Heiskanen scores twice, Stars rally past Hurricanes

DALLAS -- Miro Heiskanen scored twice to rally the Dallas Stars past the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2 at American Airlines Center on Saturday.

“It’s a really good team and [we] played a really good game against them," Heiskanen said. "We know that we can beat anyone in this League if we play at our best, and I think the last 40 minutes were really good. We have to keep doing that."

Sam Steel scored and Jake Oettinger made 26 saves for the Stars (4-3-1), who snapped a four-game winless streak (0-3-1).

“We didn’t follow the game plan in the first. Too many odd-man rushes [against], and then we chased our errors. When you chase a mistake, it’s because you’re trying too hard,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. “We reset after the first period and said, 'Listen, we’ve got a 40-minute game here to work ourselves back in.' We’re not changing the game plan, the game plan’s right. They’re heavy on the walls and we can’t mess around at the blue lines. I think the guys did a good job of regrouping and pushing back.”

Jackson Blake and Sebastian Aho each scored for the Hurricanes (6-2-0), who lost for only the second time this season. Brandon Bussi made 31 saves.

Blake gave the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead at 4:14 in the first period on a snap shot from the high slot after he won the puck off a face-off to the left of Oettinger.

Aho made it 2-0 at 19:49 on a snap shot from the top of the right face-off circle on a 2-on-1 breakaway with Seth Jarvis.

“It was right there for us,” Aho said. “Tight game, they got a couple of bounces – obviously, they earned them. We pushed there at the end but didn’t get the results. It wasn’t that bad of a game. We were right there and that’s a good team.”

Heiskanen cut the lead to 2-1 at 1:04 in the second period when his shot from below the left face-off circle ricocheted in off the skate of Hurricanes forward Nikolaj Ehlers.

“The goal goes off our guy,” Aho said. “Goals dictate the momentum in this League, and they did a good job of using their momentum. It was a tight game from start to finish. There was not much [out] there.”

Steel tied it 2-2 at 5:41 when he tipped in a Thomas Harley point shot on the power play.

“I think in the first, I didn’t think we were terrible but we pushed a little too hard for offense, and that’s when they capitalized against us,” Steel said. “Just little things [changed in the second period.] We did a lot of good things, we were responsible. Got pucks to the net and got traffic there, and it ended up working out for us.”

Stars forward Roope Hintz left the game at 10:05 in the third period after being hit by Taylor Hall in the corner against the boards.

“Unfortunate penalty there. We’re on the power play, take the penalty, that put stress on us and then take another one and that’s the game,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “They had their chances, we had ours. We hit a couple of posts in the first period. This game could have easily gone our way. We have to score on the power play at some point because we’re putting too much stress on the penalty kill.”

Heiskanen scored his second of the night to give Dallas a 3-2 lead at 11:18 in the third period on a 4-on-3 power play when his shot deflected off the body of Hurricanes defenseman Mike Reilly and into the net.

NOTES: Heiskanen now ranks third all-time in Stars franchise history in multi-goal games by a defenseman (6), behind only Brad Maxwell (11) and Craig Hartsburg (8). … Aho extended his season-opening point streak to eight games (four goals, 11 assists) and tied Victor Rask (eight games in 2016-17) for the third-longest in Hurricanes franchise history. Aho currently holds the franchise record at 12 games set in 2018-19. … Aho moved into fifth all-time in goals scored by a Finnish player in NHL history (287 goals).