Heika's Take: Loss in Seattle was a letdown, but Stars finish 3-1 on trip

There are plenty of explanations for the Stars' 4-1 loss at Seattle Sunday night.
Dallas was playing on the second night of a back-to-back with travel, and in fact was finishing a stretch in which it played 12 of 15 games on the road, with the three home games split into one-game homestands.

The Kraken might rank in the bottom five in the NHL in most statistical categories, but they've been playing better lately, pushing their recent mark to 4-3-0 with the win.
And goalie Chris Driedger has always had the Stars' number, boosting his record to 4-1-0 on Sunday with 29 saves. Driedger now has a 1.40 goals-against average and .950 save percentage in his career against the Stars.
So, all of that played a role.
But it sure would've been nice if Dallas could've finished off the road trip and taken a win. Because Vegas won on Sunday, it leapfrogged the Stars in the standings and now the Golden Knights sit in the first wild card playoff spot. And because Dallas was unable to get two points, it was unable to pass Nashville for the other wild card playoff spot.
"This one stings a little bit because you come in 3-0, you fully expect to go out 4-0," Stars forward Joe Pavelski said. "Six out of eight points, throughout a season, you're thinking that's a pretty good trip. But, in this situation, you like to be a little greedy and a little selfish and you wanted that fourth one. Would've liked to have that last one."

Especially when you consider how poorly the Stars played at times. They looked tired and sluggish early, and then they executed so poorly on the power play that Seattle actually gained a ton of momentum by taking penalties. The Kraken penalty killers had six shots on goal to none for the Stars' power play, and Seattle scored first on a shorthanded goal from Jared McCann.
"The power play sucked the life right out of us and gave them a lot of life," Stars coach Rick Bowness said.
Dallas was hoping to manage the back-to-back by playing backup goalie Scott Wedgewood Saturday in San Jose, and that worked out well. Wedgewood won, and No. 1 goalie Jake Oettinger looked fresh and ready on Sunday. Oettinger's dynamic work in net was the only reason the game stayed so close, and Dallas had a chance to tie things up in the third period with the score 2-1 in favor of Seattle.
However, the Stars had too many defensive breakdowns, and that opened the door for the final 4-1 tally.
"We haven't given up that many breakaways all year, let alone one game," Bowness said. "We didn't have the jump in our legs, we were a step behind for two periods, and they just fed on our miscues when we had to open it up."

The Stars already were without Esa Lindell, who missed the game with an upper-body injury, and then lost Jani Hakanpää when he was hit in the fact with a puck in warmup. Bowness said Hakanpaa was having trouble breathing, so they made the decision to play Andrej Sekera instead. In addition to Sekera, Thomas Harley and Joel Hanley also were in, so the Stars were dealing with a blueline that was a little thinner.
Still, Oettinger cleaned up the messes and kept the Stars in it, but they just couldn't finish when they had some great scoring opportunities.
"We were still down one going into the third and had some great looks," Bowness said. "We dominated the third period, but we just couldn't get the timely goal. It was 2-1, we had some great looks, and all of a sudden it was 3-1. It was one of those nights."
It really was. Pucks bounced off skates and sticks or simply eluded Stars players on passes. Reads were wrong, mistakes were made. They looked tired, and that's a valid explanation.
The Stars just don't want to start looking for excuses.
"Obviously, this one we wanted two points here today, at least a point, but we know we're not going to win them all," defenseman John Klingberg said. "It's been a long road trip, so three out of four is obviously huge, but we wanted four out of four. But we feel pretty good about this."

They should. Dallas is now 14-5-1 in its past 21 road games and has repaired a good deal of the problems from earlier in the year. The Stars are 6-2-0 in their past eight games overall and have navigated injury losses to Lindell and Miro Heiskanen before that. They'll come home to a stretch of six of the next seven on home ice, and they still have three games in hand on the Golden Knights, who are just one point ahead of them in the standings.
So, their fate is still in their own hands.
Catch the Stars on their three-game homestand beginning Tuesday against the New York Islanders! 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.