Heika's Take: Tough loss in Calgary makes the hill a lot steeper

CALGARY, Alberta --The Stars on Thursday found a tiny silver lining, but it was mostly more rain at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
Yes, the Stars played much better than they did in their first two games on their three-game road trip through Western Canada, but they still found a way to lose a 4-2 game, and they still found a way to make their run at a playoff spot more complicated.
I know, stop me if you've heard this one before.

Dallas has seemingly been battling for a playoff spot for the past decade and had put itself in a great spot thanks to a solid spring run. However, the three losses now mean this team heads home two points ahead of Vegas for the second wild card playoff position, but now even in games. The Stars have had an advantage in games in hand, but that's now gone after the road trip.
As a result, the Stars sit 43-30-5, 91 points and Vegas is 42-31-5, 89 points. The two teams play Tuesday in Dallas, and because Vegas has the first tiebreaker in the standings (33-29 in regulation wins), a regulation win in that game would vault the Golden Knights ahead in the standings.
Now, we're getting ahead of ourselves here, but that's what this road trip has forced the Stars to do. They were in control of their own destiny, and they still are, but they also have opened the door for other teams.
"We would've liked to have locked up our spot already," said goalie Jake Oettinger, who had a solid night with 33 saves. "This road trip, I think we gave some other teams some life. There's no one else to blame. It's in our hands, and we have every opportunity to make the playoffs, and I think we're excited about the opportunity."

And that's the key. Dallas has four games left in the regular season - Seattle, Vegas, Arizona and Anaheim - and would make the playoffs if it wins all four. Stars coach Rick Bowness said they simply have to focus on Saturday's game against the Kraken and added that the team should embrace this opportunity.
"We have to," Bowness said. "We're going home with great fans, and if we have to do it the hard way, we'll do it the hard way. We get back to a great atmosphere in our rink. We still control our own destiny, we just have to take full advantage of it, and we're going to."

After a couple of rough outings in Vancouver and Edmonton, and with the second game of a back-to-back, the coaches leaned heavily on youth. Fredrik Karlstrom made his NHL debut, played 7:46 and tallied an assist. Jacob Peterson, Marián Studenič and Joel Kiviranta all added speed to the lineup. Bowness made Alexander Radulov and Denis Gurianov healthy scratches and said that might continue on the homestand.
"For the third game in four nights and a back-to-back, we did what we had to do to give ourselves a chance to win," Bowness said. "Vancouver, we had no chance, Edmonton we had no chance. We had a chance to at least get a point [in Calgary]."
And that was the silver lining. Did they learn something about their lines? Did Oettinger step up in a high-pressure game? It seems that way.
The two teams played a pretty balanced game for the first two periods, with each scoring on the power play. Calgary scored to open the third period on a deflection off of a Stars player, and Dallas then bounced back when Karlstrom drove up ice, got a shot on a goal, and Luke Glendening cleaned up the rebound for his ninth goal of the season.

Then, the Flames sort of took over. They finished with a 13-4 advantage in third period shots on goal, and one of those was another deflection off a Stars player. It was both fluky and earned all at the same time.
"Two goals went off our guys. That seems like it's been the story lately," Oettinger said. "Both times, the guys were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing, and sometimes the puck just bounces like that. It's a hard lesson to learn, obviously. We know the situation we're in. But we're feeling confident we can go home and win those games."
And that's really the focus now. It would've been nice to pick up a point or two in the road trip, but the Stars are where they are right now. They hope they've found a silver lining of momentum Thursday that might be able to carry over.

"We did a lot of good things," Bowness said. "We did some good things, and we'll try to build on that."
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.