Heika’s Take: Stars start homestand with overtime win

Tyler Seguin summed up Tuesday’s 4-3 overtime win against Arizona perfectly.

“It was the hardest game of the road trip by far,” Seguin said with a smile.

The Stars were obviously home at American Airlines Center, but it felt like an extension of a road-heavy schedule. Dallas played its ninth game in 16 days, with travel between every game. Three of the games were at home, but this team was either flying out or coming back each time. So, yeah, finding the right energy was a bit of a chore.

“We knew this was going to be a tough one and I actually really liked our legs,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “I thought we ran out of a little bit of gas in the third, but I thought right from the drop of the puck we were engaged and played a pretty good game.”

The Stars finished with a 34-26 edge in shots on goal, a 76-41 advantage in shot attempts and finished with 40 quality scoring chances. For much of the night, it looked like Dallas would protect a 2-1 lead down the stretch and possibly add an empty-net goal for a fairly boring victory.

But Arizona scored on a third period power play to tie the game with 7:49 remaining and then took a 3-2 lead two minutes later. It was the proverbial “punch in the nose” you hear about all of the time in sports, but the Stars found a way to respond. Matt Duchene made a nice pass to Seguin streaking up ice with 3:20 left in regulation to tie the game, and then Seguin returned the favor in overtime, making a beautiful pass to Duchene crashing the net to seal the victory.

The win pushes the Stars to 11-3-1 and gives them a five-point lead atop the Central Division.

“It was kind of ‘disaster avoided,’ but those games are tough,” Duchene said. “It was a weird game. It’s a very different style than we saw the last three and you come off the road and there’s always a little bit of a hangover mentally. You can prepare as much as you want, but you go back-to-back, two big wins, day off, come in and you have to ramp it back up and get ready for a long homestand.

“I’ve seen it every single year of my career in that first game off a long road trip and I actually thought we handled it pretty well. It felt like we were in control of the game until they went up and then we still had a lot of gas in the tank.”

Arizona (7-6-2) took a 1-0 lead on its first shot of the game, and then Dallas fought back to tie it on a pretty goal from Esa Lindell. The Stars then used their red-hot power play to take the lead, as Miro Heiskanen fed Roope Hintz for his sixth goal of the season. The game trudged on, with each team having its moments, before Arizona seized control.

But instead of falling apart, the Stars made a stand of their own.

“Those are the games that tell you about your group and how they react to situations like that,” DeBoer said. “We didn’t sag. We hopped over the boards and immediately got back on our toes and started to work for the next offensive play. I liked our response. You’re going to have situations like that where you blow leads or the other team is opportunistic, and you have to handle it and find ways to get points.”

Duchene, Seguin and Mason Marchment have been building chemistry as a line, and Duchene and Seguin struck quickly. The pass from Duchene was astounding, and Seguin finished it off with a nice backhand manipulation for his third goal of the season. The veteran said he has just been shooting on recent breakaways and decided to try something different on this one. Duchene said Seguin has been getting back to his offensive ways.

“Great play by him to take off,” Duchene said. “Seggy is starting to trust his offensive instincts again. He’s getting open and it’s easier to find him. He read that play perfectly. He’s just playing hockey out there.”

In overtime, Duchene and Seguin started with Heiskanen, and while the first play they tried didn’t work, they stuck with it and created a nice transition situation where Seguin went wide and Duchene went to the net. Forty-three seconds into overtime, the Stars had the win and Duchene had his sixth goal of the season.

“I’ve always been a Matt Duchene fan, but I would be lying if I said I anticipated he would be playing at this level this early for us,” DeBoer said of the veteran who signed a free agent contract with the Stars in the summer. “That’s his game when he’s on his game. But he has gotten to that game quickly with us, and he’s bringing it every night. Every time he steps on the ice he wants the puck. He’s attacking and he’s dangerous. He’s been consistently probably our best player over the last two and a half weeks.”

Seguin said he has enjoyed the growth of the line during an uneven start to the season.

“We’re still working on it,” Seguin said. “We’re still working on video nonstop and continuously getting better. I don’t think our line has reached its peak yet, but it’s pretty good right now.”

Kinda like the team as a whole. They continue to get better at the areas they need to fix – like slow starts, power play slumps and faceoff issues. Oh yeah, and that pesky overtime problem (they are now 2-0 in 3-on-3 overtime).

“We’ve got a long way to go, but we know how hot-button of a topic it was last year,” DeBoer said. “We did put an emphasis on it over the summer and through training camp. I don’t think it’s all systematic, some of it is personnel too. But we’ve spent a lot of time on it and it’s good to get rewarded for that.”

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.