The Dallas Stars left Columbus with a point Thursday, but not the one they wanted.
After building a 1-0 lead late in regulation, Dallas watched the Blue Jackets claw back, then lose 2-1 in a shootout in a game that felt tight from the opening puck drop. The Stars are 9-5-2, and while the standings still show a point, the finish had to sting.
Mikko Rantanen gave Dallas the lead with a rebound goal at 6:27 of the third period. It looked like that might be enough until Zach Werenski tied it for Columbus at 16:46, his first goal of the season, sending the game to overtime. Neither side scored there, and Columbus finished the job in the shootout by scoring twice.
“Shootout is always a coin toss,” Rantanen said. “It could go either way.”
For Dallas, the loss came with a few encouraging signs wrapped inside the frustration. The Stars were coming off that wild 6-5 win in Washington on Tuesday, and they had to manage the night without Miro Heiskanen, who is day-to-day with an upper body injury. That meant heavier minutes for the blue line, with Thomas Harley playing 28:31, Esa Lindell logging 26:05 and Nils Lundkvist hitting a season-high 21:06.
“I thought our defense all played well,” coach Glen Gulutzan said. “When you give up that few of chances and you’ve got a young guy in [Trey Taylor], he played well. We’re not happy with the result and not getting the extra point, but our game looked better.”
Casey DeSmith was a big part of that. He stopped 29 shots and gave Dallas a chance to win, even after a rough outing against New Jersey in which he gave up five goals after sitting for almost two weeks. Gulutzan said the team wanted to get him back into a steadier rhythm.
“We talked about getting him in quicker, not so long between starts, and I thought he responded real well,” Gulutzan said. “He gave us a chance.”
DeSmith liked the way the group handled the game in front of him.
“I thought we did a lot of good things, we defended well,” DeSmith said. “There were a lot of things we talked about doing a better job, and I thought we did that tonight.”
That matters for a team sitting 26th in scoring and second in goals against. Dallas has been uneven, and three of the four games before Tuesday’s win were tough defensively. Thursday night at least looked more like the structure the Stars want.
“Today, we played a pretty good 60,” Rantanen said. “Our forecheck was good.
We were turning pucks over, especially in the second period. Our D was doing a good job joining the rush and extending the O zone time, so that was good.”
Now comes a four-game homestand, with San Jose, Winnipeg, Buffalo and Florida all coming to town. Each sits in the bottom half of the league in goals per game, giving Dallas a chance to turn a decent defensive night into something more consistent.
“We’ll take a look and see how we can get better,” Myers said. “There were a lot of good things, a lot of good to take from it.”
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Miro Heiskanens absence has already forced the Stars to adjust once, and the same question is hanging over the blue line again as they prepare for San Jose. The Dallas defenseman is listed as doubtful because of an upper-body injury, leaving the club to keep sorting out its pairings without one of its most reliable minutes-eaters.
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