Heika’s Take: Stars step up to challenge, knock off Hurricanes in top 10 battle

The Stars beat a very good team Tuesday night.

That's important.

It’s not like they haven’t beaten good teams at big moments this year, but they definitely felt the pressure of the Carolina Hurricanes coming to American Airlines Center, and they knew the challenge was real. After a 4-2 win in which Jake Oettinger made 32 saves and four different players scored goals, there was an air of accomplishment that settled over the dressing room.

“It was a good hockey game,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “You can see why they have been one of the elite teams in the league for the last five or six years. They put a lot of pressure on you all over the ice. It was just a good hockey game with good goaltending at both ends and chances both ways. I really liked our game.”

The Stars are now 33-14-6, the third best record in the NHL, while Carolina falls to 30-17-5, 10th best. The Hurricanes lead the league in shot differential and carried on that pace with a 34-23 advantage in shots on goal and an astounding 95-43 edge in shot attempts. Still, the Stars displayed solid details and strong situational hockey – and also got another big night from Oettinger – and that was enough to lock this one down.

“We just stuck to what our game plan was coming into it,” said forward Jason Robertson, who had a goal and an assist. “Everybody bought in and we were just trying to slow them down as much as we could. I thought we did a pretty good job of breaking the puck out. Every line really contributed tonight.”

Joe Pavelski is back on the top line with Robertson and Roope Hintz and posted two assists. Matt Duchene followed up his two-assist night in Montréal with a goal and an assist. Nils Lundkvist had a huge assist on a pretty play where Mason Marchment tallied his 17th goal of the season. In addition, Ty Dellandrea had a team-high six shots on goal, Jani Hakanpää had nine hits, and Thomas Harley had six blocked shots. What’s more, Wyatt Johnston won 56 percent of his 16 faceoffs.

“We didn’t have any passengers tonight,” DeBoer said. “Everyone contributed.”

The game was a good test because of the back-and-forth nature. Dallas opened the scoring on a pretty pass from Pavelski to Hintz, but Carolina bounced back and tied the game early in the second. Then, Lundkvist took a great pass from Duchene and raced up behind the net, finding Marchment open in the slot for a 2-1 lead.

Carolina again retaliated, this time on a fluky goal that could have gotten under the Stars’ skin. On a play where it looked like Carolina would be called for icing, the puck slowed down and the officials waved off the icing. Harley fell down, and that created some chaos in the defensive zone with Carolina scoring on a shot that deflected off of a skate to tie the score. It could have really affected Dallas mentally going into the second intermission, but the team stayed focused.

“When you’re playing one of the elite teams in the league, they’re going to expose you at different moments, and they did that to us tonight,” DeBoer said. “But I liked our resiliency. We stuck with it. We didn’t sag, we responded well. Our response tonight in different situations was really good.”

The Stars were able to get a Robertson goal four minutes into the third period and added a Duchene empty-netter with 3 minutes left for a 4-2 lead. However, Carolina pulled the goalie and appeared to close the gap to one goal with over a minute left. Dallas decided to challenge for goaltender interference, and the challenge worked, so the goal was disallowed and the Stars were able to cruise home.

“Big challenge,” DeBoer said. “I thought our video coaches were on it and confident in it. You still have to take a deep breath at that point in the game.”

But as they did for much of the night, the Stars challenged – and the Stars won.

“There’s still some things we should clean up,” Robertson said. “[But] the breakouts were good, we got a lot of blocked shots, Jakey was incredible, we didn’t take a lot of penalties. It was a pretty solid 5-on-5 game.”

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.