Game 47 AfterThoughts: No Miro, No Hero

What is a team without its best player, really

SotG

Tonight marked the Stars’ first game without Miro Heiskanen this season, as the defenseman was away from the team attending to a family situation.

The hope might have been that Thomas Harley & Co. could step up in Heiskanen’s absence like they did in February and March of last season, but this game unfortunately ended up looking a lot more like April of last year, when the Stars started dropping multiple games in a row during an end-of-season slide that only two playoff round victories drove from their short-term memory.

“Obviously, it's the first time we played without him this year,” Gulutzan said, “And you could feel it. You could feel that [Heiskanen] wasn't in the lineup, certainly, but that wasn't the issue. I thought we could have done some things a bit better, especially early.”

Gulutzan went on to praise Casey DeSmith for keeping the Stars in the game, particularly early on, when Anaheim was getting chances aplenty while Dallas struggled to get any kind of rhythm. Despite the fact that this was a 1-0 game for a long stretch, this really didn’t feel much like a 1-0 game at all, as both teams were making mistakes, and both teams were gripping sticks a bit too tightly at times in an effort to either break a long losing streak or avoid slipping into another one.

Look, the fact is, the Stars are nearing the end of a season-long road trip, and this is their second back-to-back of the trip. They’re 27-11-9, just a nose ahead of the Minnesota Wild who lost to a New Jersey Devils team the other night that felt about as desperate as Anaheim probably was in this one.

Sometimes, the midseason malaise catches you at a bad time, and you just don’t have the legs to match the team on the other side. And even with enough talent to more than compensate for that fact, sometimes you just find yourself one goal short, and that’s the difference. Tonight, it was exactly that, as yet another late-game push by Dallas came shockingly close to canceling out what was otherwise a very forgettable game.

This team was missing its most important player, and their best player (Mikko Rantanen) showed signs of frustration tonight, too. This was One Of Those Nights. Toronto beat Colorado on Monday, only to get rinsed 6-1 in Utah on Tuesday. It’s that time of year.

But Sam Steel put it well tonight, I think, when asked how the Stars are balancing their second-best record in the NHL (third in points percentage now, behind Tampa Bay) with the reality that they’re not playing their best hockey as of late. Here’s what Steel said:

“We're not trying to just make the playoffs and kind of go up and down all year. There’s a high standard here. When we're not at that standard, everybody knows it, and everybody wants more.”

That’s probably the right mindset, too. As much as fans can take solace in the fact that Dallas can afford a few “up and down” stretches after their incredible start to the year, the nature of this year’s Stars team is to perpetually wait for the chickens to come home to roost. They don’t dominate in shots or possession, and their forward depth looks a bit iffy on nights like this. It’s hard to draw much confidence from what we assume to be The Process when you can’t espy much cohesion in the practice of it.

At their worst, the Stars can feel like a team just trying to hold on until someone steps up and makes a big play, rather than a team that gets rolling and takes control of a game. They can do the latter, as Washington and others have experienced in decisive Dallas victories. But when a Dallas team aspiring to Stanley Cup glory can’t find a way to put more than one goal past a defensively suspect Anaheim team that’s missing even more players than they are, it’s really hard to believe the Stars are building the sort of momentum and belief that results in special springs.

Roope Hintz said after the game that the plan was to “grind them down,” limiting Anaheim’s offense and rush chances in a similar way that Dallas did in Los Angeles. Obviously, they weren’t able to execute on that, and the ensuing chaos resulted in a couple of goals that ended up being enough to win a late-night Pacific Division tilt on TNT.

But then again, it’s January. This Stars team split a back-to-back and nearly got points out of the second game. That is not a terrible result, on paper. It happens.

If Mavrik Bourque’s shot hits the inside of the post and goes in early in the first, maybe everything is different. The margins are that fine, but you can be absolutely forgiven for wishing that they didn’t always have to be. Because if you really are one of the best teams in the league, you ought to be able to buy just a bit more peace of mind than the Stars have done so far.

They have Duck Blimps in Anaheim, in case you didn’t know.

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With the Ducks missing Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, and Troy Terry, you expected to get a sense for just what sort of night we were in for right off the bat.

So when Mavrik Bourque hit the post on his first shift of the night, you kind of felt like Dallas was going to get more than a few chances to break the Ducks’ spirit early and often. And given that Anaheim came into the game in the midst of an 0-8-1 freefall, you wouldn’t have thought it would take much to do so.

That Bourque chance was the best Dallas would muster for a good ten minutes, though. Beckett Sennecke drew a tripping penalty on Nils Lundkvist with a nice move inside, during which Blackwell and Steel got a shorthanded look that never made it on net. All told, the Stars had to content themselves with a killed penalty to punctuate the opening ten minutes, and nothing more. Momentum would not be on the Stars’ side for most of this night.

The Ducks tested Casey DeSmith a couple of times in tight after getting the Stars a bit out of sorts in their own zone, but both times the Dallas goaltender got his shoulders where they needed to be. Even bigger stops were needed as the first ticked away, with the Stars struggling to generate much possession up ice, and DeSmith facing multiple just-abouts that he either had to stop or saw trickle just wide.

It was not a very cohesive first period for Dallas, is what we’re saying here. But because it’s the 2025-26 Dallas Stars, the Ducks didn’t find a way to convert any of those chances, and the Stars remained in the game a whole lot longer than most teams would have any right to do.

Jason Robertson nearly converted a one-on-one look from the left circle, as his shot trickled through Lukáš Dostál’s arm and off the far post. Robertson circled behind the net and nearly stuffed the loose puck home, but Dostál’s pad was quicker.

The biggest save of the period, however, was by Casey DeSmith on Ryan Strome at the back post. I’m still not certain how DeSmith got over after McTavish fed the puck to the slot, only to see the puck no-looked down low to Strome, who one-timed it into a lunging DeSmith for a highlight-reel save.

Dallas was exceedingly fortunate to escape their first 20 minutes sans-Heiskanen without trailing. And if you don’t believe me, just look at the workload DeSmith faced:

HockeyViz.com - First Period Shots

Then again, we’ve seen the Stars do this all season long and wind up with something to show for their survival instincts. Anyone who flinches after 20 minutes of hockey in January is going to have a tough time in April, that’s for sure.

Anyway, the Stars drew their first power play since San Jose after Esa Lindell made a nice defensive play on Team Finland associate Mikael Granlund in the defensive zone. Apparently Granlund took that personally, because he would serve two minutes for holding the stick when he tracked back into the Ducks’ zone.

Unfortunately for Dallas, Miro Heiskanen also plays on the power play, and that meant his absence was felt just as acutely at 5-on-4 as it had been at evens. But after the Stars surrendered more looks to the shorthanded Ducks than they generated themselves, Anaheim got a bit overzealous with a line change, and they took a Too Many Men on the Ice penalty that Dallas didn’t quite realize was upcoming until 17 seconds were left on the first call.

Still, 17 seconds is 17 seconds, so Gulutzan called his timeout to draw up a play for the short 5-on-3. But the universe loves itself a good joke, and Robertson would get nailed for a hooking minor right off the faceoff, rendering all plans moot.

And sure enough, things got even worse when Dallas took a delayed penalty during the subsequent 4-on-4, and Chris Kreider came off the bench unmarked and right down the center of the ice, beating DeSmith blocker side on a shot so fated to go in that DeSmith didn’t even bother moving. 1-0, Ducks.

The Stars nearly got the goal back right afterwards, when a good rush by the Faksa line (during which it looked like Faksa got seat-belted in the slot without a call) led right into a dominant O-zone shift by the Johnston line, but Dostál would end up freezing the puck despite multiple scares both low and high. Still, it was a much-needed sign of life from Dallas in the right end of the ice, and the hope was that it was something to build upon.

Wyatt Johnston certainly seemed to think so, as he danced all but one of the Ducks on the ice just minutes later, finishing his shift with an efficient one-timer setup that saw Drew Helleson take a Lundkvist slapper to the helmet. Thankfully, Helleson appeared to be unharmed, and he left the ice without too much fuss after play was blown down for safety reasons—though Dallas certainly would have preferred to play on.

Rantanen’s frustration with the game was marked by a slam of his stick against the boards after a missed connection with Duchene late in the second, but it wouldn’t be the last time Duchene was moved up to the wing, as Gulutzan searched for a spark of any kind.

Ian Moore, meanwhile, created a spark of his own while cosplaying as a forward when he got around Lindell and forced a couple of great stops out of DeSmith, who nonetheless refused to succumb to the same malaise that the Stars had been fighting off in the first period.

Mavrik Bourque nearly tied things up with a second Almost There after a bad Anaheim turnover, but once again, he was close to the result without finding it, as Dostál snagged the puck before he could tuck it around the goalie.

Radko Gudas put Dallas back on the power play when he got a piece of Johnston after the forward had dipped by the worst of the check along the wall, forcing Gudas to trip the Stars’ forward. Johnston was on a mission in this second period, without question. But despite a much better-looking power play to start the set, an optimistic keep attempt led to a 2-on-1 shorthanded rush, during which Ryan Poehling passed over to an open Killorn at the last second, only to spill himself right on top of Casey DeSmith right before Killorn scored. That resulted in a goal that was immediately waved off for goaltender interference. The decision was not challenged by the Ducks, and the second intermission arrived without any other damage to either side.

It was a double let-off for Dallas, as Hintz probably could have been nailed for interference (or somesuch) on Poehling back at the start of the rush. But when you’re losing and you haven’t scored any goals, it’s probably hard to feel all that great about these sorts of things. In a lot of ways, the second period was better for Dallas than the first. But in the most important way (goals), it was not.

The third period started off with another strong push from Anaheim, but Dallas started to find some legs of their own after a bit more active play from their blue line. Kyla Capobianco in particular stepped up through the middle of the ice to gain the zone on a rush that led to a good chance for Dallas, and you got the feeling both sides were going to see the score change from 1-0 before too long, even if the direction it would go wasn’t at all clear.

This was a third period with a desperate team trying to snap a losing streak, and a bitterly confident Dallas team that has spent all season finding ways to claw good things out of bad games like this one. The pendulum was swinging more and more violently in both directions, and you could only guess where the tension would finally give out.

The answer was obvious, in retrospect: It was chaos in the Stars’ zone and not clean enough defending that doomed them. The Ducks got a second goal after a messy bit of work behind DeSmith’s net when Sennecke managed to find a backhand shot as he was falling, stuffing a puck into the far side with too much watching and not enough Defense-ing going on for Dallas.

That should have killed any flickering hopes for Dallas, but life was not altogether absent from this team.

Gulutzan asked the top guys to empty the tank in the final five minutes and change with six skaters out there, and they did just that. Harley would end up with almost 29 minutes of ice time, and Rantanen over 23. A good chunk of that came with DeSmith pulled for an extra attacker with five minutes to go (the sixth skater was Duchene, for the most part).

Dallas leaned as hard as they could, and eventually, with just over two minutes remaining, they managed to prove that they could indeed still score when Roope Hintz buried a nice touch pass from Duchene:

You probably don’t want to hear it, but Dallas did get a couple more looks in the final minutes in what would have been a ridiculous way to make it to overtime. They were, very much, that close.

But pucks either didn’t get through to the net, or else they did and weren’t collected and put home. So after Jacob Trouba finally found the empty net with 30 seconds to go, six very exhausted Stars skaters finally admitted defeat, and the Stars packed their bags for Utah. At least this time, they’ll have a day to rest.

Lineups

Dallas rolled these lines:

Robertson-Hintz-Bourque
Steel-Johnston-Rantanen
Hryckowian-Duchene-Benn
Bäck-Faksa-Blackwell

Lindell-Lundkvist
Harley-Petrovic
Capobianco-Lyubushkin

DeSmith

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Anaheim tried this group of players out:

Kreider-McTavish-Strome
Killorn-Granlund-Sennecke
Johnston-Poehling-Harkins
Nesterenko-Washe

LaCombe-Trouba
Mintyukov-Helleson
Zellweger-Gudas
Moore

Dostál

After-AfterThoughts

• Tonight was my first time attending or covering a game in Anaheim with the new OC Vibe project finally beginning to take effect. The gigantic parking garage on the west side of the rink is a welcome addition, with a ton of free parking (up to 7,000 spaces, supposedly) as close to the arena as you could ask for. With a Metro stop right across the street, it’s never been more accessible. And from everything I’ve heard, it’s only the first part of what promises to be a huge overhaul of the area, creating a lot of what the Stars have talked about building in areas like Plano, should they end up leaving downtown for a suburb of their own.

  • (With that said, I confess I already miss the charm of the old Arrowhead Pond. Nothing like a truly rinky-dink setup to watch a power play-infested 2007 game.)

• After talking about Nils Lundkvist’s potentially precarious position in the lineup, a game without Miro Heiskanen seemed like an opportunity for a player like Lundkvist to step up. Playing on a pairing with Esa Lindell seemed like as good an opportunity as Lundkvist could ask for.

  • He started off the game with a crucial shot block, but he also took the game’s first penalty after getting beaten inside by Beckett Sennecke. And perhaps most frustrating of all, he held the puck too long on what looked like a chance to send Jason Robertson in, putting a potentially dangerous Dallas rush offside. When a player like Lundkvist is second-guessing plays like that, it’s a tough spot indeed.

• The first period of this game is a pretty good explanation for why the Stars may have chosen to roll with Casey DeSmith for two straight games prior to LA last night. When things haven’t been as they should be this year, DeSmith has been extraordinary at coping with chaos. What a find he’s been, especially this season.

• Nobody covered themselves in glory early in this one for Dallas, but it wasn’t a shock to see the Hryckowian-Duchene-Benn line broken up, as it had been largely caved in for the first half of the game.

• On the other end of things, Duchene found himself playing the right wing with Hintz and Robertson as the third period began, and looking pretty dangerous while doing so. In a game where Dallas was practically spelunking for forward chemistry, that was a surprising trio to see mount a good push.

  • When asked about that trio after the game, Gulutzan was blunt: “We didn’t have anything going on.” The Stars coach said he was just looking for a change, so we’ll have to see if the 21-24-95 trio makes another appearance in the near future.

• Jamie Benn had the least ice time of any Dallas skater with just 9:38. It was not his best game tonight, but then I imagine playing back-to-backs right after having facial surgery (of whatever kind) is a tall task for any player. He was not the only one who didn’t have his A-game tonight. Not by a long shot.

• Jackson LaCombe also didn’t look quite as good as he has in some other games, tonight. I imagine a nine-game skid will take its toll on everyone, though.

• I don’t know that this is anything other than subjective nonsense, but I’ll end with this: A lot of sequences in this game reminded me of Anaheim games 10-15 years ago. The ice seemed slow at times, and players on both sides were fighting pucks that you sometimes expected them to do better with. It was a slog in multiple senses, and I have to believe it was as frustrating for them to play as it was to watch, at times. But hey: that’s hockey.

• Gulutzan did say that Heiskanen isn’t expected to be away from the team for long, though whether he’ll be back in time for the final game of the road trip (in Utah on Thursday) is still TBD.