Heika’s Take: Stars strike for seven again, pummel Bruins 7-2

After struggling to cash in on their scoring chances earlier in the season, the Stars have opened the floodgates here lately. Dallas tallied seven goals for the second consecutive game, beating the Boston Bruins, 7-2, on Thursday at American Airlines Center.

Rookie Oskar Bäck scored his first NHL goal, winger Evgenii Dadonov had his second multi-goal game with the Stars, including the fourth penalty shot goal of his career, and forward Tyler Seguin had two assists, the first of which marked the 800th point of his career.

It was a night brimming with positivity.

“That’s hockey,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said of the big turnaround. “You go a dozen games when you feel like you can’t score and then get 14 in two games. We’ve just got to keep doing the right thing every time. Even through the first dozen games, our underlying numbers were pretty good. We were creating chances, we just weren’t finishing. You’ve just got to stick with it and wait until the dam breaks. The guys are feeling good now, which is a good thing.”

After a disappointing 4-1 loss in Winnipeg on Saturday, Stars coaches were frustrated because they said the analytics were there for the team, but they simply struggled to put the puck in the net. Then, on Monday in Pittsburgh, Dallas rang off six goals in the first period en route to a 7-1 win, and the feeling became cautiously optimistic.

On Thursday, it was downright giddy before another home sellout crowd.

Matt Duchene opened the scoring 1:09 into the game when he put a perfect shot past Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman off a brilliant one-handed pass from Mason Marchment. That line (with Seguin) has been the team’s best all season, and it was key that they broke things open again. Thomas Harley then made a great stretch pass to spring Dadonov on a breakaway five minutes later, and he was pulled down and awarded a penalty shot.

The 35-year-old veteran calmly walked in and slipped a shot past Swayman for a 2-0 lead. Dadonov is now 4-for-5 on penalty shots in his career, tied for the fifth most penalty shot goals in NHL history.

“To be honest, I was pretty tired so I just shot,” Dadonov said. “I opened my blade and saw the hole and shot.”

That goal proved huge for the Stars, as Charlie Coyle scored for Boston to make it 2-1 and Jake Oettinger had to be strong in net to keep the Stars out in front late in the first period and early in the second. Then Logan Stankoven scored off a rebound and Bäck was able to one-hand in a shot two minutes apart from each other to give Dallas a 4-1 lead. Dadonov made it 5-1 when he roofed a shot in the final 11 seconds of the second period, and Roope Hintz made it 6-1 when he scored in the opening minute of the third period.

That pretty much ended the game, although Boston would score again, and Dallas would add a late Marchment goal for the final tally.

In the past two games, Marchment has two goals and five assists, Duchene has two goals and three assists, and Seguin has a goal and two assists. Seguin, who started his career with the Bruins in 2010, now has 801 points (358 goals, 443 assists) in 980 games.

“That’s a big number,” DeBoer said. “This is a hard league to score in, and to score at the rate he’s scored at over his career is pretty impressive. You’re one of only a handful of guys. There are not many on that list that have put up 800 points. I like the way he’s getting his points. He’s playing honest and playing a 200-foot game. He’s showing great leadership for us.”

Of course, those memories were framed by the fact he did it against his old team and he got to watch Bäck score his first goal in the process.

“It’s great,” Seguin said of watching Bäck score. “It brings you back to the feeling of what it’s like and you know. You only get one of those so I hope he enjoys it. We definitely gave him the MVP award tonight. He works hard every day.”

That’s one of the reasons things seem to be going well for the team right now. After a wonky start to the month that included a trip to Finland and two losses to the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, Dallas is now 10-5-0 on the year. That’s a solid place to be, especially with a schedule that is getting back to an every-other-day grind and next offers a Saturday game at Central Division rival Minnesota. If the playoffs started today, Dallas would play Minnesota in Game 1.

Stankoven has 4 goals among 14 points in 15 games to lead all NHL rookies. Duchene has 20 points (9 goals, 11 assists) in 15 games and ranks 21st overall in NHL scoring. Oettinger is now 8-3-0, tied for second in NHL goalie wins. And Marchment is plus-11 in plus-minus, tied for eighth best in the league.

That said, they are still just 15 games into an 82-game season.

“It’s kind of nice to score seven goals two games in a row, but it’s probably not going to be every game,” Dadonov said. “So we have to work on details. Every game starts zero to zero.”

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 (formerly Twitter) @MikeHeika.