Heika’s Take: Stars can’t find late goal to complete comeback, lose to Flames in shootout

The Stars have been good at digging holes this season.

They also have been good at climbing out of them.

They did a little of both on Saturday, and the result was a 3-2 shootout loss to the Calgary Flames.

“We’ll take the point,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said as his team moved to 13-5-4.

As has happened so many times this year, the game could be viewed through several different prisms. Dallas was resilient in the third period, battling back to tie the game against a red-hot goalie while missing leading scorer Mikko Rantanen, who was given a game misconduct in the second period for a boarding penalty. Jason Robertson continued his hot streak as he scored a goal and set up another to force overtime.

That said, the lads in Victory Green could have easily seized control of the game had they been able to cash in on a wealth of early chances, found a way to convert on a late two-man advantage, or simply been better in the shootout. There were many paths to victory, but on this occasion, Dallas couldn’t navigate one.

“Obviously, we don’t want to be putting ourselves in those situations, but that’s hockey right now for some reason,” Stars captain Jamie Benn said. “I like the way we’re battling back. We’ve been finding ways to win these games.”

As it was in a loss to the Islanders and a win over the Canucks, the game was all over the place. The Stars had one of their best first periods of the season, throwing high danger chance after high danger chance at Flames goalie Devin Cooley, but the 28-year-old backup rejected them all.

Meanwhile, Colin Blackwell took an ill-advised holding penalty and Calgary’s league-worst power play converted. Matt Coronato was able to make a move in front of Casey DeSmith, and the Flames had the 1-0 lead.

The two teams then battled through a penalty-filled second period, and Rantanen was ejected for his second boarding major in the past three games. The big forward hit Coronato from behind and could face supplementary discipline from the NHL.

“The league is going to look at it, and they’ll decide,” Gulutzan said. “They’ve seen enough of those hits.”

Rantanen leads the Stars in scoring with 28 points (10 goals, 18 assists) but he also now leads the league in penalty minutes with 57.

Calgary once again scored with the man advantage and could have done even more damage as a Radek Faksa holding penalty gave the Flames a two-man advantage.

However, DeSmith and the penalty kill held on, and the score stayed 2-0 Calgary.

That turned huge as Robertson scored off a pretty pass from Tyler Seguin six minutes into the third to make it a one-goal game. It was Robertson’s 10th goal in the past six games, and pushes Robertson to 13 goals, tied for fifth in the league.

Robertson then fed Roope Hintz for the tying goal with about three minutes left in the third. It was a nice play that the duo had tried earlier in the game.

“We talked about that play and we tried it a couple of times, but we just didn’t connect,” Hintz said. “And then we finally connected. It was a good play.”

That led to overtime, but not before the Stars got another golden chance with the man advantage. A delay of game and a tripping put Dallas on a 5-on-3 in the final minute, but Calgary held the line. That forced a five-minute overtime that was played almost exclusively at 4-on-4, and neither team could score.

It was a bit of a ragged game at the end, as Dallas used Miro Heiskanen for almost 33 minutes and also had both Lian Bichsel and Alexander Petrovic out in OT for some rare shifts. That said, Gulutzan liked how his team responded.

“He’s such an effortless skater. There are a handful of guys in the league who can handle those kinds of minutes,” the coach said. “We’ve got a day off tomorrow, we knew that, so we’re trying to get any point we can. We pushed it to a shootout and we liked our chances there. A shootout is anyone’s game.”

Robertson scored on the shootout, but Seguin hit a post and Calgary was able to score twice. In the end, it was a bittersweet finish.

“It’s the shootout,” Robertson said. “You’re super happy when you win, you’re devastated when you lose. If Seguin’s goes in, we’re happy. It is what it is.”

And so the team has to move forward with games in Edmonton and Seattle this week before the Thanksgiving break. They can rest on the fact they have more comebacks from two-goal deficits than any team in the league and also score the third-most third period goals in the NHL. That said, it’s a lumpy kind of pillow.

“We’ve been that team where we’re trailing a lot, so it’s all relative,” Robertson said. “It shows that we’re never out of it. We lose one of our best players for the game, so other guys had to step up, and they did. It’s just disappointing we couldn’t get it done on a power play.”

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.