Heika’s Take: Stars respond well to gut check, dominate Flames in return home

The Stars had a gut check moment on Sunday night.

Playing their ninth game in 17 days with travel involved in eight of them, Dallas could have easily lost steam late against the Calgary Flames at American Airlines Center. Instead, the lads in Victory Green scored four times in the third period and cruised to a 6-2 win.

“I’m really proud of our group,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “We had a road trip east to Florida and Carolina, we had a road trip west to Utah and LA and Vegas, so we were running on fumes. I thought we dug deep tonight.”

The victory runs the record at AAC to 11-1-0 as they begin a six-game homestand, the longest of the season.

“It’s a crazy thing,” said Jason Robertson, who had a goal and an assist. “We struggled at home last year, it’s just one of those things. Obviously, you want to be a good home team and make it hard for teams to come here and play.”

The game had its push and pull moments. Dallas had the better of puck possession in the first period but allowed the first goal just one minute into the game. However, the Stars bounced back on a beautiful shorthanded effort by Wyatt Johnston to tie the score going into the first intermission. Calgary then came out and dominated the second period, but the locals scored first, taking a 2-1 lead on a great individual effort by Robertson. The team’s leading scorer the previous two seasons has been snakebit this year, and when he charged out of the penalty box seven minutes into the second, he was determined to get on the board.

Robertson drove the net while fending off Martin Pospisil and beat Dustin Wolf for his sixth goal of the year.

“I just tried to move my feet,” Robertson said. “I wasn’t going to pass.”

DeBoer added, “The things I liked about it was his feet were moving and he did what he does best which is stick the puck in the net under heavy duress. I like how he scored, it wasn’t fluky, he worked for it.”

That said, it was 2-2 after two periods when Calgary scored late in the second, and the Flames then had all of the jump to start the third period with a 5-0 advantage in shots on goal. Jake Oettinger came up big in net, and then Esa Lindell and Roope Hintz found themselves in a creative situation in transition five minutes into the third. The teammates for Finland at the upcoming Four Nations Faceoff showed tremendous chemistry, as Lindell sent a puck to the slot that Hintz deflected in for his 11th goal of the season.

That turned out to be a backbreaker for the Flames. Sam Steel, who was pulled out for concussion protocol in the second, returned to whip in a shot from the boards a few minutes later, catching Wolf out of position for a 4-2 lead.

Defenseman Thomas Harley then added two late goals, and Dallas all of a sudden had a bit of a statement win.

“The right guys got on the board tonight,” DeBoer said. “We got some big performances and plays from guys at important times. I think Johnston\] is getting hot, I think Roope is, I think [Miro Heiskanen is. We had some slow starts from some guys, but I feel like they’re almost all there right now.”

Not only were the Stars worn down by the schedule, they had just lost a game in Los Angeles when the score was tied after two. Mix in the fact they didn’t want to lose three games in a row for the first time in DeBoer’s tenure, and there was plenty of motivation.

“We knew we needed it,” said Steel. “The last couple of games, we let those slip. This was big. I think we did a great job.”

Dallas moves to 17-10-0 and sits ninth overall in points percentage at .630. For a team who has gone to back-to-back conference finals and was missing key players in training camp, that’s a good sign through 27 games.

“We have a lot of resiliency,” said DeBoer. “We’ve done a good job of stopping the bleeding, not allowing one or two losses to turn into three, four or five. Other than the Chicago game [in this past stretch], I really believe we could have won them all. We didn’t win, but we were competitive every night, and that’s a good feeling as a coach.”

Good enough to give the team two full days off.

“Now we get a well-deserved rest,” DeBoer said. “That’s probably the toughest portion of our schedule in the rearview mirror.”

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.