Heika’s Take: Stars hit Thanksgiving break on shaky note in lopsided loss to Blackhawks

For the past three seasons, the Stars have typically:

-Responded well to a loss.

-Taken care of business against lower tier teams.

-And sucked the energy out of opposing buildings when it mattered most to win on the road.

None of that happened on Wednesday. Coming off a third period in which they allowed five goals Monday in Carolina, Dallas allowed Chicago to score in the first minute and eventually build a 4-0 lead. It eventually lost to a Blackhawks team that entered the game with the worst record in the NHL. And it watched in despair as the United Center became a boiling cauldron of Blackhawks glory as the team posted its best win of the year.

It was a bit of a shock for the Stars, who fell to 13-8-0.

“It was an ugly night, starting with the first shot of the game and going downhill after that,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said.

Chicago’s Taylor Hall zipped into the offensive zone on the first shift, took Miro Heiskanen wide of the goal and then fired back against the grain and under the arm of Stars goalie Casey DeSmith. That was just 17 seconds in, and the Madhouse on Madison was rocking. Hall, the first overall pick in 2010, would end up with his first hat trick since 2013, and the offensively challenged Blackhawks would more than double their usual scoring output in a game.

It was that kind of night.

“It’s just not good enough.” Stars captain Jamie Benn said. “It’s disappointing. We came out with a terrible effort and left our goalie out to dry and that’s just unacceptable for this group.”

DeSmith faced some tough shots, but he also looked shaky at times. He hasn’t been playing as much lately and he was coming off a 4-2 loss to Anaheim last week. Yes, the Stars had some breakdowns, but DeSmith started the season being almost unbeatable and now is routinely allowing big goals in a recent 0-3-0 skid. On Wednesday, Hall worked his way in for his second goal six minutes into the first period and then had his hat trick eight minutes into the second.

In between, Connor Bedard ripped a perfect shot on a power play that rattled in off the top bar, and Teuvo Teravainen tallied his sixth of the year. Dallas also got a goal from former Blackhawk Colin Blackwell.

Still, it was a night when many were looking for DeSmith to get pulled, and DeBoer stayed with the veteran backup goalie instead of turning to Jake Oettinger.

“He’s got to dig in and find his game and we’ve got to play better around him, too,” DeBoer said of DeSmith. “We didn’t do a good enough job around him.”

The game truly was a team loss. The power play again frittered away three early chances before Matt Duchene struck on a late man advantage after the game was out of reach. Roope Hintz missed the game with a muscle tweak and the top line struggled without him. The bottom defense pairing of Matt Dumba and Brendan Smith was a combined minus-7. And the old problem of not being able to finish was also still there. Dallas had a 74-45 advantage in shot attempts and created 30 scoring chances.

Those are things that need to be fixed.

“It got away from us,” Duchene said. “We just had some errors that ended up in our net.”

Dallas returns home for divisional games against Colorado (Friday) and Winnipeg (Sunday) at AAC. The team is hopeful some good juju on home ice will help, but they know it has to be earned.

“We can’t sit in it,” Duchene said of the negativity. “We’ve got two massive games coming. You never want to have these games, but we’ve won a lot of hockey games this year and we want to take that next step. This team I don’t think has had a ton of adversity these last two years, and there’s a little bit coming at us right now. We’ve just got to figure things out and keep working and pushing.”

Benn said it could be a positive to challenge each other.

“It’s a good thing,” Benn said. “We’re turning around quickly and we have a great Colorado team coming into our building. We need to dig in here. We’re 21 games in and we need to get going.”

DeBoer acknowledged his team might need a wakeup call.

Asked if they can respond, DeBoer said: “We’re going to find out, because we’re right in the middle of it right now.”

“You look around the league and we’re not the only team going through something like this,” he added. “You have to dig in and stick together and get your foundation back and play better hockey.”

Certainly better than the last couple of games.

“We can’t get too low through this,” Duchene said. “The last four periods have been tough, but we’ve got to stay even keeled, just like we do when we win.”

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.