DALLAS — It was a Halloween-themed night at American Airlines Center, and Petr Mrázek pulled a Houdini act. The Chicago Blackhawks goalie escaped almost every trap the Dallas Stars set for him.
Almost.
The Stars took advantage of a Hail Mary pass on one goal and a fortuitous bounce on the second to beat the Blackhawks 4-2 on Saturday night.
Meanwhile, something put on a hex on the Hawks that caused a few near-misses. The rest was just Stars goalie Jake Oettinger impersonating a tip-in-eating brick wall.
Tyler Bertuzzi must have felt like the goal had a force field around it. The Hawks forward missed wide left and wide right, hit the post and sent a backhander just over the crossbar. Who does he have to bribe to get an even-strength goal to go in?
The game started off fairly even, but the Stars dominated possession in the latter half of the first period. They led 11-3 in scoring chances, according to naturalstattrick.com.
Midway through the first, Esa Lindell launched an are-you-kidding-me outlet pass from the Stars end as Evgenii Dadonov slipped by Hawks defenseman Wyatt Kaiser, and Dadonov finished off the breakaway with the game’s opening goal.
The Hawks tilted the ice in the second, but once the Stars were able to set up their offense, they capitalized on a bounce to Mrázek’s back side that Jamie Benn chopped in from midair.
You could argue some bad breaks were baked into that 2-0 deficit for the Hawks, but there was nothing fluky about the sharp-angle shot Matt Duchene nailed to make it 3-0 in the third.
But the Hawks flipped the ice again in the final period. Ryan Donato whacked in their first goal out of a scrum in the crease, and Pat Maroon mirrored the Stars’ first goal with a stretch pass to Connor Bedard, who launched a rocket past Oettinger to pull the Hawks within 3-2.
It was Bedard’s second straight game with a goal.
However, the Stars held off the rally, and Duchene added insurance with an empty-netter.
The Hawks say they’re done with moral victories, but is there something to be said for hanging with a Stanley Cup contender?
“No,” Bedard said. “We’re not just going to be happy that we stayed in a game. We’re all NHL players. That’s not the goal, you know? It’s frustrating.
“We’re what, 2-7 (technically 2-6-1)? That’s pretty bad. Losing is not fun, so we’ve obviously got to figure it out.”
Maroon expressed an urgency to win games “right now.”
“You saw our third period, what we did,” he said. “Got pucks in. We worked, we created offense. We need to get our forecheck established, we need more OZ (offensive zone) time, we need to get some energy building here.
“We can’t focus on what’s going to happen. We’ve got to focus on the process right now. I’m sick of losing.”
Here are five takeaways from Saturday’s game.
1. The Hawks were almost constantly under attack.
Miss your chance and the Stars can turn the puck on you quickly. That was especially true in the first period, in which they outshot the Hawks 15-8.
“We really struggled a lot of the night breaking out the puck with numbers,” coach Luke Richardson said. “We had a lot of single-man or two-man line rushes. They set the high pace of the game and we had a hard time matching that.”
That was the case until the third period.
“I thought (Jason) Dickinson’s line set that tone, and I thought we all followed that and pushed for a full 20 minutes at the end,” Richardson said.
The Hawks struggled to explain why they couldn’t play that way for three periods.
“Just maybe not getting bored with what works,” Bedard said. “There’s going to be periods we’re getting outplayed — we’re not going to be perfect every period — but we’ve just got to stick to what we know works.”
Maroon added: “We’ve got a mature group in here now, a lot of veterans. We have to dig down and hold each other accountable and play the right way and pull everyone in the fight.
“That’s how good teams win: They pull everyone in the fight and everyone’s pulling on the same rope, everyone’s doing the same things. It’s predictable hockey — it’s nothing crazy out of the ordinary — and find ways to win.”
2. Wyatt Kaiser got a tough lesson.
Dadonov sneaked behind him in the neutral zone and was off to the races when Lindell sent that heady outlet pass in the air.
“We’ve got to watch Dadonov, (who) is known to take off,” Richardson said. Kaiser “played close to him and he’s a great skater … but so is Dadonov. And when you let a guy get behind you, it’s either going to be a penalty or a penalty shot.
“So just a lesson for a young defenseman. But I thought it didn’t rattle him.”
3. The Hawks mirrored that play on Connor Bedard’s goal.
Maroon settled the puck near the half-wall in the Hawks zone and sent the puck cross-ice past Miro Heiskanen’s outstretched stick to Bedard, who beat Oettinger on a wrister from 38 feet.
“Just stretched out, nice pass and shot a puck,” Bedard said.
Maroon also credited Donato’s contribution.
“I got my head up right away and we had a late change from Dono, and I think he was … anticipating the play as we broke it up and transitioned really fast,” Maroon said. “I got my eyes up and he was calling for it and just shot it down the ice for him.”
You’d think the Hawks could create more plays like that for Bedard.
“It takes a little time to get that continuity of everybody working together too,” Richardson said. “So that was just a great hockey play by Pat Maroon and Connor to take off when he knew he had full control.
“That’s kind of what they did on the Dadonov goal. So we’re maybe a little bit even on that one. One for one.”
4. The Hawks weren’t spooked by ghosts of their last Dallas trip.
Halloween is around the corner, but last year’s double feature in Dallas turned out to be the nightmare before New Year’s.
The Hawks lost forwards Taylor Raddysh and Tyler Johnson to injuries during games in Dallas on Dec. 29 and 31, respectively. In the first game, the Hawks squandered a two-goal lead in the first period, then rallied from two goals down in the third but couldn’t finish the job in overtime of a 5-4 loss. Two nights later they took an 8-1 beating in the rematch.
Richardson said he’s not haunted by that house of horrors.
“I certainly remember it from last year,” he said. “We had a great first game, very similar to last night (against the Nashville Predators), and then we kind of lost it at the end.
“And then the second game went south on us — the whole game, losing players, the play and the score, it was ugly. We want to make sure there’s no other Halloween incidents this year.”
5. Drew Commesso is here to observe.
Mrázek started in net for a second straight game, even though it meant playing in a home-road back-to-back. Arvid Söderblom stayed home with an illness, but Richardson said he will join the trip if he feels better.
The Hawks called up Drew Commesso from Rockford on Friday to back up Mrázek. Back-to-back or not, the Hawks weren’t likely to throw him to the wolves against the Stars.
“Petr and I talked and we talked with (goalie coach) Jimmy (Waite), and Jimmy thought it wasn’t a huge stress load (for Mrázek on Friday) night,” Richardson said before the game. “It wasn’t 50 shots in overtime and a shootout. Petr said he felt fresh.”
For now, Commesso — who’s in his third season with the IceHogs — is just around to observe.
“Pro hockey is great, but it’s a big difference between the American League and the NHL, so it gives him a little bit of a taste,” Richardson said. “And it’s always inspiration for players to up their game. They want to be here more and all the time.”
Richardson said Commesso has put in the work and has been patient with the long path most goalies take to get to the NHL, so it’s “nice to get a little perk to get up here and be around the team and hopefully get in a game.”
