‘Vintage’ performance from Stars’ top line, Miro Heiskanen reminders of patience earned

DALLAS — Patience has been a buzzword around the Dallas Stars this season. Friday night against the Chicago Blackhawks, the Stars put that patience on display. Matt Duchene won the overtime faceoff and Dallas started with the puck. For the next 4 minutes and 50 seconds, it felt like the puck lived on the Stars’ sticks yet the Stars lived in their own zone.

Then, with less than 10 seconds left in the extra period, Miro Heiskanen softly passed the puck back to Roope Hintz behind him, who dished it back to Heiskanen, who passed it across the ice to Jason Robertson, who found Hintz at the net to complete a hat trick and get the two points.

“We spent a lot of time in the summer on it,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said of the overtime strategy. “We hit it early in training camp. I think we’ve gotten more comfortable in it. I feel like we’ve been in a bunch of overtime games lately. When we’ve kind of stuck to our game plan, we’ve been rewarded a lot of nights. There are a couple of nights where we haven’t (stuck to the plan) and it’s burnt us. We’re definitely way further ahead than where we were a year ago in that area.”

Nobody who’s followed the Stars, least of all the team, needs any reminder of how atrocious they were last season beyond 60 minutes. After the season, DeBoer vowed to take a hard look at the issues and come up with a solution. Through 34 games, the Stars have played 11 games beyond regulation and have won seven.

In a tight race atop the division, which the Stars sit at No. 1 by points percentage, those are seven crucial points.

It’s not just that the Stars have played a bunch of overtime games lately — they have, four of their last six games have gone to overtime — but it’s that every game feels like it’s ending with the intensity of the do-or-die nature of overtime. The Stars’ last six games, and nine of their past 11, have all been decided by one goal. Twenty of their 34 games this season are one-goal results.

It can be disconcerting, and that’s not a totally invalid emotion. Going the distance with a team buried in the league standings isn’t ideal, though the Blackhawks did come into Friday’s game with wins over Colorado and Winnipeg in two of their last four games. But it’s important to remember that this Stars season is about mid-April and beyond more than anything prior.

Given the sheer number of things the Stars have been working through this season, let alone the magnitude of them, it’s easy to see a picture in which they’re scratching and clawing at the edge of the playoffs. Not many teams could withstand a slow start to their top line and the starting goaltender missing extended time and the captain not scoring in 11 consecutive games and the star young forward riding a 15-game goal drought.

The Stars, through their depth and situational prowess, have been able to withstand it so far and been able to have the luxury of pressing the patience option instead of the panic button.

“We’ve had the luxury of having some of those guys working through some tough periods and still win games because of our depth and our goaltending,” DeBoer said. “That’s what good teams do. No one is hot every night. In order to be an elite team, you have to have at least a couple of lines going every night. We have that type of depth.”

The Stars’ second line of Mason Marchment, Duchene and Tyler Seguin has been so good this season that it’s earned the label as the team’s top line. It’s easy to forget, though, that Duchene opened the campaign on a six-game goal drought and Marchment looked like more of a detriment than an asset. Staying patient with that trio worked out well for the Stars.

The Stars’ true top line of Robertson, Hintz and Joe Pavelski has the benefit of multiple seasons on its resume to show what it’s capable of. It hasn’t materialized to the same degree for much of this season, but Friday was a reminder of just how dominant that unit is when it’s clicking.

“Our whole line, I mean, we kind of looked vintage out there, taking the game over, creating a lot of chances,” Robertson said. “Most importantly, I think we weren’t giving a lot of offense against, either. It’s a good step in the right direction.”

The dialogue this season around Robertson, in particular, has been fascinating. There’s nothing wrong with wanting more from the 24-year-old forward. After all, that’s the bar he’s set for himself with back-to-back 40-goal seasons. Through 34 games, Robertson is on pace to finish with 27 goals this season.

At the same time, Robertson leads the Stars in points with 34 and assists with 23. A point-per-game season on a down year is still not too shabby. Robertson is still very young so it’s hard to contextualize his 2022-23 season and know if 46 goals and 109 points is the bar or the exception. Given that the 109 points blew past the previous Dallas Stars record of points in a season of 93, the odds are that it’s more the exception than the rule.

That’s not to make excuses for Robertson or lowering the bar as much as it is to calibrate the expectations of the bottom-line results. Robertson finished Friday’s game with a decent stat line of a couple of assists. He didn’t score a goal, but he led all players with six shots on goal. His linemate had the hat trick and that’s certainly flashier, but it doesn’t necessarily point to Hintz’s dominance in that game relative to Robertson.

“Of course, you have to work to get there, but I think I give the credit to the linemates today,” Hintz said. “Of course, you have to work to get to the back post, but credit goes to them tonight.”

For longtime readers, the opinion on Hintz is pretty clear. He is the best overall forward on the team and the engine of the top line, and perhaps even the team overall. As Robertson said, one reason the line was in “vintage” form was because of its defense and Hintz is the heartbeat of that.

“He was doing what he does,” Robertson said. “Skating in the middle of the ice, using his speed, driving the middle of the lanes, getting rewarded. I think we were a lot more connected today than it has been the past couple of weeks, months. We’re trying to rekindle that chemistry, moving the puck around quickly. We did that tonight.”

In any sport, there’s often talk of playing in complementary fashion. When one area of the team needs to be picked up, others have to pick up the slack, and the favor gets returned throughout the course of a season, too.

Scott Wedgewood has been phenomenal in goal for the Stars filling in for the injured Jake Oettinger. Heiskanen is such a luxury for the Stars, something that was evident time and time again Friday night. According to Natural Stat Trick, Heiskanen was on the ice with rookie phenom Connor Bedard for almost eight minutes. In that time, the Stars outshot the Blackhawks 8-3 and had a whopping 95.06 expected goals percent advantage.

“There are only a handful of defensemen that can probably skate with him,” DeBoer said. “Not just skate with him but want the challenge of being out against those type of players and to play in those defensive situations. Miro’s that guy. He really relishes that challenge and rises to the occasion. I think he enjoys that, when he gets isolated one-on-one with some of the best players in the world. He wants that challenge. That’s a great luxury for us.”

There were other takeaways scattered throughout the game, both positive — Nils Lundkvist’s wicked wrist shot that resulted in a goal — and negative — falling behind 2-0 early and blowing a 4-2 lead late. Above all, the 5-4 win was an encapsulation of a season-long theme. The Stars don’t look like a finished product, but they’ve earned the benefit of receiving patience instead of panic.

(Photo of, from left, Miro Heiskanen, Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson celebrating: Raymond Carlin III / USA Today)