Stars simply bested by better team in round-robin loss

The beauty of hockey is that for all of the complications that can pop up when two squads of warriors in armor and skates whack a rubber puck around a surface of ice while a group of officials tries to adjudicate a rulebook that is as long and convoluted as "Atlas Shrugged," it really is a simple game.

If you play better than the other team, you usually win.

That point was hammered home Monday when the Stars took a 5-3 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in their first round-robin playoff game at the hockey bubble in Edmonton. The Stars were the better team for much of the first 40 minutes and took a 3-1 lead, forcing mistakes with the kind of unified team play and quick passing they have been stressing throughout training camp. They then squandered all of that that as they crumbled under the pressure of a Vegas rally that led to the ice being tilted toward goalie Ben Bishop for much of the third period.

Yes, the game-winning goal was a controversial call. Officials waved off a William Carrier goal with 5:13 remaining because Carrier first knocked the stick out of the hand of Bishop before making a move to beat the Stars goalie, who had to slide back into the play without a stick. However, Vegas challenged the play and officials in the NHL said Bishop was out of the crease when the contact happened, so the goal should stand.

That gave the Golden Knights a 4-3 lead, and paved the way for the eventual victory.

Still, the bottom line is that Dallas never would have been in that position had they not fallen apart in structure and composure.

"We just got away from our game," said Stars coach Rick Bowness, who described the Stars play as "cute."

"There's only one way to play this game, and it's the right way. We stopped playing the right way," Bowness added. "We got very soft on the puck, the plays at the blue line were very soft. and all that does is give the other team momentum. We just made it too easy for them to play."

The irony of the night was that Dallas had the textbook of what to do opened to Page 1 in the first period. Even though Chandler Stephenson scored on the first shot of the game against Bishop, Dallas was clearly the better team. The Stars were relentless on the forecheck, they made confident plays in their back end, and they really put pressure on Golden Knights goalie Robin Lehner. Joe Pavelski scored when a pass deflected off of a skate, lifting a sort of heavy blanket that seemed to be suffocating the offense.

"We got that first goal that we've been looking for for a while, and you could feel the confidence," Pavelski said. "We were already skating good, and we got some chances, but kind of as it went in you felt a little weight lift off. It was a good team game and we went after them."

Jamie Oleksiak scored on a beauty of a shot 42 seconds later. Then, Mattias Janmark drew a hooking call, and Corey Perry scored a power play goal to give the Stars a 3-1 lead.

It was an incredible display of what the Stars have talked about for four months. They were aggressive defensively, they were fast, they got the puck in deep, supported their linemates and forced mistakes from the opposition.

They earned their goals.

"We were playing the way we have to play, which means the puck is going north hard and we get to establish the forecheck," Bowness said. "That's how we gain momentum. We're not the most creative team on the rush, so we did a really good job in forcing turnovers and making them spend time in their zone. When you do that, you end up with a power play like we did."

And you end up with the confidence to convert a power play opportunity like that.

"That's Dallas Stars hockey, and that's how we obviously have to play for 60 minutes," Bowness said.

The Stars clearly learned that lesson when they backed off, played soft and seemed too interested in protecting a lead and not playing the right way. The Stars were outshot 16-6 in the third period, so worrying about an official's decision didn't seem the top priority.

Bishop said his stick was knocked out of his hand, and that we were allowed to draw our own conclusions about how he felt. Bowness said the officials are a part of the game.

"Those are breaks, because we just made it too easy for them to play," he said.

So Dallas now is 0-1-0 in the round-robin, while Vegas is 1-0-0. Colorado beat St. Louis, 2-1, in its game, so the Avalanche are also 1-0-0. Dallas plays Colorado on Wednesday, and it needs to have a pretty good response if it wants to have a chance to move up from the fourth seed in the Western Conference. It also needs a pretty good response if it wants to be ready to play when the first round of the playoffs gets started.

"We just let them come at us. We didn't take ownership of the game, and it was obviously an embarrassing third period that we don't want to repeat," said center Jason Dickinson.

"It's something we learn from," Dickinson added. "We're fortunate this game is not as important as other games for other teams. It's lucky that's the case, because if we played like that in a play-in series, we'd be going home soon."

It's pretty simple, really. The teams that play best get to stick around.

Seguin, Benn, Gurianov don't get a shot on goal: Rick Bowness put together a top line of Tyler Seguin with Jamie Benn and Denis Gurianov, and the trio didn't register a shot on goal Monday in a 5-3 loss to Vegas.

Seguin missed the exhibition game against Nashville with an unnamed injury, and Bowness said he looked rusty.

"Seggy had missed the exhibition game, so there was rust on his part," Bowness said. "The other three lines were all great, for the most part. That line was a little bit rusty and a little bit out of sync, so we'll sit down with them tomorrow and see if we can get them in a better groove. But they were out of whack, there's no question."

Heiskanen has three assists: Defenseman Miro Heiskanen led all Stars players in time on ice at 23:14 and assisted on all three goals. Heiskanen had four points (two goals, two assists) in 13 playoff games last season.

"He's a great player, and I think moving forward, he's going to factor in on a lot of goals," Pavelski said. "He plays a lot of minutes, he has the puck a lot, he's such a good skater, he makes good plays. He's such a good player who makes a lot of good reads and a lot of good decisions out there. As he gets more experience, you're going to see his game to another level."

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

Video: Bowness on what went wrong for Stars late vs. Vegasis a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter Video: Bowness on what went wrong for Stars late vs. Vegas, and listen to his Video: Bowness on what went wrong for Stars late vs. Vegas.