Heika’s Take: Stars find all sorts of good

There was a lot to like about Saturday’s Stars win.

Not only did they post their biggest goal differential of the season in an 8-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning, but they bounced back from a painful overtime loss in Calgary and won at home in a tough scheduling break.

“Not much not to like,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said.

The coach inserted Ty Dellandrea and Joel Hanley into the lineup for Evgenii Dadonov and Nils Lundkvist and said he liked how that created more energy. He said he also was pleased that goalie Jake Oettinger was able to come into the day game with some extra rest because Scott Wedgewood played on Thursday in Calgary. DeBoer said both teams had scheduling challenges, and he liked how his Stars were prepared and performed well early.

“Tough games from a schedule point of view for both teams,” the coach said. “We just wanted to concentrate on making sure that we didn’t have to play a perfect game, but we had to compete. The fresh legs that we put in the lineup helped us and did a great job.”

Dallas received goals from all four lines, which contributed consistently throughout the game. Tyler Seguin scored 1:01 into the contest when he batted a nifty pass from Mason Marchment out of midair for his eighth goal of the season. Jason Robertson followed up five minutes later when he was able to somehow slip a puck past Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Jamie Benn then took a lead pass from Wyatt Johnston and scored on a breakaway to give Dallas a 3-0 lead at the 7:39 mark of the first period.

That was the perfect start for a Stars team that has struggled to score in the first period, but it also was a cautionary tale for a squad that blew two leads on home ice in the past two weeks. And when Miro Heiskanen took a double minor for high sticking, and the vaunted Tampa Bay power play scored to make it 3-1, there was some trepidation in the crowd at American Airlines Center.

But Marchment scored a beautiful goal three minutes into the second period and everyone was able to exhale just a little bit.

“It was really important for the guys following it up,” said Robertson, who finished with two goals in the game. “It’s easy for the momentum to swing, but our guys responded the right way after each goal and built on that. It just continued throughout the game.”

Joe Pavelski scored on a patented power play tip in to make it 5-1 later in the second, and then Robertson banged in a Benn shot that rebounded hard off the post for a second power play goal to make it 6-1 after 40 minutes. Thomas Harley and Sam Steel added goals in the third period to ensure there wouldn’t be another meltdown, and the Stars pushed their record to 14-5-3 (31 points).

Oettinger finished with 32 saves and had a lot of great moments that might have gone unnoticed because of the score.

“We needed Jake to be our best player tonight, and he was,” DeBoer said. “He rose to the challenge. It wasn’t just that breakaway. At 3-1, there were probably two or three good chances they had that could have really changed the game, and he kept us in the driver’s seat and gave us that confidence to extend the lead.”

But it truly was a team victory. Eight players had multi-point games, led by three from Pavelski. Jani Hakanpää and Esa Lindell each had two assists and each finished plus-3. Pavelski now has 11 goals on the season, Seguin and Robertson eight a piece, and Marchment has seven. Harley leads Stars defensemen with five goals.

“For us, I don’t think it’s been a secret through the first 20 games we’ve had different guys battling some confidence in scoring at different points, and the right guys got goals tonight,” DeBoer said. “Robo had a couple, Benner scored, so it was a good night.”

Now, both teams will head to Tampa for a rematch on Monday. It’s rare in the NHL that you get the “home and home” situation like this, so it will provide more challenges for both teams.

“You know they’re going to respond in a big way and we have to be prepared for that,” DeBoer said. “For us, we have to be mature enough not to assume we can just show up and do the same thing again. They’re going to be much better.”

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.