'We lost our focus': Stars struggle in frustrating Game 3 loss

The Tampa Bay Lightning made a statement Wednesday night.
If not to the entire league, then certainly to themselves.
Riding a wave of emotion brought on by the return of captain Steven Stamkos, the Lightning crushed Dallas 5-2 in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final to take a 2-1 series lead.

While it was just one game, Tampa Bay received huge scoring boosts from its top players and exited the contest soaking in a pool of positivity. The Stars, meanwhile, looked beat up and frustrated. Their top players struggled mightily and a team that already was without forwards Radek Faksa and Blake Comeau might have lost Alexander Radulov to injury, as well.
The difference in emotional status seemed black and white all night, as the Lightning seemed to ride on the wave of the Stamkos news and the Stars seemed to be swimming upstream.

Stamkos had not played since Feb. 25 because of an undisclosed injury, and he only played 2:47 on Wednesday. But he blasted around Esa Lindell with incredible speed early in the first period and snapped a shot past Anton Khudobin that gave the Lightning a 2-0 lead. Tampa Bay's bench erupted, and they seemed to carry that momentum even when Stamkos seemed bothered by his injury for the remainder of the night.
Lightning coach Jon Cooper said Stamkos has been a motivating force throughout the playoffs and his teammates certainly fed off of his energy.
"You watch the kid and what he's done for the last how many months," Cooper said of the injury rehab. "For him to do be able to do that … I don't know … I think however Stammer was feeling in that moment, all of the players expressed it on the bench."
The Stars actually responded very well in the short-term, controlling the puck for 10 minutes and cutting the deficit to 2-1 on a nice goal by Jason Dickinson. However, Radulov took two penalties, and that took a lot of momentum away from the Stars. Victor Hedman scored on a power play 53 seconds into the second period to make it 3-1, and the Lightning dominated the remainder of the period, outshooting the Stars 21-4 and hitting the second intermission with a 5-1 lead.
It was a shock, really.

"We lost our team play," Stars interim coach Rick Bowness said. "We lost our intensity and we lost our focus. When you do that, a team like that is going to make you look real bad, which they did."
Dickinson had a goal and almost another as he went to the net and was rewarded. However, the entire team was bit by a lot of the same problems that hurt them in Game 2. Undisciplined penalties not only handed the Lightning opportunities, they took momentum away from the Stars.
"Unacceptable by us to take some of the penalties that we're taking," said Dickinson. "The turnover, obviously, we've got to limit those because it fuels their offensive game. They're here for a reason, so if we give them those chances, they're going to capitalize."
And maybe that was the strongest statement from Wednesday's game -- the Lightning are really good. Dallas has heard that about Colorado and Vegas, and even Tampa Bay to some degree. But they haven't seen it play out on the ice like this.
The Lightning were the highest scoring team in the NHL this season because of players like Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Victor Hedman … and, of course, Stamkos. And while Stamkos didn't play that much, he certainly helped his teammate feel that old offensive confidence.

"If you're going to win, your best players have to be your best players," Cooper said. "That's the bottom line. You can get contributions from everybody in different ways, but if you're going to go the distance, the big boys have to be there for you, and in every aspect, they were."
On the other side, the Stars not only did not get strong performances from their best players, they saw errors that hadn't been there before. Miro Heiskanen fell down and turned the puck over to Kucherov on Tampa Bay's first goal just 5:38 into the game. Lindell tried to make a hit against Stamkos along the boards and completely lost his man at the 6:58 mark. That was even before Dallas started taking penalties.
And as for trying to mount a comeback? The top line was disjointed as Jamie Benn got a 10-minute misconduct penalty and played only 11:53. Radulov took two penalties and left early after crashing head-first into the end boards. He played only 14:49. Tyler Seguin logged 21:09, had three shots on goal and won 5-of-9 faceoffs.
But he now has gone 12 games with no goals and just one assist, and that clearly is becoming a huge problem for the Stars.
Asked what is wrong with his top line, Bowness said: "We're giving them the ice time, we're getting them out there as much as we can. They've got to figure it out, it's as simple as that. They're our top-end guys. You've got to give them the ice time to get going, and they're getting that. They've got to figure it out."

The Stars will try to do that in a rather odd setup. They have Thursday for practice or rest and then play back-to-back on Friday and Saturday. That means they can come back hard and square things up and possibly gain momentum. Or they could face elimination before the end of the weekend.
Dickinson said this isn't the first time the team has faced adversity in the playoffs.
"We've got a lot of veteran guys that have been through a lot," Dickinson said. "If we can draw from those experiences and those situations and reflect on it and say 'Hey, we can respond. We've got the guys in here that can do it,' we'll be fine."
Or as Klingberg put it: "It's 2-1, they're up one. We're going to even the series on Friday."
That's one way to look at it.

Game 4: Stars vs. Lightning (Tampa Bay leads 2-1)

Friday, 7 p.m. CT
Where:Rogers Place, Edmonton
TV:NBC, Ch. 5
Radio:The Ticket 96.7-FM, 1310-AM
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.