Stars need to play with more urgency in important Game 4

Game 4: Stars vs. Flames (CGY leads 2-1)

1 p.m., Rogers Place

TV: FOX Sports Southwest, CNBC

Radio:The Ticket 96.7-FM, 1310-AM

Rick Bowness was asked Saturday if he would like to see more urgency or more patience from his shooters in Game 4 (1 p.m. CT; FS-SW, CNBC) and he paused for a second.

"Urgency," he said.

"As much as we can pat ourselves on the back and say we had enough scoring chances, plenty of scoring chances, which obviously we did, we still left a lot on the table," Bowness said. "There were too many times that we could have had more quality scoring chances had [there been] urgency around their net."

Bowness said both teams are closing down the front of the net and making it really difficult to get to rebounds for second chance opportunities. But, he added, you have to get there just to create chaos and hope for the best.

"Both teams do a good job protecting net front, both teams collapse in front of the net," Bowness said. "You look and how many scrums do you have five guys defending around their net. There's not a lot of room in there. But you've got to get in there and get your nose dirty. Sometimes there's luck too, the puck bounces on a guy's stick and shoots it right away."

Tyler Seguin has been frustrated for the entire playoffs, not tallying a point. He's dealing with some sort of injury, but Bowness said Seguin also is creating fantastic scoring chances and just needs to finish.

"He wouldn't be out there if he couldn't play. He's in the playoffs … everyone is banged up a little bit," Bowness said. "Listen, if he gets the opportunities he had last night, I like our chances. He had some Grade As. That's probably the best offensive game he's had since he's been back."

Seguin has a nine-game point drought dating back to the regular season. He said he can't get frustrated and has to be encouraged by the scoring chances.

"A lot of good looks, just didn't find the back of the net," Seguin said. "A lot of positives to look at. Just gotta maybe put more shots on net. I think we missed the net a couple times. I missed high and wide a few times. We have to be getting some more rebounds."

Bowness was asked if he might consider any line changes for Game 4 and said no. The Stars had a 35-23 advantage in shots on goal and a 76-37 advantage in shot attempts. They dominated possession, and simply couldn't beat Cam Talbot. Bowness said the plan for Game 4 is simply to find the urgency - and patience - to score.

"We like where we are. We like the lines the way they are," Bowness said. "Are you going to pull guys out because they hit the crossbar or missed the open net? You can't do that. The lineup that we will p lay will give us the best opportunity to win the game."

Gurianov, Hintz get significantly more minutes

Denis Gurianov played just 10:42 in Game 2 when the Stars had to do a lot of penalty killing. Both he and Roope Hintz have not been given a great deal of minutes in the playoffs so far. But Rick Bowness changed that in Game 4. Hintz played 17 minutes, while Gurianov logged 16:53

Gurianov averaged 12:59 during the regular season and Hintz 14:45, so the upgrade was important.

But with the extra time comes extra responsibility. Bowness was asked how Hintz has been performing and here was his reply: "Roope Hintz has to give us a lot more."

"There's a couple of guys that can give us more, and he's one of them," Bowness said. "The skating and size and everything is there, but he would fall into the category of do we need more from a few guys - and it's not pointing a finger at him specifically, but you're asking about him -- and to me, there's more to give."

Hintz had nine shot attempts (three on goal, four that were blocked, and two that missed the net) in Game 3.

"It's not just the flash you see every now and then, there's a lot more to the game, especially in the playoffs," Bowness said Saturday. "The other parts, they're magnified in the playoffs. We'll get more out of him tomorrow."

Tkachuk is a game-time decision for Flames

Flames forward Matthew Tkachuk has dealt with a couple of injuries in the playoffs and missed Game 3. He is listed as a game-time decision for Game 4.

Alan Quine stepped in for Tkachuk and played 6:13, but the entire forward group was credited with stepping up.

"Depth at this time of year is so important because the attrition rate can get high over the course of the playoffs," Calgary coach Geoff Ward said Saturday. "We saw last night, we had some guys come in and I thought they accounted themselves really, really well."

"I think the guys feel confident coming in," Ward added. "They feel like they're going to contribute and so far, they have. The credit's to them and the credit's to the coaches that are working with them to keep them prepared. It's a huge part of things you necessarily don't see at this time of year, when you're focusing so much on what's happening in game. But the preparation around the game is so, so critical, and we're seeing that in terms of how well our depth guys are stepping in and playing.

By the numbers

8-2/2-8

The Flames have outscored the opposition 8-2 in the third period during the playoffs. The Stars have been outscored 2-8 in third periods in the playoffs.

1.87

That's playoff goals against average for Flames goalie Cam Talbot, who is 5-2-0 with a .937 save percentage.

3.50

That's the goals against average for Ben Bishop in his last five appearances dating back to February. He's 1-4-0 in that span with an .875 save percentage.

He said it

"We were confident coming into this game and there were a lot of really good things that we can build off of for the next game. I thought we had a lot of zone time and generated a lot of good looks. There's obviously a couple things that we can clean up, and I'm sure we'll look at it and we'll be ready to go next game."

-- Stars forward Blake Comeau

Stars projected lineup

Jamie Benn - Tyler Seguin - Alexander Radulov

Mattias Janmark - Joe Pavelski - Denis Gurianov

Andrew Cogliano - Radek Faksa - Blake Comeau

Roope Hintz - Jason Dickinson - Corey Perry

Esa Lindell - John Klingberg

Jamie Oleksiak - Miro Heiskanen

Andrej Sekera - Taylor Fedun

Ben Bishop

Anton Khudobin

Unfit to Play:Stephen Johns

Scratched:Justin Dowling, Jason Robertson, Ty Dellandrea, Thomas Harley, Joel Kiviranta, Nick Caamano, Joel Hanley, Gavin Bayreuther, Landon Bow, Jake Oettinger

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, and listen to his podcast.