DALLAS — Like most of the Dallas Stars, Matt Duchene is seeking his first Stanley Cup championship. But after his Game 5 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Friday night, he’s looking for reasons why the conference’s top spot is one loss away from elimination.
“We haven’t been at our best except probably in Game 3,” he said after the Oilers’ 3-1 win gave them a 3-2 lead in the Western Conference finals. “We’ve been a little disjointed offensively this whole series.”
The Stars averaged 3.59 goals per game in the regular season. They have scored two goals or less in their three series losses.
Forward Tyler Seguin said the Stars aren’t “connected” as a five-man unit on the ice. Duchene said they didn’t recover enough pucks in the offensive zone, and when they did, Dallas was too hesitant to set up scoring opportunities against Edmonton goaltender Stuart Skinner (19 saves).
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“Sometimes when you want something so bad, you want to try to be too perfect. We need to trust our game,” Duchene said.
The Oilers, in their second straight victory, controlled play for most of the game. They limited the Stars to four shots on goal in the first period, and Dallas went 9:43 without a shot on goal in the second.
Dallas coach Peter DeBoer, when asked about what he reportedly called a “lifeless” second period, responded by calling the description an attack on his team’s character.
“You can sit here and question our character if you want. You know what? I’m not going to. Go ahead and write whatever you want,” DeBoer said.
The coach said Edmonton played “a perfect road game” in shutting down his team.
“If you’re going to tie a game away from home, that’s pretty much what you want to do, right?” DeBoer said. “They want to go out, score two power play goals early in the game, take the lead and then defend well all night. So it’s hard to do that.”
Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who scored those two power-play goals, said the key to defending the Stars is not giving them anything to work with by making mistakes.
“It all starts with getting through the neutral zone, not turning pucks over and not giving them anything easy to attack us with,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “Sometimes you have to live to fight another day. You don’t need to be too aggressive.”
“Sometimes when you want something so bad, you want to try to be too perfect. We need to trust our game.” Matt Duchene
Nugent-Hopkins also plays on the penalty kill for Edmonton, which has not allowed a Dallas power-play goal all series. The Stars are 0 for 11, and five of those power plays came in Game 1.
“There haven’t been a lot of power plays in this series. So maybe you can attribute a little bit of that (lack of success) to reps,” Seguin said. “But there’s no excuse this time of year. Sometimes special teams need to win you the game, and theirs did that tonight.”
The Oilers return home with a chance to advance to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2006. But the Stars believe they have a chance to bounce back. Dallas was the best road team in the regular season and is 6-2 on the road in the playoffs. Additionally, the Stars believe Edmonton hasn’t been at its best yet.
“We’re confident that if we play our best game, we can beat anyone. So it’s just a matter of us playing the next game,” said forward Wyatt Johnston, who scored his 10th playoff goal in the loss. “I mean, we can’t lose another game for the rest of the series. We definitely have our backs against the wall.”
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