Dallas earned three out of a possible four points on the trip.
DALLAS - The Stars earned a hard-fought 3-2 win over the Ducks on Thursday night at Honda Center.
Here are a few key takeaways from the matchup in Southern California:
Starting strong matters: While Dallas ultimately came away with two points in the standings, it wasn’t exactly a flawless performance, especially in the opening stanza.
Head coach Pete DeBoer’s squad was blitzed early, and fell behind 1-0 less than five minutes into the game courtesy of a goal by Troy Terry.
The shots were also 17-7 for the Ducks at the break.
“It was important to win. That’s the bottom line. It’s early in the season, it’s not all going to look great. You have to give them credit. They were ready to play. We warned our group,” said DeBoer. “The scouting report on them is they’re playing really hard and they’re putting a lot of pressure on, and they did exactly that in the first period. I wish we would’ve handled it better.”
The Stars were a far different team coming out of the intermission, however.
The shots were 12-1 in favor of the visitors in the middle frame, and the power play started to heat up and enjoyed success with goals by Roope Hintz and Joe Pavelski.
“That’s not the start we wanted, but of course it’s a great comeback,” said defenseman Miro Heiskanen. “We battled hard after the first period. It’s a great win for us.”
Rookie Leo Carlsson scored the equalizer for Anaheim just 61 seconds into the third period with his first-ever NHL tally, before Heiskanen put the Stars ahead for good at the 6:47 mark of the period with his first goal of the year.
The Finnish blueliner also assisted on the goals by Hintz and Pavelski for a three-point effort.
Capitalizing on the man advantage: After coming up empty through the first two games of the season, the Stars finally enjoyed some power-play success.
Dallas owned the fifth-ranked power play in the League in 2022-23, so DeBoer is obviously expecting a similar showing this time around, too, given the weapons available up front and on the back end.
Hintz was the player who broke the ice in that department with a top-shelf finish on goaltender John Gibson after a perfectly executed feed from Pavelski.
"I think we kind of tried to simplify the breakout. We got one there, and then it kind of got going. That was good for us to get it going. I think that’s good moving forward," said Hintz, "I was expecting that [Joe] was going to pass. I just tried catch it, and I kind of saw that if I got it, I kind of had a breakaway there. That was good today that I kind of handled that."
Then, it was Pavelski's turn to tip a point shot from Heiskanen past Gibson.
"We've played a lot together, so we kind of know how things are going, how we're moving out there," said Heiskanen, when asked about the chemistry on the top power play unit. "It makes it a little easier. We just try to make those plays and score goals."
Dallas was 2-for-5 while up a man. Anaheim was 0-for-4.
Good to be back: Former Ducks forward Sam Steel enjoyed a notable return to SoCal with the primary assist on Heiskanen's game-winner.
Steel, who joined the Stars over the summer, made an outstanding pass to Heiskanen on the rush that led to the go-ahead marker.
"He made a good play. Anytime you have a history with a team, I think it’s nice to come back and have some success," said DeBoer. "We wanted to stick him in the lineup for that reason, and I thought he made a big play there at the right time."
Sam Steel previously spent four seasons with the Ducks between 2018 and 2022.The 25-year-old, who was re-inserted into the lineup after being scratched for the game in Las Vegas on Tuesday, was asked to reflect on the sequence.
"I had some time to skate up ice, and Miro, obviously, he’s flying, so I just had to get him the puck," explained Steel, after recording his first point with Dallas. "He tried to feed it back to me, and we got a fortunate bounce, so it was a timely one."
Contributing to the cause meant a lot to him as well given that he's still relatively new to the group.
"It hasn’t exactly been super easy transitioning. I expected it to be like that, though. It’s tough learning a new system and what not, but it’s getting better and better," said Steel. "For the most part, I thought in the second and third our line had some good O-zone shifts and tilted the ice a little bit, so it’s nice to finish a game off like that."
Dallas will travel home on Friday before facing the Flyers on Saturday night at American Airlines Center.