Heika's Take: If Stars were a painting, it'd be Picasso's finest

One of my favorite things coaches say when a game isn't pretty is "Well, that was no Picasso." It strikes me as funny because Picasso's paintings generally aren't considered traditionally pretty.

But the irony for the Stars Friday is a 5-4 overtime win in Detroit actually was a Picasso. The nose was bent, the eyes were uneven, the smile was just a little off. In fact, it was quite a wild ride that was both thrilling and shocking all at the same time.
"That's not the way how we want to play," said forward Joel Kiviranta, who scored his first goal of the season. "We try to keep low score and defense tight. But I think the main thing is we still got the two points from today."

The two points are huge, and that sort of makes the chaos more tolerable. Dallas had lost seven road games in a row before Thursday, but came back and won a 5-4 game at Buffalo. Then, on the second night of a back-to-back, Dallas got in a track meet with the Red Wings and had to battle to keep up. The result was a game in which several players toggled between fantastic plays and huge mistakes, and the team, as a whole, played horribly inconsistent.
Braden Holtby made some spectacular saves and faced 28 shots on goal and 54 shot attempts. Still, he also allowed four goals against for the second consecutive game and had a few he'd want back.
Likewise, several defensemen made good plays and accounted for two goals and four assists, but also made huge mistakes that created great scoring chances for the Red Wings.
"We're certainly not happy giving up four goals, but we're certainly happy we scored five," coach Rick Bowness said. "We have to tighten up. We're trying to find ways to win 2-1, 3-2, but if we can find a way to score four or five goals, we want to do that. But there's too many goals going in our net."

Esa Lindell scored a lucky goal early in the game and then had an unlucky goal bounce off his leg to give Detroit a 4-3 lead with about six minutes left in regulation. The veteran defenseman said the team has been tested quite a bit lately and has learned to live in that environment.
"You just got to get over it," Lindell said. "If it's a good thing or a bad thing, those happen in a game, and sometimes you can't do much. That fourth goal, I'll take a look and see what I can do better there, but I'm just trying to focus on the next shift."

The Stars have been inconsistent all season, and this stretch started with a disappointing home loss to Montreal on Tuesday. When they got down 2-0 in Buffalo, it was okay. And when they got down by one goal in the third period at Detroit, it, too, was okay.
"What we said before we started this road trip is what's done is done," Bowness said. "None of us are happy with the road record, but you put it behind you, and you move forward. That's two big road wins in a row, and we need a few more. We need that fight that we saw tonight."
Dallas still is 6-12-1 on the road, but it's making up ground and is now is 20-16-2 overall. That's far from the desired points pace they want, but it's an improvement from where they were a week ago. And if it took a little chaos to get there, so be it.
Right now, the Stars are happy they have survived some pretty hairy games.
"This is a very resilient group," Bowness said. "Things haven't gone great for us at times this season, but no one has hung their heads, no one has felt sorry for themselves. We battled hard last night, and I give our guys credit. They got a fluky one, and you've got to live with that, but you overcome it. We needed the whole 60 minutes just to tie it up, and the guys came through a with a huge goal in the end."
The tying goal came from Jason Robertson with the goalie pulled and the extra attacker on the ice. That goal came with assists from Robertson's linemates Joe Pavelski and Roope Hintz.
Then, Dallas earned a power play in overtime, and Hintz scored off an assist from Pavelski. It was a strong statement for the team's old reliable scorers, but it also helped make sure that goals from Kiviranta, Lindell and Ryan Suter made a difference in the game.

Dallas moves to 5-1 in overtime this year after struggling with the 3-on-3 game last season. Again, even among the inconsistency and craziness, there can be improvement.
"It's a resilient group and there's a lot of fight left in us, and we're going to keep pushing," Bowness said.
And no matter how sloppy that can look at times, there's an art to it.
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.