Heika’s Take: Taking a valuable lesson from a meltdown loss

In a battle that some were calling a potential preview to the Stanley Cup Final, the Stars took with them a lasting memory on Tuesday night.

The bad part is it was a haunting memory.

Dallas allowed three goals in the final nine minutes of the game and suffered a 4-3 regulation loss to the Florida Panthers at American Airlines Center. It was a horrifying experience for the fans, but the players and coaches were more philosophical about the night. Yes, the lesson was difficult, but it was still a lesson.

“For this group, this might come at a good time,” said forward Joe Pavelski. “This is a great reminder of what’s ahead of us. We’re going to be in this situation again against good teams in the playoffs, and you’re up by two or you’re down by one, your game can’t change. You’ve got to go out and win periods, create momentum, and keep moving the game forward. We didn’t do a good enough job, so we’ll look at a few clips and take this as a lesson. This won’t be a low point for us at all. We’ll be looking to right it next time.”

Dallas falls to 40-18-9 (89 points). They are still in first place in the Central Division, but the standings keep getting tighter. Dallas ended a five-game winning streak. Florida has the best record in the league at 45-17-4 (94 points).

“It was an interesting game,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “I liked big parts of our game tonight. I thought we did a lot of things well. If you look at the entire game, we had opportunities to extend the lead and put them away. I thought their goalie let them hang around. That’s what that team does. They find ways to win games. We left the door open a crack for them in the third period and that’s all they needed.”

The Stars played some of their best hockey of the season in the first two periods, as they forced the Panthers to chase the puck and forced Sergei Bobrovsky to be at his best. The veteran netminder moved his record to 18-2-2 in his career against Dallas, but it wasn’t an easy win. Not only did the Stars score three times, they had a decided edge in scoring opportunities. Pavelski converted an odd-man rush off a pretty pass from Jason Robertson for the opening score and Dallas was up 1-0 at the first intermission.

Robertson then scored at the 7:48 mark of the second period on a power play, and Wyatt Johnston tallied his 24th goal of the season 23 seconds later for what seemed like an insurmountable lead on the NHL’s top team.

But a Mason Marchment roughing penalty opened the door for the Panthers power play, and Sam Reinhart scored at the 12:52 mark of the second and that changed the vibe of the game. Instead of a free-wheeling Stars team, there was more caution in the air, and the Panthers took advantage.

Robertson took a holding penalty at the 10:53 mark, and Florida quickly converted to make it 3-2. Aleksander Barkov then tied the game three minutes later, and Dallas defenseman Chris Tanev put Florida back on the man advantage almost immediately after that.

Barkov scored on a power play shot that deflected in, and that was it.

DeBoer said the Stars made some key mistakes in the third period.

“First off, with a  3-1 lead, you can’t be taking penalties,” DeBoer said. “We can’t give them two power plays in the last 10 minutes. It’s a good learning experience for us that way. And then if you do take penalties, you’ve got to get the job done, whether that’s a big save or execution.”

The Stars pulled their goalie, but Bobrovsky was too good down the stretch. It was an encore performance from the save he made earlier in the game.

“We had a lot of really good looks,” Pavelski said. “Their goalie played well. You’re always trying to stick that next one in the net and they made a few saves that kept us from breaking it open. In those moments, we did a good job of working for the next one. We just kind of let it slip in the third.”

The performance left room for a lot of questions. Did Dallas take its foot off the gas? Is Jake Oettinger battling some issues of inconsistency this season? Should the Stars have been able to stretch this lead earlier in the game? DeBoer answered the questions and continued to advise that this can be a great learning situation.

“It’s hard to view it that way when it’s fresh and raw like this, but it absolutely is,” DeBoer said when asked about the potential for a good lesson. “That’s a very good team over there and I thought we exposed them in a bunch of areas tonight, we just didn’t finish off enough of the opportunities we had.”

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.