Heika's Take: 'That's what depth does'

The Stars are finding their scoring depth in recent games and it seems not a moment too soon.
Forward Tyler Seguin suffered a leg laceration on Thursday against the Sabres and is listed as "day to day," but could be out longer. He was on crutches in the post-game dressing room at KeyBank Center.
However, a team who has been boosted by recent trade acquisitions in Max Domi and Evgenii Dadonov tied a Dallas Stars record with 10 goals in a 10-4 win over the Sabres.
It was an incredible display of hunger and intensity by the Stars, who finished with a 49-29 advantage in shots on goal and had 16 players with at least one point. But it was also a great start to a six-game road trip and a sign of just what this team could look like as it gets itself in position for a potential playoff run.

"I think it's been coming," Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. "I think we've been creating some offense and scoring some goals lately. I think it's just guys playing with more confidence. Pavelski got his first in a while the other night. Mush did too. Guys are building off of that."

Dallas moves to 35-17-13. Just as important, they are 5-1-1 in their past seven games and have scored 37 goals in that span. This is a team that was bottom five in the league for two months and just about every player was facing some kind of slump. But Mason Marchment and Joe Pavelski broke out of their droughts a couple games back, and each added goals on Thursday. Radek Faksa had two goals and now has 10 on the season. Wyatt Johnston scored his 16th, Joel Kiviranta potted his seventh, even Ryan Suter got in on the action with his second of the year. Suter also recorded an assist and was plus-5.
"It's been a grind," Suter said. "But the team's been playing well, and first place is a good place to be. You keep working hard and keep doing the team stuff and eventually it will happen."

Marchment had a 32-game slump and Pavelski didn't score for 11 games, but both worked through their dry spells and now seem back to where they were at the beginning of the season. Jason Robertson had three assists and nine shots on goal. Dadonov had a goal, an assist, and was plus-3. Domi had an assist and four shots on goal.
Bottom line, the team looked like it had a ton of scoring depth. This was just the second time since the team moved to Texas in 1993 that it has scored 10 goals in a single game. That's remarkable, and it's important if Seguin is out for any length of time.
"We played like that for a long time," DeBoer said of a 3.5 scoring average for the first three months of the season. "Then we got in a little bit of a rut where guys were squeezing the sticks a little bit, but we've worked our way out of it again."
Thursday was sort of an explosion. Dallas scored seven goals against Colorado on Saturday and has four goals or more in each of the past six games. This is the kind of consistency that helps players believe. Faksa's second goal was a bar down rocket on a breakaway. Marchment's goal was perfectly placed to the far post. Even shots by Benn, Pavelski and Kiviranta were beautiful offensive plays that featured incredible set-ups. It was a clinic in the kind of offense the team has been seeking.
"We've got a lot of belief, a lot of trust in each other," Benn said. "Guys are stepping up their game at the right time, and we're just going to try to continue to keep that going."

The six-game road trip is the longest of the year, and the team will fly from Buffalo to Seattle on Friday and then play consecutive games against the Kraken. That will be followed by games at Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary. It's a huge test for a team who believes it can compete in the playoffs and wants to make sure all the details of the game are functioning well throughout the month of March.
"That's what depth does," DeBoer said. "Tyler goes out tonight and maybe for a few more games on this trip, and all of the sudden you're plugging guys in that can fill that space and still create offense and have you not skip a beat."
Now, they have to continue doing just that.
"It was a good start for the road trip, but we have to keep going," Faksa said. "It was just the first game and we've got five more on the road."

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.