Heika’s Take: Stars spin a Christmas miracle, defeat Predators in historic fashion

The best comeback team in the NHL had its best comeback of the year on Saturday.

The Stars rebounded from a 2-0 third period deficit and scored twice in the final 15 seconds to take a 3-2 win over the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena.

The win was huge, as it pushes the Stars to 20-8-4 and keeps them atop the Central Division battle for first place and two points further ahead of the hard-charging Predators (19-15-0). It also gave Matt Duchene a great homecoming to his former team and marked an important transition as well for Craig Smith, who also once toiled for the Predators.

Smith scored the tying goal with less than 15 seconds left and then was on the ice when Jani Hakanpää scored the game-winner with under four seconds remaining. It was a great moment for a player who has struggled at times to get the puck into the net.

“He’s been so snake-bitten,” Duchene said. “He’s hit more goal posts. If half of them drop, he probably has 10 goals this year. He hit one tonight and he was a beast out there. He deserved to be out there at the end of the game and he got it done for us.”

And that’s maybe the key to all of these comebacks. Dallas leads the NHL with 12 wins in games where they trailed at some point. What’s more, the Stars have six third period comeback wins, which is an incredible feat. As it has been in so many of the other wins, coach Pete DeBoer scrambled his lines and then rewarded the players who were succeeding. DeBoer shuffled up the top three lines by playing Roope Hintz with Mason Marchment and Evgenii Dadonov, had Tyler Seguin and Duchene with Jason Robertson, and put Jamie Benn and Wyatt Johnston with Joe Pavelski.

The result was a killer third period and the eventual win. Dallas outshot Nashville 11-3 in the final frame and had a 28-8 advantage in shot attempts.

They needed that to beat Nashville goalie Juuse Saros.

“We talked at the end of the second period and we just thought there were points to be had here if we could play a good 20 minutes,” DeBoer said. “We had some frustration creeping in in the second period and we kind of reset in the third and gave ourselves a chance.”

The line shuffle was producing chances but not goals until Evgenii Dadonov popped in his eighth of the year at the 8:22 mark. That opened the door just enough.

“When you’re playing teams that defend well – especially that team, that was the perfect game for them, they got out to an early lead and the goalie is playing lights out,” DeBoer said. “We needed that first one to kind of crack them and give ourselves a chance, and Dadonov got that and then you saw what happened at the end.”

The way the Predators got the lead was also frustrating. Johnston appeared to have a wide open net late in the first period and he put a perfect shot on net. The puck got past Saros, but defenseman Roman Josi snuck back and made a glove save. Officials checked to see if the puck went over the goal line, but they didn’t call a penalty on Josi for closing his hand on the puck in the crease. That should be a penalty shot by NHL rules, but the infraction was missed by the refs, and then Nashville took a 1-0 lead in the first minute of the second period.

The Predators stretched that to 2-0 on a power play goal and then locked it down in anticipation of a low-scoring win.

But the Stars battled hard. After the Dadonov goal, they kept pushing and created several scoring chances. DeBoer rewarded Smith with key minutes, and the veteran forward broke through with just his third goal of the year. DeBoer had five forwards on the ice, including Duchene, Robertson, Pavelski and Hintz and they were able to battle to get the puck out from behind the net. Smith then punched it home with less than 15 seconds left in regulation to tie the game.

“We stayed hungry on it and I was able to get a nice bounce out front,” Smith said.

DeBoer then put Scott Wedgewood in goal and kept Smith on the ice with his fourth line partners. They got the puck deep, and when it rolled out to the right point, Hakanpää stepped in and scored his first goal of the season.

“It was a fluky play there,” Hakanpää said. “It kind of bounced around and it was just laying there for me. It was kind of on a tee there, and I just tried to get it through traffic. I honestly thought Smitty got a little touch on it, but he said he didn’t.”

The goal officially was unassisted, but just being on the ice was good enough for Smith. He played nine seasons in Nashville, and while he left in 2020, he still is a big part of the community. After stints with Boston and Washington, he signed with the Stars as a free agent in the summer. He’s been a dependable fourth-liner, and he definitely deserved to be on the ice Saturday.

“He had a tough night the other night and he kind of reset tonight against his old team here,” DeBoer said. “We wanted to give him that opportunity and he deserved to be out there in the end.”

It was a team win, and Smith definitely embodies that thought. Wedgewood had 19 saves to pick up a point in his 10th straight game (8-0-2). Hakanpää had four hits against the physical Predators and finished plus-2. Benn went 11-1 in the faceoff circle. Thomas Harley played 21 minutes and had three blocked shots. It was a Christmas miracle, and yet it was also a present the team paid for out of its own pocket.

“When I came in here, the culture was playoff hockey,” Smith said. “They’ve played a lot of games together, they’ve been in a lot of situations. You’ve got a lot of older guys who can make plays, they’re never out of a game. We’re just sticking to our game and trying to play every night and the resilience shows.”

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.