Game Recap: Stars’ Near-Perfect Road Game Collapses In Final Minute

The Stars played what felt like a perfect road game on Sunday in St. Louis. They skated well from the drop of the puck, kept the Blues to the outside for much of the night, and had a 1-0 lead with less than one minute remaining from a second-period Jason Robertson goal in a physical divisional matchup. However, everything changed in the blink of an eye.

With the Blues net empty trailing 1-0, Jani Hakanpaa was whistled for a marginal hooking penalty, one which was heavily argued by Stars captain Jamie Benn.

On the ensuing power play, Esa Lindell broke his stick, so the Stars were defending with three and a half players against six Blues. Still, Dallas stood tall. With 45 seconds remaining, Miro Heiskanen stole a puck behind the net, turned up the ice to clear, and was hauled down by a Blues player. The play looked to be a clear penalty but went uncalled as the Blues regained possession, fired a point shot that rocketed off the end boards before Ryan O’Reilly slammed home the rebound to tie the game.

After the goal, referees huddled up to discuss, giving the Stars hope that perhaps they had a call to make to disallow the goal. Instead, Heiskanen was called for a slash, putting the Blues right back on the power play.

With all of the chaos, anger towards the refs, and lucky bounces that led to the first Blues goal, you could feel that things were not going to turn out well for Dallas. It only took 18 seconds before Jordan Kyrou’s shot deflected off Hakanpaas’ skate and into the net, stunning the Stars, and giving the Blues a 2-1 win in regulation.

"I think that was a really bad call by them," Miro Heiskanen said. "I got tripped in the corner and they called me [for] a slash. Yeah, it might be a slash, but I think that was a pretty clear trip in the corner. I don't know. It's frustrating. That sucks. I think we played really well, and they do that at the end, so it sucks."

The Stars deserved better in this game, there is no question about it. They played a heavy game, checked well, and were once again perfect on the penalty kill until the final minute of chaos.

"We played a hell of a hockey game, we did," Rick Bowness said. "We deserved a lot better than that. We played a hell of a road game for our third game in three-and-a-half days, we battled hard. We deserved a lot better than that."

However, even with how well they played throughout, the Stars could not find a way to put the game away. Their power play was shut down again (0-3), including two chances in the third period that could have given them a 2-0 lead, surely securing the win.

On top of that, multiple players had glorious scoring chances but were unable to find the back of the net. Benn had two point-blank shots, Roope Hintz had a breakaway, Michael Raffl had multiple odd-man rushes, and the list goes on. While the non-call, in the end, may have stolen a solid road win away from Dallas, they know they needed to find a way not to leave it up to the officials.

"Obviously they're a good team over there. They play hockey the right way," Braden Holtby said. "I thought we did a good job. But for us, if we want to push ourselves to where we want to be, we don't want to leave things to chance, so we're going to see what we can do to swing things in our favor. We don't want to throw this one up to one play or blame it on the refs, we want to see what we can do better and focus on improving ourselves."

Holtby finished the game with 25 saves and once again, made some heroic stops when his team needed him most. The Stars goaltending continues to shine brightest, now performing well both at home and on the road.

Jordan Binnington also played well for St. Louis, stopping 30 Dallas shots. He was spectacular in the third period as the Stars pushed to extend their lead, especially on the power play.

The Stars will look to build off this game and move forward knowing how well they played. Unfortunately, the result is the same as Dallas drops to 4-10-1 on the road this season. They have two days off before they return home for their first-ever matchup against the expansion Seattle Kraken on Wednesday.