Heika's Take: Good for 40 isn't good enough in Game 5 letdown

With the game - and the series - in a precarious position Wednesday night, the Calgary Flames stepped up.
The Dallas Stars did not.
After getting no goals and just 16 shots on goal in the opening 40 minutes of Game 5, the Flames dominated the third period, out-shooting the Stars 16-5 and scoring three times to take a 3-1 victory.

"They took it to another level, and we didn't handle it very well," Stars coach Rick Bowness said. "We stayed with them for two periods, obviously. They cranked it up in the third period."

The win puts the Flames in the driver's seat, as they have a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series and have two chances to close it out. The first will come on Friday at American Airlines Center, where Calgary took a convincing 4-1 win on Monday. Right now, the Flames have all the momentum, and the Stars have a lot of work to do.
"We get to go home and play in front of our fans," Stars captain Jamie Benn said. "We knew it was going to be a long series."

Dallas started very well in Game 5. Bowness shuffled his lines in hopes of sparking both Jason Robertson and the others to produce some goals. He placed Robertson on a line with Benn and Tyler Seguin and filled Robertson's spot on a line with Joe Pavelski and Roope Hintz with veteran Michael Raffl. The result was a much more cohesive Dallas team, and Robertson scored his first goal of the playoffs.
The 22-year-old drove the net on the left wing and tossed a shot on goal. The puck bounced around and eventually landed behind Jacob Markstrom, who had an outstanding game for the Flames. With that tally at the 13:21 mark of the second period, it looked like Dallas might be able to take control of the game. Pavelski had several great scoring chances, and it sure looked like Dallas might be able to stretch the lead to two goals.
But Markstrom was fantastic, and then Calgary coach Darryl Sutter made a few adjustments of his own. He shuffled his right wings, and that sparked several great shifts to start the third period.

The Flames were getting great efforts from their playoff-seasoned veterans and finally the trio of Blake Coleman, Andrew Mangiapane and Mikael Backlund were able to break down the Stars' defense and get a tap-in on Jake Oettinger. Both Ryan Suter and Miro Heiskanen got tangled up behind the Stars' net, and that left Backlund all alone in front to tie the game at the 6:49 mark of the third period.
Four minutes later, Mangiapane whistled in the game-winner, and that was pretty much it.
The arena exploded because Flames fans knew a loss could eventually lead to death in this series. The Flames played like it, and the Stars did not.

"We did a pretty good job for 40 minutes, but this game is 60 minutes," Benn said.
So why has that been so difficult for the Stars to embrace this season? Bowness said he felt his team closed out Game 2 very well and won Game 3. He said this was a different game. Still, he acknowledged that the Stars simply can't allow the Flames to take over a game like that.
"We were playing our game, we weren't giving up much, they weren't giving up much, it was a hard-fought 49 minutes," Bowness said. We stayed with them for 40 minutes, there's no question. But they went up here, and we just kind of stayed here. We just couldn't get going."
And now they have to find a way to win at home to keep going a little longer and force a possible Game 7.
"We're going to go home, we've always been a good home team this year," Robertson said. "It's unfortunate that we lose the game in the third period, but there are some positives to build off and we'll have to use those for next game."
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heikais a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.