Heika’s Take: Stars fall victim to comeback in 5-4 OT loss to Avalanche

The comeback kids have met their match.

For the second time this season, the Colorado Avalanche have overcome a significant deficit to beat the Stars on home ice. On Nov. 18, Dallas got up 3-0 on Colorado and ended up losing 6-3. On Thursday, the Stars held a 4-2 lead with 11 minutes remaining in the third period and ended up losing 5-4 in overtime. The losses hurt both in the standings (Colorado now sits at 25-11-3, 53 points, while the Stars are 22-10-5, 49 points) and also in the heart.

The lads in Victory Green played a great game and had control for much of the way, but they allowed a late tying goal and then lost with 1:20 left in overtime when a late line change and an unfortunate bounce led to a 2-on-0 that was cashed in on by the NHL’s leading scorer in Nathan MacKinnon.

“That’s two games in a row where we kind of had control of the game and they found a way to get back in,” said forward Matt Duchene, who had two assists in the game. “It was obviously a pretty tough bounce for us on the game-tyer. And then in OT, a rolling puck cost us the game. It was a frustrating loss, but I thought we played a pretty good game tonight.”

But that’s what the Avalanche have been doing this year. While the Stars have been among the leaders with 13 comeback wins, Colorado now has 12. Two, of course, have come against the Stars, which is a bit of a punch in the gut.

“It’s a tight league,” said goalie Scott Wedgewood. “There are good hockey teams throughout the league. It would have been nice to put them away – up two goals – but we just didn’t get it done.”

That’s part of the frustration of the Stars season – inconsistency – but it’s also part of playing Colorado’s game. The Avalanche like to take chances and like to play a fast game. The Stars kept pace and even did it better than Colorado through the first 50 minutes.

Evgenii Dadonov finished off a frenetic shift by tapping in a puck at the net-front that was sent there by a Colorado player. Nathan MacKinnon then tied things up when his shot slipped past Wedgewood in a frenzied battle in front of the goal. Tyler Seguin then scored twice off of great passes from Duchene and Mason Marchment, and Joe Pavelski tallied a power play goal off another fantastic assist from Duchene, and the Stars were up 4-2.

It was an encouraging night for the Stars to know they can play at that pace with the best in the league.

“That’s how they play,” Duchene said. “They want to open it up. They’re a dynamic fast team from top to bottom. You’re going to give up chances against that team. It’s just about not shooting yourself in the foot and trying to limit themselves as much as possible. I mean, we have a two-goal lead with 10 minutes to go. It’s too bad to lose that way when we probably deserved to win.”

Jonathan Drouin scored on a redirection to make it 4-3, and then the Avalanche pulled the goalie and went to work. Dallas had a chance to put the game away, but Radek Faksa couldn’t find the empty net on the other side of Colorado's defensemen. Then, Mikko Rantanen scored with 1:09 left in regulation, and that forced overtime.

In the 3-on-3 session, Dallas had plenty of good chances, but as the Stars were working in their own end, Seguin jumped onto the ice, and a puck skipped over his stick. That opened up the 2-on-0, and MacKinnon was able to put home the winner.

“We did a lot of good things,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “We had the game on our stick a bunch of times down the stretch, including with the empty net to finish it off, and we didn’t. It bit us in the end, so you’ve got to learn from it. The big lesson is that their best players and their best line had all five goals. We have to find a way to make sure we do a better job containing them, and in games like this, your best players have to be your best players. Their guys were better than ours tonight.”

Defenseman Miro Heiskanen had a collision with Wedgewood and did not return. There was no update on what the injury might be or how long Heiskanen might be out, but it was clear the Stars missed him.

“He’s a huge piece of the team, we know that,” said forward Joe Pavelski. “You see a team tonight that definitely has a little bit more speed around the league. It’s no secret there with some of those players. Guys were getting the job done and handling it well. We had our looks and chances. You want to shut it down when you have that one goal lead at the end and go from there. We’ll take a look at it, see what happened and move on.”

Now, they might have to manage a few games without him, but that’s just part of the challenge of the season.

“We’ll miss him in all of those areas, but other guys have to step up and seize opportunities,” DeBoer said.

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.