Heika’s Take: Johnston’s hat trick helps Stars “find a way” in win over Blues

The old hockey adage is that good teams find a way to win even when they don’t play their best.

That seems to fit the Stars perfectly this season.

On Sunday night, Dallas lost most of the analytical battles, but received great goaltending from Jake Oettinger and a 4-for-4 night on the power play. That was enough to secure a 6-3 win over St. Louis at American Airlines Center. The Blues had a 42-21 advantage in shots on goal and a 70-39 edge in shot attempts, but they never could wrest the game from the Stars. Dallas rode a Wyatt Johnston hat trick (all on the man advantage) to push its record to 4-1-0 since returning from the 4 Nations Face-Off break.

“You have to win all kinds of different ways,” said head coach Pete DeBoer. “I can’t remember us being outshot like that in a long time, so credit to St. Louis. I thought they played heavy and hard, and desperate, like we knew they were going to. You’ve got to find different ways to win, and tonight our special teams and our goalie were the difference. Once in a while you need that.”

Dallas headed into the Christmas break with a power play that ranked 26th in the league at 15.9 percent. That helped the team to a .606 points percentage, good for 12th in the league. Since then, the Stars have the second-best power play in the NHL (32.9 percent) and the best overall points percentage at .741. And that’s despite missing Tyler Seguin and Miro Heiskanen (both still out following surgeries), missing Mason Marchment for a little over a month, and currently missing Lian Bichsel.

“I mean, I think as a group there’s just kind of that resiliency, that kind of no quit attitude, where we feel we can win any game, any night,” Johnston said. “I think that’s so important come playoff time. You’ve got to win so many different ways, so it's good to try to build that confidence and trust.”

Sunday was a great example of why the team is tough, both individually and together. Johnston and Jason Robertson missed a lot of practice time in the offseason and training camp because of injuries, and that slowed both down. Since finding health and their game at New Year’s, Robertson ranks fourth in the league in scoring with 32 points (16 goals, 16 assists) in 24 games, while Johnston is sixth with 30 points (12 goals, 18 assists) in 24 games. The Stars as a team have a big lead in scoring in that span at 3.71 goals per game. Washington is second at 3.48.

“I think they are just snapping it around and they are outworking the penalty killers,” Oettinger said of watching his team’s power play. “They are shooting on their chances and not trying to be too cute. A lot of net-front goals, and as a penalty killer I would rather them stay to the outside, so when we can get on the inside like that you are going to score more goals and get tips and rebounds. You need the power play to get their goals, and we have done that lately.”

Marchment started things off with a beautiful goal two minutes in, but then St. Louis tied it a minute later. The Blues started dominating the shot clock, and Oettinger had to be on his toes, but while the Blues controlled puck possession, they could never take the lead. Instead, Matt Duchene scored his 25th goal 13 minutes into the first period. The Blues tied it up again, but Johnston countered with a power play goal with two seconds remaining in the first period.

“I thought we were getting beat in a lot of puck races and a lot of battles,” DeBoer said of the fact that Dallas lost defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin on the first shift of the game. “They were coming out of the piles with pucks. For the second period, we got Lyubushkin back which helped. It was a different game, but again, not every game is going to look perfect, especially from the coach’s eyes and I know our group has worked really hard to have [the power play] be a difference-maker, and it definitely was tonight.”

Johnston scored twice in the third period to bust open a 4-3 game. Roope Hintz finished with a goal and three assists for his second consecutive four-point night (he had four assists against Los Angeles on Friday), and Marchment, Duchene and Thomas Harley each finished with two points.

It was the kind of game that could have easily gone sideways. Instead, by the end, the biggest question was whether or not Oettinger would try to score into an empty net.

That’s a good sign for a Stars team that is now 39-19-2, good for third in the league at 80 points.

“These games can go either way,” DeBoer said. “They were the more desperate team, they were harder, they were heavier, particularly early in the game. We bent but didn’t break. We did enough to hang around and then we got a couple of goals on the looks we got. That’s what good teams do. We didn’t allow the fact that they had that momentum to turn that into a two- or three-goal hole, we hung around until we found our game.”

Because…well, you know the old adage.

“That’s what good teams do. They find a way,” Marchment said. “The power play was huge, and Jake came up big for us and Wyatt had a hell of a night. It was a bunch of guys chipping in to get the win.”

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.