In their borderline invisible, fresh bright white uniforms, the Stars looked like a different team on Tuesday night. The Lightning looked like the same team that lifted the Stanley Cup six months prior.
Thanks to a furious third-period comeback, the Stars altered the script slightly and squeezed a point out of a 4-3 shootout loss to the Lightning.
Brayden Point scored the game-winning goal in the second round of the shootout, denying Dallas a comeback win spurred by Jamie Benn and Alexander Radulov’s game-tying goals in the final minutes of the third period.
Dallas trailed 3-1 until Benn’s goal with 2:06 left in the third and Raduov’s goal with 1:25 left.
The Stars finally pushed a goal past Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy — courtesy of Miro Heiskanen’s second-period, power-play goal — and finished the third-period with a pair of 6 on 5 goals to push the game into overtime.
The result would not have been wholly surprising, had Benn and Radulov not led the Stars back.
The Lightning have been one of the league’s best teams. The Stars have sputtered to fifth place in the Central Division. Dallas hasn’t beaten Tampa Bay in regulation in the regular season in four years. Entering Tuesday, Vasilevskiy shut out the Stars in three straight games.
During previous losses to the Lightning this season, the Stars could claim that they were the better team at 5 on 5, and that Tampa Bay just dominated special teams. The first period offered ominous tones for the evening.
The Lightning fired 19 shots on goal in the first period. Oettinger kept the Stars in the game, but the Stars looked more like the team that deserved to be out of the playoff picture than one that fancied themselves Cup contenders that the start of the season.
The second period changed momentum, and then Benn and Radulov came calling in the third.
It’s impossible to expect the Stars to win all of the games against the Lightning, but they will need to win some of them to get back into the playoff conversation. Dallas plays Tampa Bay five more times, plus five more against league-leading Florida and four more against Carolina.
If the Stars could beat up on Detroit and Nashville, that would be expected and welcomed, but they can’t simply fight their way back to contention by picking off the bottom of the standings. That’s where Tuesday’s result helps.
On Tuesday, the Stars saw glimpse of what the Lightning did to them for six games during the Cup Final.
There was Vasilevskiy extending his shutout streak against the Stars to more than 200 minutes. There was Brayden Point streaking through the middle of the ice and finishing a breakaway. There was Steven Stamkos scoring a goal. Even Pat Maroon reprised his role as Stars villain with a nifty assist.
Still, the Stars eeked out a point.
Tampa Bay remains the title contender its built across the last decade. Even with the comeback, Dallas remains a team looking for consecutive wins for the first time since late January.
-- Oettinger’s net: It was the first time in Oettinger’s career that he started three straight games, and marks his fifth start in the last seven games.
“He played very well on the weekend, very consistent,” Bowness said. “It’s all part of his growth, all part of his development. As we know, he’s a huge part of this franchise, not only now, but in the future. He’s back in net tonight.”
Oettinger starting again on Tuesday lends further credence to the notion that he has overtaken Anton Khudobin as the team’s starting goaltender. Khudobin last played Thursday against Chicago, when he allowed four goals on eight shots.
When asked if Khudobin was fully healthy, Bowness said yes.
“Sometimes, the explanation is right in front of you,” Bowness said. “The kid’s played very, very well. This also gives Jeff [Reese] a few extra days to work with Dobby. We’ve got a lot of games coming up, and he’s going to be back in there.”
-- No Dellandrea: Forward Ty Dellandrea was not in the Stars lineup again on Tuesday night vs. Tampa Bay, a coach’s decision by Bowness. It was the third straight game Dellandrea was a healthy scratch.
“It’s tough to throw him into these games all the time with the speed and the size and everything of these players, and not having the experience from playing in Austin,” Bowness said. “We try to protect him. He needs to play, clearly. Right now, we wish we were in a better position in the playoff race, we could get him in there a little bit more.”
Bowness added that there are certain teams that Dellandrea is better equipped to play against. Dellandrea, a 20-year-old rookie, has one goal and two assists in 15 games this season.
“When that situation arises, we will play him,” Bowness said. “The other young guys that are ahead of him have played in the American Hockey League, and he hasn’t. It shows at times, it does. So we have to work with him, and help him and guide him through it.”
