Stars Game 2 rally highlights fun chaos of playoffs

This is why the Stanley Cup Playoffs are so fun.

The Stars went from on the edge of disaster to bubbling with optimism in a matter of seconds, and all it took was a fantastic play by an unlikely hero in Colin Blackwell and an incredible resilience from a team that has worked for years to get to this place.

When the lads in Victory Green claimed a 4-3 overtime win at American Airlines Center on Monday night, it was more than just one win. It was a statement that the dream is still alive, that the players do indeed believe in one another and that hope is a darn powerful force.

You can say it’s not a strategy, but it sure can be helpful in solving some massive problems.

The Stars have hope again…real hope. They probably never really lost it, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to battle through all the flotsam on Monday. But the difference between thinking they can do it and knowing they can is important. The Stars know now. Their belief is strong, their conviction is resolute, their step is just a little bit lighter.

That’s how this stuff works.

And the strange thing is, both sides of this feeling can be motivational. Maybe Dallas didn’t win Game 1 because it wasn’t desperate enough. Maybe it was still trying to dip its collective toe in, the way Matt Duchene said it has on far too many occasions. Maybe it needed to get pushed past the point where things were easy and expected. Because once Dallas was punched in the nose on Monday, it started to play a lot better.

After watching a 2-1 lead quickly turn into a 2-2 game because of yet another example of not being able to protect a lead for more than a few minutes, the Stars had every opportunity to seize control of the game. Dallas drew back-to-back penalties and sent its power play out to take the lead. Instead, the man advantage squandered its opportunity and Colorado’s fourth line made a fantastic play right after killing the penalties to take a 3-2 lead in the final minute of the second period.

Logan O’Connor battled Mason Marchment and was able to get position and flip a puck over Jake Oettinger for a 3-2 lead in the final minute of the second period. It was the kind of play the Avalanche made to stretch a 2-1 lead to 3-1 in Game 1. It was the kind of play that made the statement that this might just be the Avs’ time. Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog participated in warmup before Game 2. He has been out almost three years recovering from knee surgery, but seems to be on the verge of a return. The fact that the Avalanche could make the decision to wait on his return said something about their level of desperation. The fact they still have that arrow in their sling for Game 3 says something about how they haven’t pushed all of their chips in just yet.

The Stars knew that. They came out of the dressing room after the second intermission a different team, a hungrier team, a frenetic team. That is also part of the fun of a best-of-seven series. The personality of this group changed, because there was no other choice.

"I mean, our season is on the line if we lose the first two games here,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. "We knew our season was on the line, and I thought we got more direct in our game, more competitive, and got rewarded for that."

And while we have seen that backfire in games where Dallas opened up too much, this was just the right amount of energy. The Stars started winning puck battles, they started hitting, they controlled the flow of the game more. Oettinger cleaned up messes in the defensive zone, and that allowed every line to carry momentum. Pete DeBoer shuffled things up, putting together an All-Finn line of Roope Hintz with Mikael Granlund and Mikko Rantanen (which was good but not great) and reassembled a familiar line with Wyatt Johnston centering Jamie Benn and Evgenii Dadonov, and that line was indeed incredible.

It was a fun ride.

In pushing themselves into a new place, the Stars players found out that they have more. In finding that extra gear, they took away a little of the Avalanche’s swagger. And now the dance continues.

“That’s the playoffs – one game changes your world,” DeBoer said. “You’re winning and you feel great, you’re losing and your world is ending. It was obviously a huge win for us and now we’ve got to go on the road and use some of the same things that helped us be successful. I thought we were better in Game 2 than we were Game 1, and we’ve got to build on that.”

In Game 3 on Wednesday, the Avalanche could very well see the return of Landeskog. Will that be a boost for a team and a city that loves its captain and has been waiting for this moment? Will this be a tough transition for a player who hasn’t played in almost three seasons? Will the Stars actually get energy from this strange dynamic?

It’s possible.

Oh yeah, and Dallas has its own returning hero waiting in the wings. There might not be a more impactful player on the Stars than defenseman Miro Heiskanen, and he seems to be getting close to returning from his own knee surgery. Could that be in Game 3? Game 4? DeBoer was tight-lipped on Tuesday. Heiskanen will come back when he comes back, and that’s actually a pretty fair answer. You just have to be patient and prepared. He’ll play when he plays.

But when he does, this series will get more interesting. Heiskanen moves the puck, he controls the puck, he is an impeccable defender. He was an influential weapon in defeating the Avs in the 2024 Second Round. He changes pretty much everything for the Stars.

So getting a win in Game 2 that would calm the waters and help Dallas get to the point where Heiskanen returns, well, that was huge.

Look, there is no guarantee this is going to work out – it’s the playoffs. But by finding their game on Monday, the Stars adjusted a lot of sliding doors in the hockey galaxy…and maybe even the sports galaxy. The fandom of Dallas needed some good news, it needed to believe. If you believe in auras and energy fields and the collective power of communal thought, it was sort of a big deal.

The Stars have been great on the road under DeBoer – and especially great in road playoff games. Dallas was 6-3 away from home in the postseason last year. The Stars had a 2.11 GAA and an 80 percent penalty kill in those nine games. Oettinger saw his save percentage go up from .893 to .936 when he got to play the villain in enemy territory last season.

So clearly, there’s something there.

Can the Stars once again find that place where they are both confident and scared? Can they put some fear into an Avalanche team that got a wake-up call via a squandered lead on Monday? It’s the beauty of the postseason. You could feel it at American Airlines Center or even through the TV screen.

The great thing is, it was just the first step.

Now, things can get really crazy.

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on X @MikeHeika.