Heika’s Take: Undermanned Stars outwork Bruins, come up short in shootout

The Stars got a point Monday. They deserved two.

But as so often happens against Boston, the Bruins found a way to spoil the party, and they did so again in a 4-3 shootout loss at TD Garden.

“It was a gutsy point, for sure,” said forward Tyler Seguin. “I honestly thought we were the better team tonight and should have had two. Their goalie was great, our goalie was great, the team played great and it was a fun hockey game.”

Dallas had a 46-30 advantage in shots on goal, an 82-60 edge in shot attempts and twice the scoring chances of the Bruins, and yet Jeremy Swayman was spectacular and the Stars simply couldn’t close the deal when they had a chance. David Pastrňák scored on a one-timer with 1:45 remaining with the goalie pulled in the third period to tie things up. That set up an overtime in which Seguin and the Stars were spectacular, but ineffective, and that moved onto a nine-round shootout that was much the same.

Jason Robertson scored for Dallas, but Swayman stopped the next eight attempts, including the Smith shot that slipped behind him, but died an inch or two too short.

That was impressive when you consider the Stars were playing without three defensemen in Miro Heiskanen (who was spending time with his family after the birth of his first child), Jani Hakanpää (upper body injury) and Nils Lundkvist (upper body injury). The Stars are carrying the minimum number of players for a game as they juggle injuries and the salary cap, so when Matt Duchene’s lower body injury (a carryover from Saturday’s game) prevented him from playing, they went with 11 forwards and six defensemen.

That would usually hand a huge advantage to the Bruins, but Dallas took inspiration from the challenge and played some very good hockey.

“I was really proud of our group,” DeBoer said. “Miro out and Duchene came up just before game time and couldn’t play. So we had some adversity and I thought we had a real character and gutsy effort.”

Dallas called up two veteran minor league defensemen in Alexander Petrovic and Derrick Pouliot, and both played well. Petrovic has 254 NHL games under his belt, but hadn’t played in the top league since 2019 before Monday. Pouliot played underneath DeBoer in Vegas, and has been a stalwart on the Texas Stars this year. They mixed with Esa Lindell, Thomas Harley, Ryan Suter and Joel Hanley and did a great job against the talented Bruins.

“Very well,” Lindell said when asked how the call-ups performed. “Just like veterans in this league. I like their game.”

Boston scored first on a nice play at the net, but Dallas bounced right back and eventually took a 2-1 lead on goals by Wyatt Johnston and Suter. Boston evened the game heading into the third, where Lindell gave them a 3-2 lead midway through the third period. The defenseman found himself on a 2-on-1 with Roope Hintz and after the pass was taken away, Lindell snapped in a beautiful shot for his fifth goal of the season.

“We had some chances to win it in overtime and in the shootout,” said coach Pete DeBoer.

Lindell said he planned to pass to Hintz, but was pushed to shoot.

“I did want to pass at first, but the D took it away, so I had to change my mind and go for it,” Lindell said.

It was the right decision, and it looked like the game-winner until Pasternak was left open on the left side and Jake Oettinger couldn’t get over against a blistering one-timer. That forced OT, but the Stars answered even that dose of adversity. Seguin had several great scoring chances, but just couldn’t beat Swayman. Seguin played for the Bruins and was teammates with Brad Marchand, who was honored pregame for playing his 1,000th game.

“It wasn’t meant to be,” Seguin said. “I figured if there was a guy to ruin Marchy’s night, it would be me.”

Instead, it was Swayman who ruined it for the Stars. Both goalies were spectacular in the shootout, but Charlie McAvoy scored in the ninth round, and then Smith was stopped.

Dallas falls to 34-14-8 (76 points), while the Bruins push one point ahead at 33-12-11 (77 points).

“It’s a tough building to play in even with a full lineup, so we recognized that and we showed up and we worked and played the right way,” DeBoer said. “We did a good job.”

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.