goalie kept them in it early. We needed a huge kill in the third and a couple of big saves from Jake \[Oettinger] in order to find a way to win.”

Oettinger was a big part of the story. He had 26 saves, including some big ones on the PK, and looked like his old self. The 25-year-old has hit some bumps at times this season, but did a great job of staying calm and holding down the fort.

“That was pretty vintage Jake,” DeBoer said. “I thought he looked comfortable, he made a couple of huge saves when he needed to. He made a couple of huge saves look easy. That was great to see.”

Oettinger said he felt good. The Stars as a team are solid defensively on the road, but there’s always a chance to panic when the opposition ties things up. Mix in the 5-on-3 kill, and it’s easy to see how things could get scrambly.

“Obviously they have a lot of skill and a lot of high-end talent, and if you mess around, they make you pay,” Oettinger said. “We liked the way we played, so I thought we were the better team at that point, and we just stuck to our game.”

Dallas had a 35-28 advantage in shots on goal, a 75-57 edge in shot attempts and almost twice as many quality scoring chances. So when Arizona goalie Connor Ingram kept turning away chances, there was some frustration building. Dallas had taken a 2-1 lead on goals by Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin, and was in control of the puck and momentum for much of the first two periods, but the crowd at Mullett Arena was buzzing. Fans erupted when Nick Bjugstad tied the game just after a power play expired.

Then, Chris Tanev almost immediately took a hooking penalty and Thomas Harley shot a puck into the stands for a delay of game penalty, and the Coyotes were handed a golden chance to pull a big upset with a two-man advantage for 1:23. Arizona is 29-37-5 (63 points) and will not make the playoffs, so the pressure was small for the Coyotes. The Stars are in a fierce battle with Colorado and Winnipeg for first place in the Central Division, so the pressure was large, but the Stars said they didn’t feel it.

“There’s no need to get nervous, even though they tied it up,” said defenseman Esa Lindell, who has led the Stars’ penalty kill all season and was out with Ryan Suter and Radek Faksa on the two-man disadvantage. “We just stick to our game and bounce back.”

DeBoer said the performance was impressive in a lot of ways.

“It was a huge kill,” DeBoer said. “Suter and Lindell and Faksa killed most of it, and obviously Jake. Those guys dug in. That’s an obvious turning point and not only a turning point, but we grab momentum from the kill and go out immediately and score the goal. So they get credit for the goal too, because we got a ton of momentum off that kill.”

After the kill, the Stars surged into the offensive zone, and Heiskanen scored his eighth goal of the season on a nice shot through traffic.

“No need to panic there, just do our thing and trust everyone,” Heiskanen said. “Good things are going to happen.”

Seguin and Matt Duchene assisted on the Heiskanen goal, and then Duchene hit an empty-netter for the final score. That line finished with two goals and four assists, as well as four shots on goal. Meanwhile, Benn scored for the fourth game in a row while he and linemates Logan Stankoven and Wyatt Johnston combined for 12 shots on goal.

“We have depth scoring this year,” DeBoer said. “We really have three lines that can win you a game. Tonight, it was the Duchene line. On another night, it’s Roope \[Hintz's] line. On another night, it’s Johnny’s line. That’s what that depth scoring gives you. You don’t have to have everybody clicking on a given night  and you can still score enough to win.”

That makes even more sense on the road, as Dallas allows just 2.69 goals per game, fourth best in the league.

“I think we played a very solid game today,” said Lindell. “We had a good plan for the game, and I think the execution is on a high level right now, which obviously helps for the wins.”

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.