First Shift: Stars’ offense heats up as Maple Leafs come to town

Jason Robertson scored his first goal of the season on Tuesday in Pittsburgh. Matt Duchene got his first point with the Stars.

Those could be very good signs.

Robertson had 46 goals and 109 points last season. Two years ago, Duchene had 43 goals and 86 points as a member of the Predators. Each is a high-volume scorer in the prime of his career, so goals and points are a pretty big deal. And when Robertson opened the year with just two assists in four games and Duchene had no points at all, trepidation began taking root.

But in a 4-1 win at Pittsburgh on Tuesday, not only did Robertson (1 goal, 1 assist) and Duchene (1 assist) score, so did Evgenii Dadonov (1 goal) and Thomas Harley (1 goal, 1 assist).

“We got a little confidence,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “We’ve been a little unconfident as an offensive team the last few games, so once Robo scored, I think everybody took a breath and we just played our game.”

Robertson’s goal was a hard-working effort. Robertson took a shot on net and then hustled for his own rebound. As linemate Roope Hintz was knocking him over, Robertson was able to shovel in a shot.

“I haven’t had many scoring chances lately, so hopefully I can get that confidence going and get rolling and hopefully it keeps rolling,” Robertson said. “It feels good.”

Robertson then hustled to create some chaos in the offensive end which led to Harley’s goal. When Robertson has been at his best, he’s typically finding ways to affect the game on multiple shifts.

“He’s a game-breaking guy, and when he’s feeling it like he was tonight – I think he had five shots after two periods – you could tell that he was in one of those zones where he was going to be a difference-maker,” DeBoer said.

Robertson led the team with six shots on goal for the game. He has seven combined in the first four games.

That line – with Hintz and Joe Pavelski - was one of the best lines in the NHL last season, so it will stick together almost all of the time. However, with Duchene, Craig Smith and Sam Steel added as free agents, the rest of the forward group is deep and has to be ready to shuffle around. Right now Duchene is building chemistry with Tyler Seguin, and Smith has had good shifts with Radek Faksa. Dallas currently ranks 14th in goals per game at 3.00 after ranking seventh at 3.43 last season, so there’s room for improvement.

“We’ve had a lot of guys, myself included, who haven’t been able to put the puck in the net yet,” Duchene said. “We’ve been really close, and you can see Robo has had some really good looks. For an offensive guy, you need to score to feel good.”

Right now, though, the defensive game is pretty solid with the team third in GAA at 2.00, which is buying some time to build confidence.

“We scored four goals, but I feel like there’s more there for us offensively,” Duchene said. “We’re still one and done a little much, but we’re at a point where when you’re 4-0-1, you’re doing a lot of things right and you just try to keep getting better every day. We’re five games in, and a lot of teams have wide open pond hockey games this time of year, and we’re kind of the reverse. It’s probably a little bit easier for us to start scoring a little bit more or making more plays than it is to clamp things down, so we’re on the right side of things.”

Key Numbers

100 Percent
The Stars are the only team in the NHL that has yet to allow a power play goal against, stopping all 15 opposition power plays so far. Toronto is hitting at 35.0 percent on the man advantage. 

16
Stars forward Tyler Seguin has 16 points (7 goals, 9 assists) in his past 12 games against the Maple Leafs. He has 35 points in 34 career games.

7
The Stars have seven players who were born in Ontario and likely had the Maple Leafs as a favorite team growing up.

7-0-1
Jake Oettinger is 7-0-1 in his last 8 regular season games. He’s allowed just 9 goals in those 8 games.

He Said It

“He’s one of the best goal scorers in the world, so we need him to score.”

- Stars goalie Jake Oettinger on teammate Jason Robertson getting his first goal of the season.

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.