Heika’s Take: Stars miss the mark, drop Game 1 to Golden Knights

On the good side, the Stars lost home Game 1s to both Minnesota and Seattle last season and came back to win each series.

On the bad side, this isn’t Minnesota or Seattle.

Dallas fell 4-3 to the Vegas Golden Knights at American Airlines Center on Monday in Game 1 of their best-of-seven First Round series, and certainly has to feel good about its ability to play better and make improvements as the series plays out. However, they also saw just what kind of team they are facing. While Vegas is technically the second wild card and the eighth seed in the Western Conference, the Golden Knights are also the defending Stanley Cup champions and quite a different team once they have a fully healthy lineup.

“They’re a good team,” said Stars captain Jamie Benn. “They’re the champs for a reason.”

Vegas added captain Mark Stone back into the lineup after he missed the final 26 games of the season with a lacerated spleen. He, of course, scored the first goal of the game Monday on a power play just 1:23 into the first period. The Knights then made it 2-0 eight minutes in, before Benn made it 2-1 on a breakaway off a great pass from Wyatt Johnston. Deadline addition Tomáš Hertl made it 3-1 on a power play goal at the 17:54 mark of the first period, but then the Stars made it 3-2 on a beautiful steal and pass from Logan Stankoven to Jason Robertson less than a minute later.

The game settled down after the fiery first period, and Vegas had just seven shots on goal for the final 40 minutes, but one of those was a Brayden McNabb shot through a crowd a minute into the second period, and that held up as the game-winner.

Stars goalie Jake Oettinger finished with 11 saves on just 15 shots.

When asked if he wanted to have any of the four goals back – an indication that maybe he could have made stops – Oettinger said, “I’d like to have all four of them back.”

He added: “The guys should feel good about the way they played. A couple of bounces here and there and it could be in overtime.”

When asked about Oettinger’s performance, Pete DeBoer said his 25-year-old goalie was just one part of the reason for defeat.

“I think we’ve got to do a better job tying up sticks around the net,” DeBoer said. “I think we could help him. Like everybody, he’s got another level.”

And that is the key going forward. Yes, Vegas is a very good team. The Golden Knights beat the Stars in six games en route to the Stanley Cup Final last season. They finished eighth in the West because of injuries, but are going to be a very tough opponent in this First Round. That said, the Stars believe they can definitely compete with this team.

“If you’re going to knock off the Stanley Cup champions, you’re going to have to bring your `A’ game every night, and I just thought tonight we did some decent things, but we were chasing the game the whole night,” DeBoer said. “It’s tough to play from behind against that team.”

Sam Steel took a high-sticking penalty in the first minute, and the Vegas power play cashed in quickly. On one hand, that’s bad luck. On the other, the Stars have one of the best penalty kills in the NHL and should have been able to survive a moment against a power play still shaking off the rust. Likewise, the Stars appeared to tie the game at 1-1 on a Ryan Suter goal, but Mason Marchment was called offside on review and the goal was disallowed.

“They score a minute in, who cares? There’s lots of time left,” Benn said of the first goal. “There’s going to be lots of ups and downs, a lot of momentum swings. It’s all about staying even keeled, not getting too high or getting too low.”

That’s good advice in the game – and in the series. Dallas bounced back in the game and received a goal from Marchment that allowed the Stars to pull the goalie and try to tie things up late. The Stars finished with a 30-15 advantage in shots on goal, a 68-48 edge in shot attempts and almost twice the quality scoring chances as Vegas. That’s a sign that they can respond well to tough times. Dallas also bounced back last season and beat the Wild and Kraken in Game 2. They ironically then lost Game 3 in each series, so they know a little bit about postseason adversity.

“It’s all about your response,” DeBoer said. “If you’re going to win this time of year, you’ve got to respond.”

The Stars believe they can. They posted the second best regular season in franchise history at 52-21-9 (113 points), and they feel they can use home ice and lessons learned to get back into this series.

“You’re not a competitor if you don’t want to play the team that knocked you out last year,” Oettinger said. “We’ve got a great opportunity in front of us, we’ve got a great team and we showed we can play with these guys.”

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.