Heika’s Take: Familiar issues linger as Stars continue skid in loss to Red Wings

The hockey gods are really laying the scar tissue down thick.

Dallas has looked at its recent losing streak as a bit of adversity that will help prepare the team for the playoffs. But even with that mindset, a 6-4 loss in Detroit on Monday was a bit much. The Stars lost for the sixth consecutive game (0-4-2) and lost for three consecutive games in regulation for the first time in the Pete DeBoer era.

Dallas was outshot for the 14th game in a row and blew a third period lead for the fourth time in the past six games. The penalty kill continued to crumble while Esa Lindell was resting for the second game in a row and, to add insult to injury, captain Jamie Benn was denied his 400th career regular-season goal for the second consecutive game.

It was a vexing performance.

“It doesn’t feel good,” DeBoer said of the slump. “But we’re going to focus on playing a real solid game with a full lineup on Wednesday in Nashville.”

Because Dallas has expected to play Colorado in the First Round of the playoffs for some time, it has shifted focus away from the intensity of each regular-season game to the importance of rest and reset. Lindell, Thomas Harley and Mason Marchment (flu) have received rest in recent games, and the overall vibe has been to play hard, but not get hurt in the process.

That has worked, but the Stars have lost games to Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Utah and now Detroit. That’s a bad feeling heading into the playoffs, and now DeBoer is saying he will try to put his best lineup on the ice Wednesday at Nashville to help get a more positive mojo cooking.

“We have to play 60 minutes, we know the importance of that,” DeBoer said. “But right now, it’s about Saturday night. You make choices at this time of year. Do you dress your lineup and win games or do you rest guys and be prepared for Saturday? We’ve obviously chosen the latter.”

While it’s unclear if Tyler Seguin (hip) will be able to play Wednesday, the guess is he will be ready to go for Game 1 of the playoffs. In addition, Miro Heiskanen (knee) is hopeful to return at some point in the First Round. If that happens, then the nagging problems that seem to be eroding confidence in this six-game losing streak might melt away.

“It’s weird,” said Wyatt Johnston, who scored his career-high 33rd goal of the season. “We want to win every night, we expect to win every night. It’s definitely frustrating. We want to come into the playoffs with our game in a good spot at the end of the day. We have one more game to do that.”

Dallas was down 2-1 after the first period, but then rallied to take a 3-2 lead after two. The Stars received goals from Colin Blackwell, Lian Bichsel and Evgenii Dadonov. The Bichsel goal was originally credited to Benn, who had been sitting on 399 career regular-season goals for over a month. When the league gave Bichsel the goal instead, there was disappointment in the air, but it was just one more piece of adversity the team had to deal with.

“I don’t really care about the goal,” the rookie said of his fourth goal of the year. “We lost a game and we should focus on that.”

The Stars have been playing sloppy hockey in recent weeks. They are routinely getting outshot and did that again on Monday. They are taking too many penalties, and did that again on Monday. They are not killing penalties with the ferocity they have shown all season, and that was clear on Monday when the Red Wings scored one power play goal – to add to the eight power play goals allowed in the previous five games.

Bottom line, Dallas was outgunned again in the third period and looked rocky in the process.

“They still expect to win, I still expect that we win,” DeBoer said. “We can rest guys but there is still an expectation that we win games. I think that’s the disappointing part for me, and I’m sure they are disappointed in that too. We want to have a good last game in Nashville. I think it’s important that we have a good solid game with everybody in the lineup.”

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.