First Shift 🏒
The Stars have learned a few lessons over the past three games, the hardest of which came on Tuesday night.
But while Dallas was better after a 5-3 loss to Pittsburgh on Saturday, and then better after a 3-2 overtime loss at Minnesota on Sunday, it still has blown third period leads in three consecutive games and has wasted the opportunity to make Thursday’s showdown against Winnipeg a much bigger deal.
As it is, the Stars are four points back of the Central Division leaders and can get a lot closer with a win. But that’s only a small part of the challenge to respond.
“It’s a great test of our character to see how we respond,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said.
After a good practice on Wednesday, DeBoer said the biggest challenge for his team is to find its game again. Dallas had a 2-1 lead against Pittsburgh entering the third period and made a couple of huge mistakes on defense before losing 5-3 in regulation. It vowed defensive improvement in Sunday’s game at Minnesota and had a 1-0 lead after 40 minutes. However, mistakes and penalties allowed the Wild to claim a 3-2 victory in overtime. On Tuesday, Dallas played a nearly perfect game in the first 40 minutes, taking a 3-0 lead into second intermission. Even when Vancouver pushed back to make it 3-2, goals from Mavrik Bourque and Granlund gave the Stars a 5-2 lead and what appeared to be a guaranteed win with just over two minutes remaining.
However, the Canucks scored three times in the final minute of regulation – an NHL record – and then won 6-5 in overtime. It was a gut punch loss, and now there is much on the line in the response.
“It will be as close to a playoff game as it can be in the regular season,” forward Wyatt Johnston said. “We need to clean up some things and come out with a really good game.”
Ironically, the Stars did that on Tuesday. They controlled the puck, drew four power plays and scored on the first three. In a lot of ways, the first 40 minutes were perfect. In fact, even when the Canucks pushed back, Dallas had a great answer. But then things unraveled.
“I thought tonight was a pretty good game until the last minute,” forward Rantanen said following the loss. “For 59 minutes, we played pretty well. But these things can’t happen when you’re in the playoffs. It’s not easy to flip the switch, so we’ve got to take some things we did 5-on-5 and build on them.”
Dallas has just four games left in the regular season, and the Jets are the toughest opponent remaining. It sure looks like Dallas could start the postseason at American Airlines Center (where they have struggled in playoffs past), so there are a lot of intangibles that could be tested on Thursday.
“It’s important,” DeBoer said. “We have had a lot of wins over the past month where we didn’t have great detail and we still found a way to win games. Last night is a loss, but from a coaching perspective, I thought it was a good loss. We had a lot of details to our game, we did a lot of things we haven’t done in a while. We had O-zone possession, we drew some penalties, we did a lot of things to build that lead for the first time in a while. There are bad wins and good losses, and I would consider last night a good loss.”
Of course, it’s only good if the Stars build on the positive things. They worked on a lot of details in practice Wednesday and now they need to put those details into place for 60 minutes against the team with the best record in the league.
“We’re getting to the point in the year where we don’t have a lot of practices, so it’s good to be out there,” Johnston said. “You want to get the feeling of doing the things you need to do so they feel natural in the game.”
And what better time than now?
“We have to build on that,” DeBoer said of the good things in the game. “That’s the important thing. Whether we win or lose, what does it look like?”
