Heika's Take: Stars make it interesting, but come away with huge win

DALLAS --The Stars have a huge game against the Vegas Golden Knights coming up on Tuesday that could go a long way in determining a playoff spot in the Western Conference, but coach Rick Bowness didn't want to talk about that on Saturday.

After a hard day of travel and a comeback 3-2 win over the Seattle Kraken in front of a sellout crowd of 18,532 at American Airlines Center, Bowness felt his team deserved a little kudos for what they'd just accomplished.
"We'll worry about that on Monday," Bowness said. "Right now, we're just going to enjoy this because I'm so proud of the guys."
The Stars have battled adversity a lot the past three seasons, and Saturday was just the latest chapter. The team got stuck by weather and plane issues in Calgary on Friday and didn't get into their beds until after 3 a.m. on Saturday. So, they adjusted and skipped morning skate, they prepared with pregame warmups and found a way to win a pretty tough game.
In doing so, they made Tuesday's meeting with the Golden Knights must-see TV, as the two teams are battling for a playoff spot, and there's a very good chance one of them will miss the postseason party. But, to honor Bowness, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Coming off the difficult travel day, the Stars had a goal overturned on review in the first period and then handed away a 2-0 lead despite playing pretty good hockey. Jani Hakanpää made a mistake on a clear that created a faceoff in front of the Stars net and resulted in a Riley Sheahan goal and a 1-0 lead. Yanni Gourde then tipped a puck in late in the first period to send the Stars to the dressing room reeling a bit.
"Great resilience," said Bowness. "Give our guys full credit, they dug deep to find the win. I know [the Kraken] played last night but they're a fast hockey team. We were clearly running on fumes at the end, but we dug deep, they found the will to win and that was the difference."

The Stars had played well, despite the deficit, so players said it was easy to stick with it. The top line combined on a pretty play to cut the deficit to 2-1, as Joe Pavelski and Jason Robertson worked the puck, and Roope Hintz found a way to score. Then, two minutes later, Robertson fed Hintz on the power play, and the game was tied 2-2.
Three minutes after that, Denis Gurianov (coming off a healthy scratch) fed Vladislav Namestnikov (coming off an injury) for what turned out to be the game-winning goal.
"The fourth line gets the winning goal, balanced scoring," Bowness said. "That was a timely goal."
Dallas then found a way to make that stand up through the final 28 minutes thanks in large part to the strong work of Jake Oettinger, who moved to 28-15-1 with the win.

"Every team is going to come at you hard in the third period and they knew our travel schedule," Bowness said. "They knew what we went through. We knew they were going to come at us. We bent a little, but we didn't break, and that's the most important thing."
Which is sort of a story that's repeated a few times this year. Dallas is 27-6-5 in one-goal games and is developing a tough skin from all of this adversity. Now when a challenge presents itself, the entire team seems to handle it very well.
"Tough road trip for us, didn't get the production we wanted," said Pavelski, who tallied his 500th career assist. "Getting back home felt nice, even if it was a little late. And getting on the home ice, the crowd was great tonight. They've been great. They definitely gave us a shot of energy. It was a good team win for us tonight. That was a big thing for us."

And that's the reason why talk of a massive showdown can wait for at least a night. The Stars accomplished something Saturday - coming back from a three-game losing streak, some difficult travel and a two-goal deficit. They proved once again they can overcome quite a bit.
"There's no quit in this team, and we said that in the locker room," Namestnikov said. "We battled back, and it feels good to win."

The Stars' final homestand of the regular season continues Tuesday with a can't-miss game against the Vegas Golden Knights at 7:30 p.m. Get your tickets now!
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.