Heika’s Take: Stars can’t find back of net, lose Hintz to injury in Game 2 loss

The Stars lost Game 2 to the Edmonton Oilers on Friday and may also have lost center Roope Hintz to injury.

But, in both cases, they are confident they can handle the adversity.

“We've got to go on the road and win,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said of Game 3 Sunday in Edmonton. “We went on the road and won in the Colorado series, and we went on the road and won in the Winnipeg series or we wouldn't be sitting here. We'll load up the plane and go to work.”

The best-of-seven Western Conference Final is now tied at 1-1 after Edmonton won a 3-0 contest in Game 2. Dallas has not lost consecutive games in these playoffs, and that’s a great sign. In three of the five defeats, they have been shut out, so they also have responded well with goals afterward. Bottom line, they have been in this spot before.

“We are a veteran group, and we have been here before,” Stars captain Jamie Benn said. “We have been 1-1 in our first two series, so there is no panic. We are going to regroup, refocus, re-energize and get ready for the next one.”

In fact, the Stars were actually better in the first two periods of Game 2 than they were in the first two periods of Game 1. Yes, Dallas rode three power-play tallies to a five-goal third period in the series opener, but they were actually more consistent in creating chances in front of Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner on Friday.

“I liked our game better tonight than I did Game 1, when we won,” DeBoer said. “We take a penalty, and they score on the first power play so we're playing from behind. Then, it's a pretty even game for a big chunk of the game. Their second goal, we block a shot, and it bounces right on their stick and they stick it in the net. The third goal is a tip in front of the net. We had some looks, too, where [Skinner] made some saves. Sure, when you get shut out you can do a better job in front of their goalie, but I don't think the score was as dramatically reflective of the game as maybe you felt it was. That's just my opinion.”

And DeBoer’s opinion counts for a lot. He shuffled his lines after Game 1, looking for a spark, and he seemed to get one. The top line of Hintz centering Mikael Granlund and Mikko Rantanen stuck together and looked great. The second line was the reunion of Matt Duchene with Tyler Seguin and Mason Marchment. Duchene finished with eight shot attempts and the line had 12. The third line saw Wyatt Johnston back with Jamie Benn and Evgenii Dadonov. Johnston had seven shot attempts. And the fourth line was a combination of Jason Robertson with Sam Steel and Colin Blackwell, who subbed in for Oskar Bäck.

All in all, the lines seemed to work as Dallas finished with a 65-50 advantage in shot attempts and had 10 more quality scoring chances than the Oilers. Dallas won 60 percent of the faceoffs, while Edmonton had 50 hits to 29 for the Stars.

“I think we had looks,” said winger Marchment. “They did a good job blocking and kind of taking away the inside of the ice on us. But still, I think we had some looks. They just weren't going in for us. For the most part, we’ve just got to keep working and getting in behind them and playing in behind them.”

Dallas has had its struggles at times. Marchment, Duchene and Dadonov have one goal each through 15 playoff games. They each had more than 20 goals during the regular season. Robertson is returning from a lower-body injury, but he has yet to score a goal in eight playoff games. He led the Stars in the regular season with 35 goals.

“We haven’t had a lot of 5-on-5 scoring, but situationally…we played the Colorado Avalanche, we were playing that series without two of our best players and defending a lot of that series in order to win,” DeBoer said. “Then, we played the best defensive team in the NHL [in Winnipeg], and you’re not going to put up numbers against that team. I think a little bit of it is situational. There’s no doubt the numbers say we’re not scoring 5-on-5, but I think you’ve got to look a little deeper than that.”

That said, the challenge will only get tougher if Hintz is out. The big center is one of the fastest skaters on the team and has 11 points (5 goals, 6 assists) in 15 games. He left the game after getting slashed by Edmonton’s Darnell Nurse. Hintz shoved Nurse in front of Skinner in the third period, and Nurse swung around and delivered a hard slash to Hintz’s leg and caused the center to go down in visible pain. Officials initially called a five-minute major on Nurse, but then changed it to a two-minute minor. Hintz was helped off the ice and did not return.

DeBoer didn’t have an update on the possibility of Hintz playing in Game 3, but said afterward that had the Stars done the same thing to Oilers superstar Connor McDavid, that he would expect there would be a major penalty.

“Does anyone in this room think if Connor McDavid gets carried off the ice like that, it’s not a five-minute major?” DeBoer asked in the postgame media session. “If that’s 97 carried off the ice in the same situation, I think we all know the answer to what that looks like for us.”

The Stars played much of the season without Seguin and Miro Heiskanen and also started the playoffs without Robertson, so DeBoer said he believes the team can adjust.

“We’ve dealt with that,” DeBoer said. “We wouldn’t be sitting here if we weren’t able to deal with that or prepared to deal with that.”

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.