Heika’s Take: Flat offensive effort leads Stars to 2-1 shootout loss in Pittsburgh

You could say the start of the Stars’ season has been a checkerboard quilt, patching all manner of fabrics together from satin to chintz.

Or, you could say it’s been a series of junior high chemistry lab experiments that have gone both wonderfully right and horribly wrong.

Either way, the 2-2-1 result has been a lot to digest. On Saturday, a team that was flying high and looking to take advantage of good scheduling, fell flat in a 2-1 shootout loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

“I expected more from our guys here,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. “They came off a game last night and we never got skating at all.”

The Penguins were in an interesting place after a hard loss in Columbus on Friday. They fixed a lot of their problems, tightened things up, and carried the play into the Stars end of the ice. Dallas had a 25-20 advantage in shots on goal, but Pittsburgh had a 63-54 edge in shot attempts and a 30-24 advantage in faceoffs. The Stars typically are better in the dot, which coaches often judge as a key area of “compete.”

The Penguins also earned five power plays, which is way more than the Stars typically give.

Gulutzan gave the team some rest earlier in the week and that paid off in a 4-0 win at Buffalo. So, he repeated with a day off on Friday, and that sort of backfired.

“We had some time off,” Gulutzan said. “We didn’t skate yesterday, trying to keep it fresh for today, but lesson learned by us coaches and myself. We just didn’t get moving. We were fresh, we’ve got no excuses, and we have to be better than that.”

The game was a serious goalie duel, as Jake Oettinger stretched his shutout streak to a career-best 188:52 (3rd longest in franchise history) before the Penguins scored on a shot that deflected off the stick of Stars defenseman Lian Bichsel. Meanwhile, Arturs Silovs was fantastic for Pittsburgh and didn’t give up a goal until Tyler Seguin deflected in a shot with Oettinger pulled in the final minute of regulation. It was Seguin’s first goal since November 15, 2025, as spent most of the rest of last season and the summer recovering from ACL surgery.

“It felt great,” said Seguin, who also scored in the shootout. “I’ve been thinking about that first one. I’m feeling better every game, so that’s a good feeling.”

Dallas went 0-for-3 on the power play but killed five penalties too. It was an odd night for special teams that sort of mirrored the Stars mixed effort.

“When you’re not skating, it gets hard and we had some penalties sprinkled in there,” Gulutzan said. “That kind of affected our rhythm.”

Mikko Rantanen had two of the penalties and the other three were spread between defensemen Miro Heiskanen, Nils Lundkvist and Bichsel.

And while the PK was great, led by Esa Lindell, the shorthanded time took a lot out of the offense.

“I thought we relied too much on our defending at times…and we did last year too,” Gulutzan said. “The guys in front are playing hard defensively, but I think there’s even more from our team offensively.”

If they can combine better offense with the play of Oettinger, who currently sits among the goaltending leaders with a 0.74 GAA and a .963 save percentage, then the future looks bright.

“He was phenomenal,” Seguin said. “He was the real reason we got a point tonight. He was great again and we would have liked to do a little more for him.”

Gulutzan added: “You don’t want to waste those performances. We need to create more, we need to be on our toes more.”

And that could be a lesson for back-to-back games coming up against Colorado next week.

“I think we’re where we probably should be,” Seguin said of the 2-2-1 record. “And we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

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.