Heika’s Take: Stars can’t find dagger as Avalanche force Game 6

The Stars have been a dominant road team in the playoffs this season, rolling up a 4-1 record and outscoring the opposition 16-8.

They have not been as good at home.

Dallas lost a 5-3 game to the Colorado Avalanche Wednesday to drop to 3-4 at American Airlines Center this postseason. And while the Stars have been outscored 20-22 on home ice, coach Pete DeBoer said he feels his team has been competitive, just as they were on Wednesday.

“I don’t know the answer to that,” DeBoer said. “It’s not like we’re playing really poorly at home. We’re not finding ways to win, which we do on the road. It’s a fine line.”

Dallas did some good things, scoring first for the fifth time against the Avalanche, as well as keeping the game tied at 2-2 after 40 minutes. But Colorado made just a few more good plays, and that helped the Avalanche stay alive in the best-of-seven series. Dallas leads 3-2, but is facing a desperate team.

“You knew we were going to get their best game of the series, and we did,” DeBoer said. “Their big guys are all on the scoresheet tonight which you probably anticipated would happen. We still were right there in that game.”

The two teams exchanged punches for much of the game, as Colorado finished with a 27-26 edge in shots on goal and Dallas had a 68-61 advantage in shot attempts. The Stars took a 1-0 lead when Jason Robertson got in hard on the forecheck and Matt Duchene found an open Joe Pavelski midway through the first period. It was the first goal of the playoffs for Pavelski, and a good sign for the 39-year-old forward, who added an assist later in the game.

But just when it seemed Dallas would be able to get to the first intermission with a lead, Colorado created chaos in front of goalie Jake Oettinger, and Artturi Lehkonen scored on the power play in the final second of the period.

“A couple of things happened that were really self-inflicted,” DeBoer said. “This time of year, it makes it really hard to win. One is the goal at the end of the first period – you’ve got to get out of the period there.”

Dallas stayed calm and took advantage of a second period power play, as Pavelski made a great stretch pass to Robertson up the right wing. That set up a two-on-zero, and Robertson fed Miro Heiskanen for his fifth goal of the playoffs.

Once again, though, the Avalanche fought back. It was an opportunistic goal, as Colorado gained a man advantage and Cale Makar floated in a shot from distance to tie the score at 2-2. The Avalanche then took their first lead of the entire series a minute into the third period, as Casey Mittelstadt charged the net and flipped a puck in off of Oettinger. Makar then walked through the Stars defense and slipped a puck under Oettinger to make the score 4-2 four minutes into the third period, and the home crowd started to get restless.

Logan Stankoven made it 4-3 midway through the period with a nice tip shot, but then MacKinnon whipped a shot past Oettinger’s glove for a 5-3 lead with under four minutes to go. It was a tough night for Oettinger, who had been on a hot streak. He allowed five goals on 27 shots and now has a 2.96 GAA and .879 save percentage at AAC. He has a 1.34 GAA and .954 save percentage in five road games this playoffs.

He also has a career record of 11-4 when coming off a loss in the postseason.

“He’s a response guy, he has been in my entire time with him,” DeBoer said. “It would have been a great thing to [eliminate] them tonight. Our effort was in the right place, but you have to give them credit, they played a really good road game. Now, we have to go down there and respond, and Jake is part of that. Him and our group have to go in there and do what we did earlier in this series.”

The Stars are hoping those road numbers will be there again when the two teams play Game 6 at Ball Arena on Friday. A win would get Dallas into the Western Conference Final for the second consecutive season and also would give them a little time to rest. Roope Hintz missed the game with an injury, Chris Tanev lost a tooth in the game, and Tyler Seguin went to the dressing room late in the third period with an injury.

There are rarely updates on availability in the playoffs, but it’s clear that if the Stars can earn some rest, it would be helpful. That said, the players say they can’t focus on anything but trying to win the next game.

“We’re not trying to close it out so we can get more rest. We’re trying to close it out so we can move on,” Pavelski said. “However it happens, we want to get there. It would have been nice, but we didn’t get it done, so now we’ve got to go regroup a little bit, look at some things, and go try to win a game.”

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 Twitter @MikeHeika.