Stars ready for ‘good chance to respond at home’ following Game 5 loss

WINNIPEG -- The Dallas Stars came into Game 5 of the Western Conference Second Round with confidence.

They had won the past two at home to take a 3-1 series lead against the Winnipeg Jets. They were getting scoring from someone other than Mikko Rantanen. It was all looking up.

The confidence was still there after Game 5, but the offense wasn’t there during it. So, the Stars head home and hope the production will be there again for them.

“They’re good at home. We won one earlier, we had a chance there tonight,” Stars forward Tyler Seguin said after their 4-0 loss to the Jets at Canada Life Centre on Thursday. “We were right in it despite the shots, and however it may have felt to the eye, we felt we were right in it. [Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger] was playing great. Just didn’t get that equalizer.”

Sure, the Jets were on the brink of elimination and brought the right amount of urgency. So even though they still lead the best-of-7 series 3-2, will the Stars have the necessary urgency in Game 6 against the Jets at American Airlines Center on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN, TVAS, CBC)?

“For sure,” Seguin said. “It’s a long flight (to Winnipeg), so definitely.”

That urgency will have to show itself in goals, which have been absent lately in Winnipeg. The Stars have now been shut out the past seven periods at Canada Life Centre. The last goal they scored here came from Rantanen, whose third goal at 16:38 of the second period of Game 1 helped the Stars to a 3-2 win.

Asked if the Stars felt a big difference in the Jets at home compared to on the road, where Winnipeg hasn’t won a playoff game since 2023, Stars forward Matt Duchene said, “Not necessarily.”

“They’re a great team everywhere. When they get out to a lead, they’re really good at protecting it,” he said.

“We hit a goal post there at 1-0 (defenseman Miro Heiskanen). Seems like that keeps happening every time we’re at a key moment. We had some good looks it just didn’t go in. We could have won that game for sure. It was pretty evenly matched. They just get a lucky one to start things off and they capitalized on their [power play] chances and we didn’t.”

Indeed, the first two that got past Oettinger, who saved 31 of 34 shots, weren’t the usual goals. Jets forward Mark Scheifele’s shot went off two of Oettinger’s teammates (forward Wyatt Johnston’s stick and then defenseman Thomas Harley’s skate) and the other was a 5-on-3 goal by Jets forward Nikolaj Ehlers.

“I think the goal off our own skate, the 4-on-4 goal, that’s a tough one to give up,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “Then you give up the 5-on-3 goal. You go on the road, especially in an elimination game and you get two goals like that, it’s really tough to win.”

“So, I think we could’ve done a better job trying to create a little bit more offense, obviously. But we did have a few looks. One went off the crossbar (from Heiskanen), a couple here and there, but not enough. They played with a desperation level like it was an elimination game. We were a little bit off that.”

The Stars finished with 22 shots against the Jets on Thursday, but they had just nine shots on goal through the first two periods. Of those nine shots through 40 minutes, five came from forwards.

“Yeah, traffic in front of him, sometimes more shots against these guys come from us forwards and winning more corner battles and getting them to the point and getting pucks through,” Seguin said. “In any series there are ups and downs. We’ve had a good series thus far. Now we have a good chance to respond at home.”

Scoring on the road has been an issue in the postseason for the Stars. They scored 135 goals in 41 regular-season road games, tied for fourth with the Washington Capitals, but in the playoffs, they have nine goals in six road games compared to 23 goals in six home games.

The Stars have had a much better go of things at home during the postseason, especially offensively. They’ll be looking for more of that on Saturday. Otherwise, it’ll be back to Winnipeg.

“You never want to give a team life,” Duchene said. “We felt like we needed to win this one. You don’t want to give them any life at all. We don’t want to come back here for Game 7 obviously up 3-1 at one point.

“It might take seven. They’re a good enough team, it could. We’ll see what happens. We’re going to go home and try to put our best game on the ice and go from there.”