Stars' top forwards stepping up heading into Game 6 against Lightning

The Dallas Stars' fortunes might be turning with their top forwards becoming difference makers in the Stanley Cup Final against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Sparked by a shuffling of the combinations, the Stars' first two lines featuring Tyler Seguin, Corey Perry and Joe Pavelski have responded over the past two games and kept their Cup dreams alive with a 3-2 double-overtime victory in Game 5 at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Saturday.
Their four goals in a 4-1 win in Game 1 were scored by defensemen Joel Hanley and Jamie Oleksiak, and depth forwards Joel Kiviranta and Jason Dickinson. But in Game 5, Pavelski (tying goal with 6:45 left in the third period), Perry (two goals, including 9:23 into the second overtime) and Seguin (three assists) made major contributions.
Trailing 3-2 in the best-of-7 series, Dallas needs that awakening to continue in Game 6 in Edmonton, the hub city for the Cup Final, on Monday (8 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS).
"It's nice that these guys are getting the ball and they're making the best of it, but again we're here because of the team play and the committee and everyone and jumping in and helping and stepping up at different times," Stars coach Rick Bowness said Sunday. "So the last couple games, it's been the veterans and who knows who's going to show up and make the difference tomorrow? But it's kind of the approach we want to take with all the players.
"We tell them, 'Who's turn is it tonight? Who's stepping up tonight? Let's be a difference maker out there.'"
Pavelski has been contributing throughout the series; he leads the Stars with four goals in the Final and has five points. But Perry and Seguin were quiet through the first three games and long before this series got underway Sept. 19.
Perry scored his first goal in 20 games and ended a 12-game point drought in a 5-4 overtime loss in Game 4 on Friday. Perry, who won the Cup with the Anaheim Ducks in 2007 and, like Pavelski, signed with Dallas an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2019, has 98 points (41 goals, 57 assists) in 144 postseason games. The 35-year-old has nine points (five goals, four assists) in 26 games this postseason; he had five goals and 16 assists in 57 regular-season games.

Seguin, who led the Stars with 50 points during the regular season (17 goals, 33 assists), has gone 14 games without a goal but has five assists over the past two playing on a line with Perry and Kiviranta. Seguin won the Cup with the Boston Bruins as a rookie in 2011 and has 45 points (13 goals, 32 assists) in 87 NHL postseason games, including 13 (two goals, 11 assists) in 25 games on this run.
"He's a great player," Perry said of Seguin. "When he's holding onto pucks and wants the puck and is doing his thing, he's effective. I thought [Saturday], and even [Friday] with [Kiviranta], we've done a heck of a job and we have to continue to do that. It's not going to get any easier, and every guy in our dressing room knows that."
Getting production from their top forwards was essential for the Stars because the Lightning's top line of Ondrej Palat, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov has been dominant. Point (four goals, three assists) and Kucherov (one goal, six assist) each have seven points to share the series lead; Palat has five points (three goals, two assists), which gives the line a combined 19 points (eight goals, 11 assists) in the five games.
But Lightning coach Jon Cooper figured it was only a matter of time before the Stars' big names started to chip in too.
"They're top players for a reason, because they're good in the League," Cooper said. "So to sit here in say, 'Oh, you're going to keep all these guys off the scoresheet every single night in a seven-game series,' it's usually not going to happen. The mere fact that we're making everybody talk about it, how their big guys haven't done as well as they wanted, that's probably a good sign for us. We're doing something right.
"But eventually, there's a reason they went and got Pavelski and a reason they went and got Perry -- for moments like [Saturday] night, and those two delivered for them."
The Stars' top lines will certainly try to build on their production from Game 5, but Bowness continued to stress the importance of winning by committee when the puck drops Monday.
"That's why we're still playing," Bowness said. "We haven't put the focus on one or two guys; we put the focus on the team. So when [the top forwards] weren't scoring, some of the other guys stepped and made the difference in games, made the difference in series, and that's how you get to the Stanley Cup Final."