Heika’s Take: Stars find some good, some bad in overtime loss to Blues

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

In most cases that would seem pretty hackneyed, but on Saturday, it fits perfectly.

The Stars went from a 2-0 lead to a 3-2 deficit, to a 3-3 tie and eventually a 4-3 overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues. Inside the game they played some pretty good hockey and then some of their worst of the year. So getting the point in the standings wasn’t so bad after all.

“You’ll take a point on the road any time in back-to-back,” said Stars coach Pete DeBoer. “But we’re disappointed – with the way we started the game you get greedy and want to get two.”

Dallas lost starting goalie Jake Oettinger for an undetermined amount of time (there should be an update on Monday) in Friday’s home win over Ottawa, so his teammates had to fly to St. Louis without him and use an emergency backup goalie as a full-time roster player on Saturday at the Blues. Joe O’Brien was signed to an amateur tryout contract and sat on the bench on Saturday night, wearing a No. 1 sweater, and participating in full warmup. He stayed in St. Louis and the Stars will likely make a move to call up one of their minor league goalies on Sunday.

That’s necessary because they didn’t have the salary cap space to call up someone in the organization for Saturday’s game. They will now be able to use the “emergency” status for a call-up going forward – something the league makes you wade through for at least one game before you are granted the exception.

So yeah, a bit of a strange day.

Of course, the Blues have their own problems as they fired head coach Craig Berube and brought in AHL coach Drew Bannister. Top player Jordan Kyrou was summarily booed by his own fans on Thursday and responded with a big game to earn back the approval of the audience. That’s the kind of night it was.

Dallas fought back on Friday from a two-goal deficit and beat Ottawa 5-4. It carried that momentum over, as Tyler Seguin made a gorgeous pass to Mason Marchment for the opening goal – the first time in the past seven games that the Stars scored first – and then Ty Dellandrea followed with his first goal of the season to make it 2-0 at the 6:47 mark of the first period.

The Dellandrea goal was reviewed for potential goaltender interference, but officials decided Sam Steel was pushed into Jordan Binnington, so the goal stood and the Stars seemed in complete control and ready for another two points.

“It was nice to get one,” Dellandrea said. “The waiting killed a little bit, but it all worked out in the end.”

When asked if he tries to study the play on the video board or an iPad while waiting, Dellandrea said, “Just not look. I had a few of them last year, so just let it happen.”

On this occasion, it happened in a good way, but much of what followed after that was awful. St. Louis scored the next three goals of the game, and pretty much dominated every aspect for 30 minutes. Kyrou had a goal and two assists and was named first star of the game. St. Louis almost doubled up the Stars on shots on goal and scoring chances in the first 40 minutes and sent a wake-up call that resulted in DeBoer changing almost every line.

“You juggle the lines like that, you want to kick it into gear,” Dellandrea said.

Seguin was moved up to a line with Joe Pavelski and Roope Hintz and that trio was especially effective at creating scoring chances, but it was the trio of Evgenii Dadonov with Jason Robertson and Matt Duchene that picked up the tying goal with 6:51 remaining in the third period. It was the seventh goal of the year for Dadonov, who continues to be a solid depth scorer.

“You need that,” said Seguin.

Marchment had a goal and five shots on goal. He now has 10 goals on the season. That’s important for a Stars team that now sits 17-8-4, because it’s been a primary focus in the past few offseasons. But as good as the team has been at increasing its offensive production, it still is prone to stretches of chaos. It’s something that has to be addressed.

“Bottom line, we didn’t play well enough for long enough,” DeBoer said.  “They just pushed and we didn’t respond the right way. We didn’t play well enough. When a team gets in a hole like that – like we were last night – you know they’re going to respond as the home team. We didn’t go with them, intensity-wise.”

That’s why the third period was important. The Stars did have a response there. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a true answer.

“That’s the positive that we took out of the night – another hard-fought almost comeback,” Seguin said. “We haven’t had that many all year, but we’ve had more of late and it’s nice to get a point.”

The Blues move to 15-14-1 and are in the playoff chase. They’re a Central Division rival and Dallas will be back in St. Louis in 11 days, so maybe the lessons from this one will linger for a while.

“These guys played a great hockey game,” Seguin said. “It’s a tough league and we’ll take the point and move on.”

And like a Dickensian character, sometimes you need to see the good and the bad to learn a lesson.

“We didn’t have our greatest game as a group, but the ability to fight back in that third period was huge,” Dellandrea said. “We didn’t have the greatest second period, but it’s a lot of character to fight back.”

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.