The Dallas Stars overcame a slow start to blow out the Montreal Canadiens in a 7-0 win at Centre Bell on Thursday.

Another way to skin that cat!

The Stars have often opted to go down 2-0 before turning on their game and winning 90 percent of the time. It’s worked, but tonight they went with a different approach. Not on purpose, though.

Casey DeSmith sparkled to start this game, as Dallas played eerily similar to their start in Ottawa on Tuesday. It was all Montreal, and the Habs were able to pretty much do whatever they wanted.

Despite being outshot 14-5 and dominated for most of the play — doing A LOT of puck watching and not so much off-puck coverage — it was Dallas who jumped in front with the opening goal.

And you are never going to guess how they scored or WHO scored it.

Wyatt Johnston was the beneficiary of a beautiful tic-tac-toe power-play goal. It was his eighth PP tally of the season, leading the NHL. It was also his 13th PP point, second only to the man who started the play, Mikko Rantanen. And finally, it was Johnston’s 100th career goal at the age of 22.

Kid can play.

Keep on rollin’, baby

I think I have already used this as a heading, but who cares? It gives me an excuse to sing this song in my head and think of NHL Hitz 2002 on PS1.

R.I.P Sam Rivers.

Was this not the best game of all time? Just hammering clappers to knock down Martin Brodeur and bury the rebound with Bill Guerin? Absolutely.

I had a feeling Dallas would go up 2-0. And they did, with a classic Miro Heiskanen to Esa Lindell slot pass that Lindell put past Jakub Dobes. I love to see Esa Lindell score. It’s sort of like seeing a fat guy score in football. You get a fat guy spike. And then you get a fat guy dance.

Esa Lindell is not fat. It’s a movie quote, people. Chillax!

What I didn’t see happening was the Stars going up 3-0 after that point. They had been outplayed, and this entire season has pretty much consisted of either going up 2-0 and losing the lead or dropping down 2-0 and making an epic comeback. I thought that was coming again. I even tweeted it.

Then Jason Robertson got real saucy on us. How about this saucer pass to the middle of the ice that sprung Tyler Seguin on a breakaway? And how good is Seguin on breakaways??

Very. That’s the answer.

Robertson may score 50 goals

Who thought I would say that just a few days ago??

Robertson has three goals in the past three periods. He had three goals through the first 16 games of the season. Just like we talked about in my postgame article Tuesday, when he breaks droughts, look out. He gets hot and doesn’t stop.

If you need proof, look at how he scored this goal. (This video also includes his second of the night.)

That’s a goal-scorer’s goal. Elevating on the backhand that quickly in tight. Nasty. Could he actually hit 50 goals if he keeps rollin’?

And it’s because Robertson didn’t hang his head. He may have been feeling the drought, but he kept doing his thing and working at it.

I heard from pitching coach Brigma that Robertson was focused on the three R’s. That’ll get anybody ready to go. Hot Ice is the secret. You heat up the ice cubes. It’s the best of both worlds!

It’s also a beautiful play to set it up. Thomas Harley made a great defensive play, jumped up into the rush, and after Rantanen made a nice cross-ice pass, like he usually does, Harley found Robertson in tight between two defenders.

That’s what this Stars team can look like. They are elite on offense when feeling it.

Also, sometimes you just have to give some love to Rantanen. I mean, come on?!

Now, they are up 5-0 after two periods, which is great.

Gives us a chance not to feel as stressed and on edge waiting for the comeback. But they have still not played a good game defensively at all. And without some big stops from DeSmith early, who knows where we would be? As I write this, Dallas has six goals on 16 shots.

And while I wasn’t going to include any more goal highlights, I can’t leave out Alex Petrovic. His first NHL goal in approximately one million years. Just kidding. Only seven seasons.

What a fun night for everyone other than the home fans in Québec.