Dallas can appreciate Wednesday’s two points without treating them as an offensive breakthrough. The Stars beat Colorado 3-2 in a shootout, moved to 3-3-1 and reversed Tuesday’s result against the same opponent. They scored one goal at even strength in the rematch.
That goal belonged to Miro Heiskanen. Colorado scored twice at even strength, through Gabriel Landeskog and Brock Nelson, so Dallas needed something outside that exchange to remain level. Arttu Hyry supplied a short-handed goal. The distinction matters when a winning score threatens to make every part of a performance look equally successful.
Heiskanen played 30:03 and put two shots on goal. His second-period wrist shot, with assists from Mikko Rantanen and Thomas Harley, erased Colorado’s opening lead. Dallas received a demanding night’s work and a finish from a defenseman. Asking the back end to contribute is sensible; needing its goal as the entire even-strength return makes the attacking evaluation less comfortable.
Rantanen and Roope Hintz each recorded one shot on goal through overtime. Jason Robertson and Tyler Seguin had three apiece. Those counts do not establish that anybody lacked effort or refused a particular opportunity. They do describe the limited number of attempts reaching Scott Wedgewood from some of Dallas’ prominent forwards, on a night when the team finished with 22 shots overall.
There is an important limit to the criticism. Shot totals do not tell us that Dallas wasted excellent chances or that Colorado allowed only poor ones. Wedgewood stopped 20 shots, and a goalkeeper doing his job can make an attacking performance look less rewarding than its opportunities deserved. The score is a reason to examine Dallas’ production, not permission to invent why every attempt failed.
Hyry’s finish provides a concrete example of an opportunity that did become a goal. He took the puck from Cale Makar and scored on an unassisted backhand at 1:20 of the third period. Dallas was killing a penalty. Hyry put the Stars ahead 2-1 from a situation in which simply preventing Colorado from scoring would already have been useful.
That is valuable opportunism, especially with the Stars’ own power play going 0-for-2. Colorado also failed on its four advantages. Dallas’ penalty killers therefore supplied a scoring contribution as well as denying the opposition. The power play supplied neither of the Stars’ goals in regulation, leaving the attack dependent on Heiskanen’s finish and Hyry’s unusual return.
Useful defensive work helped make that enough. Dallas blocked 19 shots and won 54.4% of the faceoffs. Casey DeSmith made 25 saves. None of those contributions needs to be diminished to question the scoring: the Stars did several jobs well while still taking fewer shots than Colorado and producing fewer even-strength goals.
Nelson’s third-period equalizer made the margin explicit. Hyry’s goal had given Dallas a lead, but it did not supply a regulation win. The teams reached overtime tied 2-2, and Hyry hit a post in the extra period. Dallas had a genuine chance to finish before the shootout, which is another reason to keep the criticism proportional.
