Heika’s Take: Stars “stick with it,” ring in New Year with exciting win over Sabres

In a lot of ways, the new year is about turning the page, and there’s a chance the Stars did that on Tuesday.

Dallas has spent a lot of the past three months getting “goalied,” - creating more than enough chances to win games, but finding ways to make the opposing netminder the First Star. The lads in Victory Green seemed to be on that same path against the Buffalo Sabres, as Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen had the game tied 2-2 in the third period and looked exactly like another masked man who might spoil a beautiful tradition for hockey fans in Texas.

Instead, Dallas received a huge play from Wyatt Johnston and Thomas Harley for the go-ahead goal, and found a way to get an emotional 4-2 win in their annual New Year’s Eve game.

“I think that’s what I’m most proud of our group, our stick-with-it-ness tonight,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “That’s a game where you can get impatient and pucks aren’t going in, and they are a dangerous team. They don’t need many looks to stick it in the net. So, I just thought we had great patience. We stuck with our game and grinded it out.”

The Stars had a 33-23 advantage in shots on goal, a 71-48 edge in shot attempts and generated almost 40 scoring chances, but Luukkonen had the ghosts of Filip Gustavsson, Igor Shesterkin, Joseph Woll and Jordan Binnington gleaming in his eyes. All three had overcome the Stars’ multi-pronged puck assaults and walked out of AAC with wins in recent weeks, and it sure looks like Luukkonen might do the same. But the Stars stuck with it, didn’t get risky, and found a way to prevail.

“I thought we played pretty well,” said Jason Robertson, who had a goal and two assists. “We played well enough to deserve to win. We just kept pushing and pushing. [Luukkonen] made some great saves, but we kept following our fundamentals and got rewarded.”

That hasn’t always been the case this year. In some of those other losses, the Stars have “cheated” in an attempt to find offense. That opened things up, and the opposition has come up with huge goals to completely change momentum. Goalie Casey DeSmith said he didn’t see that happen this time.

“It would have been easy to cheat for offense, and just press a little bit too hard and get burned on the counterattack on the rush, but I don’t think we did that,” DeSmith said. “We did a great job staying out of the box, we took care of the puck all over the ice, especially in our end and we just really limited their chances. They got a lot of skill over there and I thought we did a great job at that.”

Dallas had the better scoring chances in the first two periods, but exited the second with a 1-1 tie. Roope Hintz tallied his 16th goal of the year when Robertson found him in transition. However, Buffalo tied the game less than a minute later. Then, in the third period, Robertson scored his ninth goal of the year, but Buffalo tied it up two minutes later.

Bottom line, Stars fans had seen this movie before.

But that’s when the “stick-with-it-ness” really showed. Harley made a great play off the wall, sending a hard pass to the slot, and Johnston redirected a perfect puck that beat Luukkonen over the shoulder to the upper left corner 12 minutes into the third period.

“The Wyatt Johnston goal was a great goal,” DeBoer said. “Harley makes a great read, and Wyatt sticks it in one of the only places you can stick it on [Luukkonen] tonight. It had to go right in under the bar or he’s saving it. He made some unbelievable saves, so we had some great contributions from everybody.”

With both Tyler Seguin (hip surgery) and Mason Marchment (facial injury) out, DeBoer has had to shuffle all of the lines. He has put Johnston and Jamie Benn on a line with Matt Duchene, while also adding Evgenii Dadonov to a line with Hintz and Robertson. Those two lines have been clicking in the past two games, and DeBoer even decided to double-shift Hintz to get more from the big centerman.

“I thought the big guys have delivered, and that’s what we are going to need with the injuries we have,” DeBoer said. “They are doing what we need them to do considering the circumstances, and I thought both top two lines were really attacking tonight and had some real good looks.”

Now, they have to continue. As 2024 turns to 2025, the Stars are in good shape at 22-13-1 (45 points). That’s sixth in the West in points percentage, but still in the “mushy middle,” as DeBoer likes to call it. Dallas plays host to Ottawa on Thursday and Utah on Saturday before heading out on the longest road trip of the season, so the Stars still have work to do.

That said, it is a nice way to turn the page.

“That’s the goal,” said Robertson. “Everyone is excited for the new year.”

Dallas is now 8-1-1 in its past 10 New Year’s Eve games and 16-5-3 since moving to Dallas in 1993.

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.