Even in the end, when Tampa Bay held the Stars to five shots on goal in the third period, Bowness said he felt his team was generating chances.
"The third period was even regardless of what the shot clock tells you," Bowness said. "Give them credit, they shut it down pretty good. But we cannot pass up opportunities to put the puck on the net."
It was another area where the Stars can look for improvement. But the bottom line is both goalies were excellent, and that allowed both teams to reload and find their focus. In the end, the series is tied _ and it should be tied.
"This was an emotional game," Tampa Bay forward Anthony Cirelli said. "There were ups and some downs. … They had a push there. I thought we did a pretty good job of weathering the storm there. Whenever you can come out with a victory is a positive for us, so we'll take some video, we'll look at some good and the bad things, and move on."
And that's the beauty of Game 2. The series is tied, both teams have to see which bodies might be healthy, and then they can look at three games in four days (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday). The Stars took advantage in Game 1, Tampa Bay took it back in Game 2, and now the fight for the Stanley Cup looks pretty interesting.
"The hole was a little too deep tonight, but there was no quit," Pavelski said. "We got our game back, and we need to stay at that level moving forward."