Dallas Stars Needed That Kind Of Win To Break Out Of Losing Slump

Nine losses? No thanks. The Dallas Stars avoided stretching their winless streak to nine games last night with an overtime victory against Philadelphia. And though it wasn’t the prettiest of wins, there are a lot of good things to take from it.

How about those Dallas Stars last night? I don’t care whether you are still on the playoff dream wagon or whether you abandoned ship weeks ago. Wherever you may stand, we can all agree that it was nice to see this team win for the first time in 18 days. That much we can all agree on.

It’s been quite an emotional trek for the Stars over the past six weeks. Many mark the Feb. 11 game against the Vancouver Canucks as the game where “it” all started. After going on an impressive tear from late November to mid-February, the Dallas Stars looked like a lock for the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Considering the misfortunes and disappointments that they experienced in the 2016-17 season, playoffs were definitely something that the franchise needed.

But then, little by little, their hopes went from substantially large to questionably average. Dallas dropped four of their final seven games in the month of February before starting a doomed month of March. Since March 1, the Stars are 3-7-4. They picked up that third win last night after suffering through an 0-6-2 slump.

It’s not like they didn’t have a chance to do better, though. The Stars played well for a good chunk of that eight-game drought and even deserved to win a few games. But after a few bad bounces or incredible turnarounds by the opponent, Dallas always found their way onto the wrong end of the win/loss column.

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And last night, there’s a good argument to be made that the Stars didn’t deserve the win. After Radek Faksa scored an early goal on a rebound opportunity, the Flyers hopped into the driver’s seat and controlled the pace for arguably the rest of the game. They took a 2-1 in the early part of the second period, giving the Stars another uphill battle to climb. And, as we had seen over the past three weeks, it was a battle that Dallas couldn’t seem to ever win in the final half of the game.

But after Brett Ritchie used his body to deflect an Alexander Radulov shot into the net to tie the game up midway through the second, there was a new aura that appeared around the Stars. Sure, they continued struggling to the finish line over the final 30 minutes, but they did it with a different swagger. It was almost if they said, “We’re not going to be beaten for a ninth time. No matter what has to happen. Just not tonight.”

After securing a point and pushing the game to overtime, a crafty 100-foot pass by John Klingberg and some laser focus by Tyler Seguin to catch the puck onside was all the Stars needed. Seguin and Radulov took a 2-on-0 into the Philadelphia zone and cashed in for the 3-2 victory. Skid broken.

But this is a win that does a lot more for Dallas than just get them over the 84-point hump and keep their playoff hopes on life support (at least for now). This win should serve as a heavy confidence booster for the whole team.

Tyler Seguin tallied the 500th point of his career with the game-winning assist. Kari Lehtonen likely had the best performance of his season last night, stopping 31 of 33 including some show-stopping saves that not many goalies make on a regular basis. Radulov tallied two points after starting the first two games of the homestand with nothing. The Stars got two regulation goals from depth scorers, their power play and penalty kill were on, and they survived a late push by the Flyers to get the win.

The big thing coming out of last night’s win, however, is that the Dallas Stars proved that they can still win. This season isn’t doomed for an unbelievably historic 14-game collapse after all! Not only can the Stars win, but they can still win against good teams. The Flyers are in the midst of a playoff race out East and have little ground to spare. Though they got one point last night, they could have really used two. The Stars turned into a roadblock and pulled off a big win for themselves in the process.

That was a win that the Dallas Stars needed. They may not have performed to the best of their abilities, but they got a big confidence boost from an overtime swing.

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It likely doesn’t change anything in their playoff outlook and is one overtime win after a stretch of horrifying results, but man, does it feel good to finally get two points. That’s all that you can really ask for at this point.