Heika's Take: Tough non-call results in dramatic turn of events for Stars

Generally speaking, hockey folk shy away from citing officiating when discussing the reasons for a loss.
Sunday might be an exception for the Stars.
Officials called two late penalties and missed another, as the St. Louis Blues scored two power-play goals in the final minute of the game and stole a 2-1 win over Dallas.

It was a frustrating ending, for sure.
The series started when Jani Hakanpää was whistled for hooking with 1:52 left in regulation, a call that seemed to anger Stars captain Jamie Benn. Then, with the goalie pulled, the Blues created plenty of buzz in the offensive zone. However, Miro Heiskanen appeared to be hauled down by Pavel Buchnevich in the corner, and when he didn't get a call, Heiskanen slashed another Blues player in frustration. So instead of a stoppage in play with 47 seconds remaining and a possible 4-on-4 situation, the Blues were able to score on a delayed penalty and then add another power play on top of that.
"I think that was a really bad call by them," Heiskanen said. "I got tripped in the corner and they called me [for] a slash. Yeah, it might be a slash, but I think that was a pretty clear trip in the corner. I don't know. It's frustrating. That sucks. I think we played really well, and they do that at the end, so it sucks."

Stars coach Rick Bowness originally didn't want to talk about the play, but eventual relented.
"They clearly pulled Miro down, clearly grab his stick and pull him down," he said. "That's my opinion. They got lucky. Broken stick on a penalty kill, second goal goes in off our feet. That's the breaks of the game."
In addition to the penalties, Esa Lindell broke his stick and the Stars had to defend with only three-and-a-half defenders for a good deal of the original penalty. It was a hard end to what was a really good game for Dallas. In addition to playing three games in four days after a 17-day COVID hiatus, the Stars also were trying to win on the road.
Because of that challenge, the 1-0 score after 59 minutes was a real accomplishment. In fact, it was probably the perfect road game for this team.
"We played a hell of a hockey game, we did," Bowness said. "We deserved a lot better than that. We played a hell of a road game for our third game in three-and-a-half days, we battled hard. We deserved a lot better than that."

The Stars have been on a strange path after missing games for 17 days, having 11 players test positive for COVID, and trying to put the team back together while playing some of the best competition in the NHL. But Dallas beat Florida on Thursday, came back against Pittsburgh on Saturday and played a really nice game Sunday against the Blues.
Braden Holtby was solid in goal and the Stars' team defense was spectacular. That made a hard-working goal from Jason Robertson in the second period look like a possible game-winner as time wound down.
"Coach told us after the game that it was almost a perfect road game for us," said Robertson. "We had a bunch of chances, we tried to limit their chances. It's just hockey at the end of the game. We're trying to build on being a good road team, and this was something to build off."

"I think we played really well," Heiskanen said. "That's what we need to keep doing. I thought it was a good game for us."
Dallas finished with 20-plus scoring chances again and failed to capitalize on some great runs at the net. They went 0-for-3 on the power play, including a huge chance in the third period when they had an opportunity to build on a 1-0 lead.
"The power play has got to score there to give us the lead, to give us that two-goal cushion," Bowness said.
Now, that said, it's still a loss - and a loss to a division rival. Dallas is now 17-13-2 for 36 points while St. Louis jumps to 21-10-5 for 47 points, so that's basically a four-point swing in the standings.
Still, the Stars have played well for the past three games and now will get a bit of a break before they try to reset and get going again.

"Obviously they're a good team over there. They play hockey the right way," Holtby said. "I thought we did a good job. But for us, if we want to push ourselves to where we want to be, we don't want to leave things to chance, so we're going to see what we can do to swing things in our favor. We don't want to throw this one up to one play or blame it on the refs, we want to see what we can do better and focus on improving ourselves."
Don't miss the Stars as they return home to take on the Seattle Kraken next Wednesday 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.