Stars hold off Jets, extend point streak to 11

WINNIPEG -- Mikko Rantanen had three assists, and the Dallas Stars extended their point streak to 11 games by holding off the Winnipeg Jets for a 4-3 win at Canada Life Centre on Tuesday.

Rantanen has 14 points (three goals, 11 assists) on a seven-game point streak.

“He's such a dangerous, elite player, right? And you can't win without those superstars and you can't win without a power play like that,” Dallas coach Glen Gulutzan said. “And he's a huge part of that, and he's a part of the fabric of our leadership there. So, you can't say enough about the guy.”

Esa Lindell, Roope Hintz, Alexander Petrovic, and Jason Robertson scored for the Stars (21-5-5), who have won four straight and are 9-0-2 during their point streak. Wyatt Johnston had two assists, and Casey DeSmith made 30 saves.

“A hard-fought divisional game. It’s always like that in this building,” DeSmith said. “We get out to a 3-0 lead and no lead is safe here. Obviously, they played hard and got back into the game, made it real interesting. Great job by our guys late. That was kind of a sticky situation there (with Winnipeg on a 6-on-4 advantage with their goalie pulled) and we really didn't give them anything.”

Mark Scheifele scored two goals, Logan Stanley also had a goal, and Kyle Connor had two assists for the Jets (14-14-1), who have lost four of five (1-3-1). Eric Comrie made 15 saves.

“I think there’s the threat of the opposition and how good of a team they are,” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “We know what they’re doing right now. … But our pressure on them I thought helped an awful lot. Our forecheck was really good, we didn’t spend a lot of time [in our defensive zone]. I know we made a couple mistakes that ended in the back of our net, the first one at the start of the game and obviously the one in the second, but for the most part we did a really good job defending when we didn’t have the puck. That has to be more of what we look like as a group.”

Lindell scored just 44 seconds into the first period, beating a screened Comrie with a point shot to give Dallas a 1-0 lead.

“There's room, we need to improve 5-on-5,” Gulutzan said. “Special teams will carry a long way when you win that battle, especially with the goaltending we're getting with [DeSmith and Jake Oettinger], so we got three of the four working. But you know there's a lot of room for improvement in our 5-on-5 game.”

Hintz made it 2-0 at 1:16 of the second period, finishing a quick, down low passing play with Johnston and Rantanen on the power play.

“You're not always going to be able to go by the book, especially on a power play,” Johnston said. “So, I think it's important, and that's what we've been really good at this year, is just kind of being a little bit instinctual and just kind of playing hockey.”

Petrovic pushed it to 3-0 at 2:31, scoring with a one-timer through traffic from the top of the right circle.

“I thought they were better than us 5-on-5,” Gulutzan said. “I thought they had a lot of push 5-on-5. Again, I think when you lose the special teams game 2-0 it's hard to win. But the rest of their game looked intact, so for me, you know, they keep playing that way things (will) turn.”

Scheifele cut it to 3-1 at 11:04, intercepting Nils Lundkvist’s pass before Connor set him up for a snap shot from the right face-off dot.

“I thought we played great,” Scheifele said. “It was nice to get two days of rest before this one, so you can look at that one and look at what worked, and keep doing that.”

Scheifele scored six seconds after a power play expired to make it 3-2 at 18:52. He buried a one-timer from the same spot as his first goal of the night.

“Tonight was a good example. You want to get the result, you want to get wins,” Scheifele said. “We got pucks deep, we had a good forecheck. We didn’t give them a lot of time and space. Our 'D' were gapping up really well which made it tough for them to make any plays, so a lot of guys played really good.”

Robertson scored with a one-timer on the power play to push the lead to 4-2 at 4:46 of the third period. Robertson has scored in 12 of the Stars' past 15 games and leads the team with 19 goals.

“The 'PK' was huge,” Johnston said. “Some huge kills there, especially that one at the end. Couple ones on the power play and then Casey [DeSmith] was awesome.”

Stanley scored on his own rebound at 5:54 for the 4-3 final.

“I think we liked a lot of our game tonight. I thought that we were the better team and maybe deserved a little better, but that's kind of the funk we're in right now,” Stanley said. “We keep battling through it. That’s a good start and a good kind of game plan for us going forward. We want to play like that. I thought we did a lot of good things.”

NOTES: The Stars went 4-for-4 on the penalty kill and have now killed 29 straight power plays dating back to Nov. 25 (nine games). … DeSmith (7-0-3) extended his point streak to 10 games. He is the third goaltender in Stars history with a run of that length, joining Ed Belfour (11 games in 1998-99) and Scott Wedgewood (10 games in 2023-24). … Scheifele has 10 points (five goals, five assists) on an eight-game point streak. … Connor has nine points (four goals, five assists) on a six-game point streak.