Heika's Take: No frills Stars-style road performance leads to 3-1 win

Well, that was more like it.
The Stars on Monday battled through a perfectly mundane game against the Philadelphia Flyers, playing solid defense and taking a 3-1 victory.

It wasn't perfect, and there still is much work to do, but it was a lot closer to "Dallas Stars hockey" than the previous three contests.
Stars coach Rick Bowness was asked if he liked the game. "Yes and no," he said. "Giving up one goal was great. We didn't give that many chances up, but I also thought it was a little scrambly at times and some unnecessary time in our zone."
Still, they won their third road game in a row, they returned Jake Oettinger to play and helped boost the confidence of the young goalie, and they received a big play from Jacob Peterson and Alexander Radulov. It was a pretty solid night up and down the lineup.
Peterson scored his seventh goal of the year, as he converted a great shot off a pretty pass from Radulov with 3:25 left in the third period. It was a huge play to help secure the win against a struggling Philadelphia team that lost for the 12th straight game.
"I'm very happy for him," Bowness said. "We needed something, and he gave it to us."

The game wasn't without its drama. Yes, the Stars reeled in the sloppy play and limited the Flyers to 28 shots on goal and 50 shot attempts, but they also were staring at 1-1 game as the clock was ticking down. A loss would have've tough to take, so getting the big saves and the big plays was important.
Radulov has been out in COVID protocol, and this was just his second game back. Because of an injury to Michael Raffl and an illness to Radek Faksa, Radulov ended up on a line with Peterson and Joel Kiviranta, and that group created some great scoring chances, including the game-winning goal.
"It's fun playing with him," Peterson said. "[Radulov's] a good player that I looked up to since I was a little kid. He's good because he's trying to help me all the time. He's trying to help his linemates, so it's easy to play with him. I know what he wants out there."

Peterson's ability to adapt and play beside smart players also is a key, Bowness said.
"Jacob is sneaky good," Bowness said. "He hangs onto the puck, and he tries to make plays. He's very good with it. He's heads up, he's a smart hockey player. That's one thing we noticed from the first day of training camp, the kid has great hockey sense. I love his poise with the puck. If you watch him, he just sneaks away from people. They try to pin him up against the boards and somehow he just gets away from then."
The development of Peterson has been a feather in the cap of the coaching staff this season, and the decision to play Oettinger against the Flyers also is looking like a good one. Oettinger had been pulled in his two previous starts and needed to find a way to get his game back. Monday was the perfect prescription.
"That was a good game for him to play in," Bowness said. "It was the right game to get him in. He made some big saves and the puck that went in off our skate, there was nothing he could do about that. He looked very composed tonight, very confident, and we like to see that look."
Oettinger stopped 27 of 28 shots and the only goal he allowed deflected in off the skate of teammate John Klingberg. He said he was nervous before the game but felt better after he started to get into the flow.
"It was obviously a big win for the team and for me personally," Oettinger said. "It feels like it's been a year since I played, when you don't play well and you have to sit a little bit, it's hard. You just want to get back in there. I think the guys played hard for me and we played so well defensively, and we didn't give anything up. We knew that if we did the right thing, we'd get chances, and we did. To get one like that was such a good feeling."

Oettinger said he felt one of the reasons the team played well was because he showed confidence handling the puck in his own end and that helped keep the pressure off.
"The nice thing for me was they were dumping it in a lot and that helps me. You just want to be sharp on your handles," he said. "Honestly, I think that may be why they didn't have a ton of shots because we were breaking it out so well. That's something I take lot of pride in, and I've worked really hard at and I've seen the improvements. I think that's such an advantage when your goalie can help you back there and help your defensemen] not get hit."
In the end, the Stars did a lot of things right. The coaches moved Denis Gurianov off the Tyler Seguin line in the third period and replaced him with Riley Damiani, and that seemed to spark the Stars. They leaned on Miro Heiskanen and Ryan Suter on defense, and that seemed to work.
All around, it was the kind of night they needed after some pretty hectic road tilts.
Now, they just need to do it again in New Jersey on Tuesday and bring home four road wins. They certainly understand the expectations for this group.
"We can play better than that," Bowness said, "let's put it that way."
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.