Stars hang on, hand Blackhawks 4th straight loss

DALLAS -- Matt Duchene scored twice and Miro Heiskanen had two assists for the Dallas Stars in a 4-2 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at American Airlines Center on Saturday.

“We did a lot of good things. I think the game didn’t feel as good as it probably could have because of the last 10 minutes. They had a couple of goals there and made it close,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “On the other end, I thought [their goalie] made some big saves. I thought we could have had five or six [goals], but we were pretty good tonight and deserved to win. That’s what we did.”

Evgenii Dadonov and Jamie Benn scored for Dallas (7-2-0), and Jake Oettinger made 21 saves.

“I still think we have more to give sometimes,” Dallas forward Logan Stankoven said. “Even tonight, kind of on and off. Goalies have been great, defense has been great. It’s nice to have that record, but we know we can push for more.”

Connor Bedard and Ryan Donato scored, and Patrick Maroon had two assists for Chicago (2-6-1), which has lost its past four games. Petr Mrazek made 25 saves.

“We've got to find ways to generate offense that's not off the rush; it's getting pucks in, generate offense below the top of the circles, create those second and third opportunities, create that shooting mentality, shoot and scramble. We're not doing enough of that,” Maroon said. “In the third period, we did and we got results off of it. We were close to tying it up, but obviously wasn't good enough."

Dadonov gave Dallas a 1-0 lead at 9:17 of the first period after being sprung for a breakaway by a high flip from defenseman Esa Lindell.

Benn made it 2-0 at 14:42 of the second when he swatted the puck into the net out of midair after Heiskanen’s shot bounced off his shoulder.

“Kind of just a lucky play. Just hit it to myself,” Benn said. “When you’re in a bit of a slump, the best place to go is right in front of the net. Miro [Heiskanen] had a lot of room and feathered one over, it hit me and got lucky. It’s nice to get one.”

Duchene made it 3-0 on the power play at 8:50 of the third period, scoring on a one-timer from a sharp angle just above the goal line.

“There’s a lot of good details [in our game],” Heiskanen said. “I think we’re defending well most of the time and [Oettinger] has been great, so that’s been really good. Of course, offense is working too. There’s been many good things, but I like our defensive game so far.”

Smith cut the lead to 3-1 at 9:34 when he poked a loose puck into the net amid a net-front scramble.

Bedard made it 3-2 at 14:15 on a wrist shot from the top of the right circle after he was sprung on a rush by a stretch pass from Maroon.

“I loved our pushback at the end. I thought that was our best look in a 6-on-5 situation,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “But we really struggled a lot of the night breaking out the puck with numbers. We had a lot of single-man or two-man line rushes. They set the high pace of the game, and we had a hard time matching that."

Duchene scored an empty-net goal with 17.7 seconds remaining for the 4-2 final.

“We're not just going to be happy that we stayed in a game. We're all NHL players, that's not the goal, you know? It's frustrating,” Bedard said. “We're, what, 2-7? That's pretty bad. Losing is not fun, so we've obviously got to figure it out."

NOTES: Stankoven (one goal, eight assists) is tied with Philadelphia Flyers forward Matvei Michkov for the NHL lead in rookie scoring. … Oettinger became the ninth goaltender in the NHL expansion era (since 1967-68) with at least 118 wins before his 200th career game (118 wins in 199 games). New York Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin is the only other active goalie on the list.