First Shift \ud83c\udfd2<\/p>\n
The tests keep coming for the Stars, but maybe that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n
Dallas is coming off recent games against Colorado and Vegas and gets the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday. After that, it\u2019s home games against Detroit and Utah followed by road games at Colorado and Minnesota. It\u2019s pretty much a dress rehearsal for the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good to play good teams,\u201d said forward Johnston. \u201cIt definitely is good to test yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dallas is coming off three games in which it has had to protect one-goal leads in the final minute or so. They allowed goals against Colorado and Chicago \u2013 losing one game in a shootout and winning one in overtime \u2013 and then held off Vegas on Tuesday by closing the door in a 2-1 victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s important for our mindset so it doesn’t grow into something bigger,\u201d Stars coach Glen Gulutzan of solving that problem on a short-term basis. \u201cI thought the guys did a good job of packing it in a little bit more and blocking when we could. You don’t want those things to get out of control. It’s good that you can lock down leads especially when it’s 6-on-5 because it can become something and I thought we were good in that area.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obviously, anything that can help you be better prepared for the post-season is a good thing, but the Stars don\u2019t want to find adversity every game. Goalie Jake Oettinger<\/a> said lessons are great, but so is taking care of business in a normal fashion.<\/p>\n \u201cYou never want to go through them,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s better to go through them now than late April. We just learn from our mistakes and if the empty net isn\u2019t there, we just need to chip it out. We did that tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of the lessons during this 12-0-1 run is learning to deal with injuries to\u00a0Rantanen,\u00a0Hintz and Radek Faksa<\/a>. Because of that, players like Adam Erne<\/a>, Justin Hryckowian<\/a> and Arttu Hyry<\/a> are getting more ice time. In recent games, Oskar B\u00e4ck<\/a>\u00a0and Nathan Bastian<\/a> have come up with key goals. Mix that with the presence of trade deadline acquisitions Tyler Myers<\/a> and Michael Bunting<\/a>, and there is a lot going on here.<\/p>\n But if you can deal with that, and win a lot of games, it seems to be a good thing. Gulutzan said the team has handled the adversity well.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the one thing that we\u2019ve done a good job of this year is they all feel like they\u2019ve got a piece of this thing,\u201d Gulutzan said of team chemistry. \u201cThat\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n And it\u2019s tangible on the bench and in the dressing room.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s great about this hockey club,\u201d captain Benn said. \u201cIt\u2019s different guys every night, and that\u2019s what it takes. It takes a team to win in this league.\u201d<\/p>\n The hope is the Stars are preparing to win when it matters most.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First Shift \ud83c\udfd2 The tests keep coming for the Stars, but maybe that\u2019s a good thing. Dallas is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-530849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}