Heika’s Take: Stars bounce back from bumpy start to week in win over Avalanche

The dichotomy that is the NHL season laid out on two nights in late November for the Stars.

On Wednesday, Dallas lost a 6-2 game to the Chicago Blackhawks, who entered the contest with the worst record in the NHL. On Friday, Dallas bounced back and won a 5-3 game against a Colorado team that has three of the top scorers in the league and is hoping to make another run at the Stanley Cup. Between the ups and downs of the swerve, the lads in Victory Green are hoping there are some lessons to cling to.

“Big win, especially considering the circumstances,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “We needed to stop the bleeding of the last two games. Coming home, divisional team - Colorado has obviously turned it around after their start, they’re healthy again, all of their big guys are back in, so a lot of positives, a big win.”

Dallas got another big night from the Matt Duchene line, as Mason Marchment had two goals and an assist, Tyler Seguin had a goal and an assist, and Duchene added an assist. What’s more, Jamie Benn had a goal and an assist, Roope Hintz had a goal, and Miro Heiskanen added two assists. DeBoer had to do some juggling because of an injury to Logan Stankoven, and several players responded well. Sam Steel moved up to a line with Benn and Evgenii Dadonov, while Mavrik Bourque slid down to play beside Oskar Bäck and Colin Blackwell, and all of the lines had chemistry.

“Other than the amount of special teams, I thought we had four lines going,” DeBoer said. “I really liked our fourth line, Mavrik Bourque and Bäck and Blackwell were really doing a good job and didn’t get a ton of ice because of the special teams but we had a lot of contributions tonight.”

That said, the special teams were also a positive. A much maligned power play scored twice on the night and the penalty kill went 4-for-5 against a Colorado power play that includes elite scorers like Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen.

“Like I’ve said, these guys have good players,” said Marchment. “I thought tonight we didn’t give them too much. They had a couple of good looks in the third. They’re going to get their looks, but for the most part we played good defensively as a team and played our game.”

And that was also a big plus on the night. Dallas had a slow start in Chicago and it cost them, so they concentrated on playing well early and found a way to get out to a 2-1 lead after the opening 20 minutes. Marchment made a brilliant pass to Seguin for the first goal and then scored the second when he and Heiskanen drove the net and overpowered Colorado goalie Alexandar Georgiev. Benn made it 3-1 in the second period off a rebound, and then Hintz tallied his ninth goal of the season on a late power play that gave the Stars at 4-1 lead and some room to breathe.

That space was needed, as Colorado pushed the score to 4-3 with goals from Artturi Lehkonen and Rantanen before Marchment closed things out with an empty-netter.

That was hugely important, as Dallas certainly had the recent memory of the Carolina loss circling in its collective brain. The Stars had a 3-1 lead against the Hurricanes on Monday and allowed five goals in the third period in a 6-4 loss, so this was a chance to show they learned.

Asked if he had an “Oh no, here we go again feeling,” DeBoer said, “Always with that team.”

“I thought we did such a good job really limiting them and the Makar to Rantanen play [to make it 4-3] is unbelievable. We can have five guys all in the right spots, and they still make that play, so that’s the danger of that team,” DeBoer added. “I thought we did as good a job as you can do against that group, but they’re that elite.”

That said, the Stars have shown in recent seasons they are also elite. Dallas made the right plays at the right time and received 29 saves on 32 shots from goalie Jake Oettinger. The 25-year-old made his 200th career NHL start and now has 125 wins. That’s fourth-best among goalies in their first 200 starts in NHL history.

“Jake I thought was really solid tonight,” said DeBoer. “I thought we had good detail in our game.”

That puts the Stars at 14-8-0 (28 points) and drops Colorado to 13-11-0 (26 points).

“Obviously, it’s huge,” Marchment said. “They’re right behind us in the standings, so we have to win these ones. We have another big one coming up [against Winnipeg on Sunday]. We just have to flush this one and get right back after it.”

That sounds odd after a big win, but the Stars know they have to find similar focus in reloading after a loss.

“It’s just work ethic and trying to get right back to what we’re good at,” said Heiskanen. “It’s been good for a couple of years and hopefully we can keep it going.”

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 X @MikeHeika.