Heika’s Take: Stars can’t solve rookie goalie, come up short against Canadiens

The Stars did a lot of things right Thursday.

Just not enough to get a win.

Dallas had a 33-24 advantage in shots on goal and a 75-51 edge in shot attempts, but rookie goalie Jakub Dobes came up with 32 saves and led the Montréal Canadiens to a 3-1 win at American Airlines Center.

“Coming off a road trip with a quick turnaround, I liked our effort,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “I thought the first 10 minutes we came out a little slow, but I liked our game. At the end of two, we should have been up. We did a lot of things right tonight.”

It was an odd assignment for the Stars, as they were returning from a five-game road trip, had one game at home, and then will play a huge divisional game at Colorado on Saturday. Still, Dallas created a ton of scoring chances and played good enough defense so that the game was tied 1-1 with 10 minutes remaining.

That’s when Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson whipped a shot on goal and forward Alex Newhook deflected it past Stars goalie Jake Oettinger for the game-winner. The NHL reviewed the goal for a possible high stick on a tip, and decided there was not conclusive evidence to overturn it, so the goal stood.

“I mean it's one of those goals,” said forward Jason Robertson. “Tip it in and we just couldn’t find another one.”

That was bad news for the Stars, who just couldn’t get the puck past Dobes. The 23-year-old has played just four games in his NHL career, but recorded wins over Washington, Colorado, Florida and Dallas.

“When I was in [the minors], I wanted to be here, so the one thing is I want to prove I belong here,” Dobes said. “It's kind of a motivation to show everyone that maybe they were wrong. I don’t want to say it in a confident way, I just want to prove myself. That’s pretty much it.”

Dobes’ play added to the storyline of frustration for the Stars. The team has been scoring well of late, but it has had a history of making the other goalie the first star of the game. DeBoer said the team has learned from games like this, and they can again.

“There are some lessons in that for us about slinging pucks to the net and getting people in the goalie’s eyes,” DeBoer said of the game-winning goal for Montréal. “That's a big goal for them. I really didn't think we gave them much but that's what they did on that play. They just threw it to the net and had someone in Jake's eyes and got a stick on it. I thought we had more than enough chances to score a couple of goals tonight, but we didn't stick them in. I thought we could have made it a little more difficult with more traffic on their guy."

Dallas was already without Tyler Seguin (hip surgery) and Mason Marchment (facial surgery) and then lost Roope Hintz to an upper body injury sustained Tuesday in Toronto. That forced a lot of line shuffling and the challenge of depending on some depth players. Wyatt Johnston moved into Hintz’s spot with Robertson and Evgenii Dadonov, and the line looked good. Johnston finished with eight shot attempts, Robertson with seven and Dadonov with six. They combined on a beautiful play to score just four minutes into the game when Robertson cleaned up the rebound of a Dadonov shot for his 12th goal of the season.

It looked like a great harbinger to overcome a “trap game”, but Montréal scored within the next minute and all of the momentum seemed to come out of the building. Dallas has allowed several goals on “the next shift” after a goal, and DeBoer said it is something the team has to work on.

“The next shift after a goal is always important,” DeBoer said. “You know the other team is going to immediately push, and we could probably do a better job with that.”

Dallas pulled Oettinger in the final three minutes and had several great chances, but couldn’t force the puck in. It was continued frustration from earlier in the game, and Montréal eventually put in an empty-netter for the 3-1 final.

It was a hard-earned win for the Canadiens, and when asked if luck played a role, DeBoer was philosophical.

"I think over the course of a year, all of the luck stuff, I like to think it evens out,” the coach said. “It usually does, but you also make some of your own luck. Like I talked about, that second goal for them, call it luck but they had two guys going to the net. There was traffic in front of Jake, so you make some of that luck yourself. With some of the scoring we have out of the lineup, Roope, Marchment and Seguin, we've got to get some of those ugly goals like that too."

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.