Heika’s Take: Stars’ resilience shines bright in win over Red Wings

Monday night was all about response for the Stars.

One, they had to respond to a bad 6-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights at home on Saturday.

Two, they had to respond to a quick 1-0 lead for the Detroit Red Wings on Monday.

And three, they had to respond to a solid comeback bid from the Wings in the third period.

They passed every test and walked out of American Airlines Center with a 6-3 win and a sigh of relief as they head into a three-day break between games.

“It was a good response,” said forward Jason Robertson, who had a goal and an assist. “Everyone in the locker room knew what they had to do. We let the last game get away from us, so we wanted to try to shut it down and get back to what we did, and we were able to do that.”

Dallas was pushing hard in a tough stretch of the schedule against some very good teams, so when Vegas was able to take control and push the Stars out of their own building, there was some definite disappointment. Jake Oettinger had struggled and allowed 15 goals in his previous three starts, so he definitely could have panicked after allowing Detroit to go up 1-0 just five minutes into the first period.

The Stars were playing their sixth game in 10 nights, so it would have been really easy to just take the loss and wait for the break to regroup. But coach Pete DeBoer said he saw the fight in his team.

“I think it was six in 10 nights and I was a little worried about our energy level,” DeBoer said. “But we showed up and I thought we had good energy and contributions from everybody, some big saves from Jake at the right times, so it was a good night.”

As for handling the first goal?

“We’re a pretty veteran group and there’s a sense of calm on the bench,” DeBoer said. “There was no panic just because we didn’t score first. I thought we worked ourselves into the game and really took it over for big stretches.”

Dallas finished with a 35-30 advantage in shots on a goal, a 75-48 advantage in shot attempts and won 59 percent of the faceoffs. Miro Heiskanen had two goals and an assist after going 23 straight games without a goal. Esa Lindell had a goal and an assist, Robertson had a goal and an assist, and Roope Hintz had two assists. It was a really nice display of depth scoring and strong moments from top level players.

“We got timely goals and timely saves tonight,” DeBoer said.

Maybe the most timely came from Lindell. With the score tied 1-1 and time running down in the first period, Lindell skated in over the blue line and took a pass from Sam Steel. The veteran defenseman unleashed a shot that slipped past Detroit goalie James Riemer with 0.2 seconds left on the clock.

“It’s a big turning point,” Robertson said. “I think the biggest momentum shifts are goals in the first minute and last minute of the period. We kind of built off of that from there.”

It was the second goal of the year for Lindell, who is not known for his scoring. He said he checked the clock in the defensive zone after getting a pass from Jani Hakanpää and then fired quickly when he got the puck over the blue line.

“I was in the D zone when I got the puck from Hawk. I looked up and it was like maybe five seconds. I passed it to Steeler and he made a nice move and then I tried to get it off quickly,” Lindell said. “I just tried to shoot it quickly. I was a little surprised it went in. I wasn’t sure if it beat the clock, but it was nice to see there was a little time left.”

DeBoer said he was happily surprised at the time left.

“That was really close,” DeBoer said. “I had to look two or three times at that bench monitor to be sure. But we’re due for a little good luck.”

The Stars have had some fluky bounces end up in their net during a 4-4-2 stretch, so they were happy to see a few go their way. They also earned some of those bounces. Detroit closed the gap to 4-3 in the third period on a power play goal, but then Robertson drew a trip and Joe Pavelski tipped in his 12th goal of the season just six seconds into the man advantage.

“We needed a response like that,” Robertson said. “It was very direct.”

He was talking about the power play goal, but he might as well have been talking about the game. Dallas moves to 16-8-3, good for eighth in the NHL with 35 points. Detroit falls to 14-9-4 (32 points), 12th in the NHL. The schedule lightens up going forward, both in pace and in level of the opponent, so getting a big night to help set the tone for transition was important.

“It was really important,” Heiskanen said. “It wasn’t a good game for us against Vegas. I think today we played a pretty good 60 minutes, we worked hard all game and deserved to win. It was a good bounce-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.