Burnside: Five takeaways from Stars' 2-1 shootout loss to Columbus

COLUMBUS, Ohio --The Dallas Stars picked up a loser's point with a 2-1 shootout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night, snapping a modest two-game win streak on their current four-game Eastern road trip.
Here are some thoughts on a night that was not without its moments of drama and controversy, but that, in the end, left the Stars far from satisfied.

1. What could have been?

After a less-than-inspired first period saw Dallas fall behind 1-0 on a Jordan Schroeder goal -- his first of the season -- Dallas, by any measure, was the better team through most of the second and third periods.
And early in the third, the Stars appeared to have been rewarded for their diligent play when Alexander Radulov drove the net and Antoine Roussel poked home a rebound. The call on the ice indicated the Stars had indeed tied the game, but Columbus head coach John Tortorella challenged the play, saying Radulov had interfered with netminder Joonas Korpisalo.
Replays that we saw seemed inconclusive, but officials ruled that there hadbeen contact and the goal was overturned.
On the bench, Ken Hitchcock could be seen giving referees a tongue lashing as they delivered the news. And after the game, the Dallas coach remained unhappy with the call and questioned the league's direction if plays like that don't result in goals.
"I don't understand where we're going because we practice every day, like every other team does in the NHL, going to the net," Hitchcock said. "Our player went to the net and was responsible for putting a play on the net, and we scored on the rebound. When we're in a situation where you're not counting those as goals now, what are we doing? What are we doing to our game that that can't be a goal?"
Hitchcock said the referees told him it was an "easy call" when they looked at the replay.
"I don't understand," Hitchcock said. "And I don't understand how that can't be a goal. That's what every coach wants his players to do and now, you're going to tell your player, 'Well, you can't do that, or you have to when you go to the net, you've got to be careful and you've got to make sure that you tiptoe around the outside. You can kind of stick your toe in the water, but you've got to go back to the beach.'
"I don't get it right now. I don't know what we're doing."

2. When is a moral victory not a moral victory? Well ...

Give credit to the Stars, who did not sag after the tying goal was taken off the scoreboard. They continued to create scoring chances.
Still, it did look like this game was going to be reminiscent of a 2-1 Columbus win in Dallas earlier this month when the Stars couldn't get the goal they needed, trailing by a goal at home. But with time running out in regulation, and with Tyler Seguin falling on a shot attempt, the Stars kept the puck alive in the Columbus zone and Radulov got a piece of a Dan Hamhuis point shot to tie the game with 2:05 left.
Both teams had a power-play chance in overtime (the Stars' was truncated coming late in the extra session) and so the game was decided by a shootout with Korpisalo turning aside all three shots while Ben Bishop was beaten on a nice move by Artemi Panarin.
So, should the team have been happy getting a point? Maybe contentis a better term.
"When it's this time of the season, you've got find ways to get points when you're not kind of at your best," Bishop said. "I don't think anybody in this rooms' going to say it was our best game, but to find a way to get a point there -- to get that goal at the end of the third to kind of get that point -- it's a big key for us, important, and obviously still can turn in for a really good road trip after Buffalo."
We tend to subscribe to this line of thinking.
Given how tight the standings are in the Western Conference, to collect five of a possible six points thus far on this trip with the finale in Buffalo on Saturday afternoon against one of the worst teams in the NHL, well, that's not all bad.
Except, well, maybe it is. At least Hitchcock was having none of the "salvage-a-point" optimistic talk.
"Don't talk to me about a point in this game, okay?" Hitchcock said when asked about the upside of getting a point. "You can bring up something else, but don't talk to me on the good side that we got one point. That's not good."
When asked if it would be okay to discuss the topic on Friday, Hitchcock made it clear that there never was going to be a good time to discuss it.
"Don't even bring it up or you're going to wear that microphone somewhere else. Okay, thank you," he said, thus ending his media scrum.

3. Bishop to the rescue

After the first period, which was pretty ragged, this turned out to be a pretty entertaining hockey game. And certainly Tortorella looked the genius for not starting defending Vezina Trophy winner Sergei Bobrovsky as Korpisalo was tremendous, stopping 35 of 36 shots he faced, including 28 of the 29 he faced over the last two periods and overtime.
But that the Stars got even onepoint (did we mention we don't think that's necessarily a bad thing?) was thanks in large part to two splendid Bishop saves in the waning seconds of regulation.
The big one was a glove save on an Alexander Wennberg shot after the puck had snuck by Devin Shore at the edge of the Dallas crease. But Bishop lunged and got his catching glove on the shot to send the game to overtime.
Overall, Bishop stopped 25 of 26 shots, but none bigger than the stop on Wennberg and another on Oliver Bjorkstrand seconds earlier.
"It was just one of those things I hadn't had much work, and they kind of came pressing there at the end and you just try to find a way to hold the ground, hold the fort there and try to make the save," Bishop said. "That one kind of went to Shoresy and I saw whoever it was behind him, so I kind of saw him coming and I was able to get my glove on it."
Hitchcock described Bishop's play, especially at the end of the third as "outstanding" and said that was another disappointing part of the shootout loss was that the team wasn't able to get Bishop the win given his strong play.

4. Welcome to The Show

Over time, Dillon Heatherington may not remember the final outcome of this game, but he'll never forget this night, that's for sure.
The former Columbus prospect, dealt to Dallas at the trade deadline last March, made his NHL debut and he got rave reviews.
"He was good. Solid. Smart. Big," Hitchcock said. "Gives us a different dimension there. Very impressed with Dillon tonight."
The best part of the night? For us, it was watching Heatherington -- sans helmet, which his teammates had hidden -- take a lap or two around the Stars' zone all by himself as his teammates waited in the tunnel leading to the ice.
"It's an unreal experience. You always dream as a kid playing in the NHL," the 22-year-old said, :To achieve that goal was something special."
Even being pranked a bit by his teammates was okay.
"It was good and it was fun," said Heatherington, who has carved out a reputation as a solid, hard-to-play-against defender at the American Hockey League level.
He played 13:28 and, at one point, found himself on the ice in the last minute of the second period in a one-goal game.
"The first five minutes, my legs were shaking," Heatherington admitted. But as the game went along so, too, did his comfort level rise.
He credited defense partner Stephen Johns with helping in that process.
"Johns helped me out so much, he's experienced that before and he just kind of helped me settle down and finally found my game," Heatherington said.
With veteran defenseman Marc Methot, another big body, still recuperating from knee surgery, having Heatherington as another option on the blue line is a welcome surprise.
"He's an asset. He's a really good asset for us right now," Hitchcock said. "It's a good thing. Good thing he got a chance to play, and I think there's a lot of confidence in what he can do."

5. This and that

Only two Stars players didn't register at least one shot on goal in this game, Heatherington and Greg Pateryn.
We thought John Klingberg was again a force, even though he saw his eight-game point streak come to an end. He played 29:56 to lead all players in ice time and he had 12 shots and/or shot attempts in the game.
After a slow start on the draw, the Stars ended up winning more than half of the draws with Seguin a beast, winning 14 of 21.
The power play, which had accounted for two goals in the Stars' 4-2 win over Detroit two nights earlier, was a disappointing 0-for-4.
A night of many things for Radulov, who was involved in a goal that was reversed, tipped home the tying goal, took a penalty in overtime for closing his hand over the puck and then came out of the box and nearly scored the winner and then lost control of the puck trying to go to his backhand in the shootout. He also had four shots on goal which was tied for the team lead.
Whew. In short, a full night for the energetic winger.
"It's hard to lose the games in the shootout, but that's the thing, we've got to work on those," Radulov said.
He said he thought the Roussel goal would stand, "because I wasn't basically pushing or doing anything, but I guess they saw some contact there, and they waived it off and it is what it is."
This story was not subject to approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club. You can follow Scott on Twitter at @OvertimeScottB, and listen to his Burnside Chats podcast here.