Heika’s Take: Stars open up road trip with bang, rally to beat Lightning

For a pretty fair portion of Saturday’s game in Tampa, the Stars looked overmatched.

The Lightning was on top of its game, firing shots at Jake Oettinger, and seemingly seizing momentum along the way. But Oettinger stood tall, the Stars stiffened on defense, and the big scorers popped in the third period of a 4-2 win. In a lot of ways, it was like a game from last season, when Dallas routinely found a way to win road games against good teams.

“It had a playoff feel to it,” said center Matt Duchene, who scored the game-winner in the third period. “There wasn’t much room. It kind of felt like the Vegas series last year.”

Dallas found a way to win that series, and they’d like to find a way back to that level of game. Saturday was a nice step in the right direction. The Stars have been all over the place in the early season, looking for some signs of the team that finished with the second best record in the NHL – and the best mark on the road. So in taking down the Lightning and moving to 13-6-0, the lads in Victory Green gained a bit of nostalgia and confidence.

“We got better as the game went on and the third period was our best,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “We talked at the end of the second that we didn’t feel we had played our best yet. But we were in a 2-2 game and we really had a chance to find another level in the third and win an important game to start a road trip against a really good team. I thought we responded with our best period in the third.”

The Stars actually dominated the final 20 minutes. After relying on Oettinger to make some spectacular saves in the first period, Dallas found its stride and started to control the possession statistics, and the big players made some big plays. The top line of Duchene with Tyler Seguin and Mason Marchment struggled on this night, but came up with the right play at the right time. After a scrambly shift in the defensive zone, Duchene and company pushed up ice and created a scoring chance. Seguin found Duchene at a strange angle, and Duchene fired in his 11th goal of the season seven minutes into the third period.

That not only gave the Stars confidence, but it put a ton of doubt into the minds of the Lightning players. Tampa Bay tried to come back, but Dallas earned a power play a minute later, and Roope Hintz sliced through the penalty kill to score his eighth goal of the season and make it 4-2.

“Your big guys have to decide games like this,” DeBoer said. “It was good to see that we’re getting those contributions two games in a row from our big guys, they’re starting to heat up.”

Hintz, along with linemates Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston, all scored in the last game, and that was a bit of a turnaround moment. Now, the thought is it could start happening with more consistency.

“It’s not always how you draw it up, but our response was great after they scored,” Oettinger said. “That was good to see.”

Tampa Bay took the lead early in the first period, and then Evgenii Dadonov had a puck bounce off of his skate and in to tie things up in the first. The Lightning scored again, and this time Duchene found Miro Heiskanen in transition to tie the game yet again. Heiskanen made a perfect shot for just his third goal of the season.

The game then stayed that way as Dallas wrested control in the second period, and Duchene made another huge play to notch the game-winner.

“We had a fire drill in the D zone, and then guys recovered at the right time,” Duchene said of a nice play by Seguin. “Segs made an unbelievable play to me and I just got enough net to put it in.”

It was a great sign for a team that needed a great sign.

“We were opportunistic when we needed to be,” Duchene said. “Guys know how to win in here. You have to have a goaltender step up on certain nights. And then we just stuck with it and stuck with it.”

Now, they have a chance to do the same thing at Carolina on Monday, and that would again be a sign that some of last year’s mojo is on the horizon.

“It’s huge,” Heiskanen said. “They have been a good team for a long time, so it was great to have that last period.”

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.