Lifeless Stars struggling to bring Dallas a finals doubleheader with Mavericks

It turns out the Dallas Stars are not immune to local power shortages. Even if the head coach blew a fuse afterward.

I suppose there’s a reason this thing has never happened in the eight decades the NBA and NHL have co-existed, the idea of two teams sharing a building and winning Stanley Cups and NBA Finals in one spring. It certainly got a lot harder for Dallas Friday night when the Stars, looking worn down for the second straight game, gave up two early and easy power-play goals and lost to the Edmonton Oilers 3-1 at American Airlines Center.

It was a lifeless performance for the Stars, who had not scored since the first six minutes of Game 4, and got its only goal Friday with under six minutes to play. That’s way too long of a shutout drought at this time of year, way too long when the opposing netminder is Stuart Skinner and the Oilers are much more feared for their high-octane attack than their lockdown defense.

Is it over? We can’t go that far, although the crowd that started filing out early had to be wondering if they would see this team one more time Tuesday night.

So the Stars have to win in Edmonton on Sunday. OK, they have done that once already. And then they have to come home and wrap it up Tuesday. Well, Pete DeBoer is unbeaten (8-0) in seventh games, so we can’t rule that out, either. But this Western Conference finals took a definite turn Wednesday when Edmonton fired off five unanswered goals and ran that streak to eight with a 3-0 lead that looked even more decisive after two periods Friday.

Earlier in the day, following the morning skate, I asked DeBoer about fatigue, how his team playing its 99th game in Edmonton Wednesday showed no signs of life in the third period after falling behind 4-2 with 20 minutes to go. That’s usually when you see this Stars team at its best, dominating play and peppering the opposing goalie with shots. They were listed with one good scoring chance in that period, and they weren’t any better in the second period in Game 5 when Edmonton turned a 1-0 edge into a more emphatic 3-0 advantage.

DeBoer dismissed the idea after admitting that fatigue can play a part in things. “I think teams, when you’re this far down the road, I think the situation overcomes any fatigue at this point of the season. There’s too much on the line,’’ he said, “you’re too close to the end.’’

When I asked about his team’s lifeless second period which he had casually ignored, DeBoer said, “You can sit here and question our character if you want. That’s what you’re doing. You haven’t been around here all year, I haven’t seen you all year. You go ahead and write whatever the f— you want.’’

At least someone on the club showed some feistiness Friday night.

Not to be fatalistic about it, but Dallas looked awfully close to the end of the line for most of Game 5. Connor McDavid’s line found time and space with the puck all night long as the Stars struggled to escape their own end or, after the opening minutes, sustain any viable pressure on Skinner. At the game’s 30-minute mark, trailing 3-0, the Stars had been outshot 13-6.

The power play scores for Edmonton, which had gone 0-for-6 with the man advantage in the first four games, arrived in textbook fashion, looking alarmingly simple. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored both, one of them 18 seconds into the power play and the next one 16 seconds in. Win the face-off, make a quick pass or two and fire away.

The Stars have not been special on the penalty kill in the postseason, ranking eighth before Friday night, but these quick failures following poor penalties taken by defensemen Ryan Suter and Miro Heiskanen handed the Game 5 keys to the visitors. Now they go on the road fearful of playing aggressively and taking penalties that could ignite the NHL’s best power play one more time.

I don‘t think anyone should doubt that the Stars will follow Sunday’s puck drop with a little more spark. It would be hard to do anything else. But now the Oilers’ power play is a factor, a real thing in the heads of both teams, for the first time in the conference finals. And the Stars, having already blown a quick 2-0 lead at Rogers Place in Game 4, realize that even a solid early lead is not safe. So the level of play has to rise even higher, starting at the defensive end as always, but this team needs its scorers to make a mark, too.

Jason Robertson’s Game 3 hat trick feels like one of the great mirages of all time. He had one late shot on goal on an otherwise invisible night, one of many for him the last two postseasons. Wyatt Johnston’s goal with 5:51 to play came far too late. When Dallas pulled Jake Oettinger with two minutes to go, they managed only one shot before the horn sounded, sending these teams back to Canada with a very different feel than they had going into Game 3 earlier this week.

X: @TimCowlishaw

On X/Twitter: @TimCowlishaw

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