They seemed to show that desperation during the game.
"Especially after the home loss to Montreal, we needed this one and we got it," Stars coach Rick Bowness said. "We had to stop that slide on the road. We knew going into this road trip that if we have a successful road trip, it turns our season right around."
The Stars move to 19-16-2 and stop a seven-game road losing streak. Dallas came back from a second intermission deficit for just the third time this season, and much of the credit went to the power play, which cashed twice in the final frame. Both Tyler Seguin and Jason Robertson scored their second goals of the game, and both credited a man advantage that has been creating chances, but not breaking through.
"That Montreal game, I know it didn't look good, but we had so many chances," Seguin said of a 1-for-7 night with the man advantage. "We had probably 20 shots and those pucks have got to go in. Tonight, those pucks went in."
Seguin has started to heat up after a slow first quarter to the season. He's trying to come back from surgery, and finally looks like he's hitting his stride. Seguin has scored three goals and added two assists in the past two games while generating 14 shots on goal.
"When he's skating like that, you can just see the jump is there," Bowness said. "I wanted to put him back at center, and he had an outstanding game for us tonight clearly. I know you note the power-play goal and the other goal, but he did a lot of really good things. He was really engaged physically tonight."
Bowness moved Seguin to center and said he expects him to stay there. Jamie Benn will shift from center to left wing, and that's how the team will move forward, he said.
Robertson, meanwhile, missed two games with a lower-body injury and was listed as a game-time decision. He battled through, played 19:01 and had five shots on goal. He finished with two goals and an assist.
"For a guy that's really in his second year in the league, he has tremendous poise and confidence with the puck," Bowness said.
Robertson said he worked at practice Wednesday and really wanted to play Thursday. He said the challenge of playing in back-to-back games could be tough but added that he just felt good enough to hit the ice. Clearly, that was the case.
"This morning, I was kind of debating on it because it's a back-to-back," Robertson said. "For sure going to play tomorrow. But I wanted to play in this game and help my team right away."
It could be one of the most important decisions of the year.
Dallas plays at Detroit on Friday and then plays at Philadelphia Monday and at New Jersey Tuesday. They need to fix their road record and they need to improve their road scoring. They also still need to play a better overall defensive game.
But they can work on those challenges coming off a win - and that's a huge deal.
"Listen, the guys are frustrated," Bowness said of the defensive breakdowns in recent games. "When you get frustrated, you overwork. When you overwork, usually there's not a lot of purpose to what you're doing. The end result is you're working hard, but you're not getting to accomplish what you want to accomplish."
The next step, it seems, is finding the perfect balance.
"There's lot of stuff that we didn't like tonight, but we're happy to get a win," Seguin said. "We have to start somewhere, and we started tonight."
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heikais a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.
