Heika's Take: Stars lose winning streak, fall again to Senators 

The Kanata curse was strong enough to even stop one of the Stars’ best runs in recent history.

While Dallas was seeking to tie the franchise mark for consecutive victories and stretch their point streak to an even 10, the ghosts of Canadian Tire Centre swooped down and put a halt to any thoughts of good tiding on Sunday. The Ottawa Senators took a 3-2 win over the Stars, ending a run of seven straight wins, one shy of the eight consecutive victories this team posted last season, and kept Dallas winless in this building since 2016.

“I’m aware,” veteran defenseman Esa Lindell said when asked about the frustration in the suburbs of Ontario. “I’ve always felt they have played very well against us, especially here.”

Jason Robertson scored off a nice pass from Roope Hintz just four minutes into the game, and it looked like the Stars were on their way. After Robertson slipped in a memorable shootout goal in Montréal Saturday night, the feeling was that the positive juju was rich in Eastern Canada. Dallas had an 8-5 advantage in shots on goal and appeared to be the fresher team.

The Senators won a 5-0 game in Pittsburgh on Saturday afternoon, and had to fly back, but they were clearly in their beds before the Stars, who bussed from Montréal and arrived around 1 a.m. That fact seemed much more apparent at the start of the second period, as Ottawa came out flying, putting eight shots on net in the first two minutes and scoring two goals. Josh Norris and Tim Stützle scored 39 seconds apart, and that flipped the whole game.

Stars goalie Casey DeSmith made some huge saves to keep the game in play, as Ottawa at one point had a 15-1 edge in shots on goal in the second period.

Then, Dallas drew a power play and cashed in to put a stop to the Senators’ run and bring hope to the fans in Victory Green. Except, Ottawa challenged for offside and won the challenge. Hintz scored the goal off a fantastic pass from Robertson, which seemed an indicator that happy days were here for Dallas, but then the replay showed that earlier in the power play, Hintz was offside on the entry, and the goal came off.

That was a punch in the gut.

“I liked our first period,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “I thought they upped their intensity and physicality in the second and we didn’t go with them. But yeah, it comes down to those 30 seconds, those two goals, and the disallowed goal. You clean up one of those two mistakes and are a half inch on the right side of the offside, maybe it’s a different game.”

That said, there did seem to be reasons for Ottawa’s success. The Senators had a 39-28 advantage on faceoffs, an indicator for “compete level” in DeBoer’s system. They finished with a 67-51 edge in shot attempts and a 24-9 advantage in hits. Those are key numbers.

“I just think we should have created more overall in the game,” Lindell said. “It wasn’t the best from us today.”

Ottawa pushed its lead to 3-1 in the opening minute of the third period and Dallas cut that to 3-2 when Evgenii Dadonov scored on a power play goal with the goalie pulled and an extra skater late in the game for the 3-2 final. So, yes, even in these tough times, the Stars continue to show some resilience.

“We were still right there until the end, even though energy-wise I thought we ran out of gas,” DeBoer said.

You could argue it was a “scheduled loss,” as the Stars started at 7 p.m. in Montréal and 5 p.m. in Kanata, less than 24 hours between start times. You can argue the hockey gods took away a pretty power play goal on replay. You could argue the road trip and the winning streak just caught up to them.

But the players said they just would have liked to have performed better.

“It’s tough,” said forward Wyatt Johnston. “You work hard to get one on the power play, and it’s tough, but we’ve got to be able to bounce back. We still have the rest of that power play and then I think we had another look on the power play [again]. It takes a little momentum away, but that’s something we can still pull off.”

The Stars fall to 27-14-1, good for 55 points. They continue in a fierce battle with Winnipeg, Minnesota and Colorado for positioning in the Central Division. They end the five-game road trip Tuesday in Toronto and would love to get another winning streak started.

“It’s been a great road trip so far, and we’ve got a chance to go in and get this rolling again,” DeBoer said. “We’ll reset and get ready to go.”

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 @MikeHeika.