Heika’s Take: Stars get contributions from up and down lineup, fend off Predators 5-4

There are times in hockey when one or two guys can pretty much win you a game.

There are times when you get solid play from a couple of lines, and that’s enough.

On Saturday, the Stars needed everybody.

In a frenetic game against the Nashville Predators, everyone made mistakes, everyone made great plays, and the lads in Victory Green survived to claim a 5-4 victory at Bridgestone Arena.

“You need depth scoring,” said coach Glen Gulutrzan of the fact Dallas received third period goals from Justin Hryckowian, Adam Erne and Sam Steel. “Our bottom six definitely came up with scoring. But not only that, the way they played and checked. I thought it was a good team win that way.”

But as has been the case for much of the season, the big dogs also came through. Miro Heiskanen had two assists, and so did Wyatt Johnston. Roope Hintz scored a goal and Mikko Rantanen added an assist to jump into a tie for third in NHL scoring with 21 points. The power play struck again, and now ranks third in the league at 34.7 percent.

It was a spirited effort against a Nashville team that has been struggling and was hoping to make a statement in front of its home crowd in a Saturday matinee. The Predators got goals from Steven Stamkos, Filip Forsberg, Luke Evangelista and Nicolas Hague to take a 4-3 lead in the third period.

And with a Stars team that has been leaky the past two games, that really seemed to be enough. But Colin Blackwell had a tremendous shift to set up Erne for his second goal of the season, and Johnston put one on a platter for Steel less than a minute later, and the Stars were right back in control.

Dallas still needed two big penalty kills to close the game out, and they got it. Jake Oettinger stiffened up in goal and Esa Lindell skated most of the final four minutes to help push the Stars to 8-4-3.

The Stars have been a top five penalty kill for the past three seasons under assistant coach Alain Nasreddine, but they have dropped to the bottom five this year. Still, the DNA of a good kill showed itself late against the Predators.

“That’s big,” Gulutzan said. “Sometimes in this league, it’s not what your number is, it’s when you get the goal or when you get the kill. I thought those were an important two kills for us, and that’s something you can build momentum off of.”

Building has been a big part of the Stars’ 2025-26 journey so far. Building under Gulutzan and the new coaching staff, building with key players out of the lineup (Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene are getting close to returning), building with new faces like Erne and Hryckowian, as well as players getting more minutes like Mavrik Bourque, Blackwell and Steel.

“We’re a tight group, and I think everybody is just happy to tie the game and take the lead,” Bourque said of the excitement for the depth players that electrified the bench. “These two guys [Rantanen and Johnston] are big pieces, so I think that’s why everybody was happy.”

Erne said the process is necessary. Yes, it’s just November, but planting seeds like the team did on Saturday can pay dividends in the postseason.

“We need to take a little weight off the big boys’ shoulders. It can’t be the same guys every time,” Erne said of a lineup that has relied a great deal on players like Rantanen and Johnston. “That’s what you need in the playoffs. You look at the teams that win there and it’s who can get a depth goal in the right situation. That’s kind of how it worked out tonight.”

The process is hardly smooth or even, as the Stars found out in going ahead, falling behind, and going ahead again. But that’s kind of what they need in a season where they will come home for a game Sunday and then fly to Canada on Monday for games in Ottawa and Montreal.

“I thought we played a pretty solid game,” Gulutzan said of the reaction to a 7-5 defeat at the hands of Anaheim on Thursday and the corresponding reaction to getting behind on Saturday. “What is important is I didn’t think there was a dip in our game. The goals went in, but our game didn’t dip. That was a big moving forward point for me, because these games are going to get wild, you got bounces either way, but I thought we played a good game.”

A good team game…and that might be the most important lesson.

“I think we just stay patient,” Hryckowian said of the fact the Stars have been good at coming back in games. “You don’t want to overextend or do anything stupid or try to chase the game. You want to let it come to you, and I thought we played a good 60 minutes. It took some time to get the lead, but we got it done.”

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.