The Dallas Stars never trailed and took three separate leads in a 4-2 win against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena on Thursday.

Mavrik Bourque told us so & game as expected

If you read my article yesterday (you should of!), you would know that Mavrik Bourque was confident his offense was coming.

Bourque has liked the way he’s played this season, finding recent success on a line with Oskar Bäck and Justin Hryckowian. But Bourque only had two goals and six points coming into tonight, Bäck had two points in only 10 games due to injury, and Hryckowian two goals and four points. For Bäck and even Hryckowian, those numbers are no big deal. Bäck is not an offensive player, and Hryckowian has played only 24 career NHL games.

But Bourque has the experience. He has had extreme offensive success at every level, even winning AHL MVP honors two years ago with the Texas Stars. He has more to give than just solid play and a few chances. He has more offense in him, and it is about time that begins to translate more consistently at the NHL level.

He knows it, too.

Well, tonight, it didn’t take him long to not only find some offense, but do it from the area of the ice his coach said he needs to get to more: right around the net. It took only 55 seconds for Bourque to get two golden chances and convert on the second, putting the Stars up 1-0.

How about the diving assist from Hryckowian here after he won the puck from three or four Canucks near the goal line? That extra effort is addicting to watch and rubs off on teammates.

For Bourque, it’s all about consistency. He has to find a way to produce more often at this level. Good start tonight.

The game itself was pretty much as I expected. Vancouver lost 8-5 to Florida in its last game, being outshot 41-15. The Canucks won 6-2 in Tampa the night before. They are seventh in goals for and 31st in goals against. You get it. They play a lot of high-scoring games. If it’s not high scoring, they probably don’t have a chance to win.

Well, they have a chance tonight because they keep answering the Stars goals.

Bourque’s goal gave Dallas the lead for all of 2:11 before the Canucks tied it. Vladislav Kolyachonok’s breakout pass was in Colin Blackwell’s skates, the puck got turned over, and Vancouver scored short side on a 2-on-1, a goal eerily similar to Kyle Palmieri’s shorty on Tuesday.

But Dallas got right back ahead when Jason Robertson… Yes, that guy… scored his ninth goal in the past five games. Robertson is absolutely lighting the league on fire, racking up shots and skyrocketing his shooting percentage with shots like this.

He may score 60.

Vancouver tied the game again with a power-play goal, and this one is set to be 9-7 when we finally reach 60 minutes.

And finally, this was a nice moment between Jake Oettinger and a Stars fan in BC:

PK and Jake Oettinger when they needed them most

The Stars penalty kill has not been good this season. Entering tonight, it sat 24th in the NHL at 24.3%. That’s not only bad, it’s shocking given how good Dallas has been on the penalty kill in recent years. Third in the league over the past three seasons.

Oettinger hasn’t been great recently. He has often allowed a soft goal or two, but then likes to step up and shut the door to give his team a chance to win. While that is an admirable trait, the Stars would prefer he just not allow the bad goal early.

But guess what? The second period was all about the penalty kill and Oettinger… and in a good way!

Vancouver has four power plays through 40 minutes. They scored on one in the first, had three in the first five minutes of the second, and even had 1:20 of 5-on-3 in there. But while it may not have been pretty, Oettinger and the Stars killed off each of the second-period chances. Dallas couldn’t get the puck out, couldn’t change, and took on water. But they didn’t break. Whether it was Oettinger making a big save or a blocked shot, they found a way. In a game that looked to be high scoring but now feels like every goal matters more, that was huge.

Then Oettinger did this late in the period to once again keep the game tied 2-2.

This save is so impressive in so many ways.

To be able to stay in position enough not to let the bank shot go off him from behind the goal line, then find the puck after the crazy scramble, get a hard push on his left skate to drive him back across the netfront, drop his stick after realizing it was slowing him down, and punch his blocker hand up toward the shot from the wing is quite impressive. And I didn’t even mention the sneaky poke check that took a mini breakaway chance away from known Stars enemy, Conor Garland.

Oettinger makes the toughest saves often. If he can just find a way to stop “easier” shots like Linus Karlsson’s in the first period, he would be among the best every night.

Oh, I see we are getting weird again tonight

The first period was a little whacky with all of the scoring. The second was weirder with some scorpion saves and weird scrambles. But the third? That was a whole new level of weird.

Oettinger’s save on Elias Pettersson started things off.

That is everything but a traditional hockey goalie save. But he made it.

Then Robertson had a golden chance to restore the lead, but missed and ended up prone on the ice under a Canuck for about 10 seconds. Robertson wasn’t done getting weird, though. Shortly after his first chance, he created another, then he had a wide-open net with the puck on his stick behind Kevin Lankinen. Yes, behind him. Lankinen is a goalie. As in, nobody between Robertson and the back of the net.

Somehow, somehow, the puck did not go in. Despite being the hottest scorer in the NHL, he whiffed with an open net and no goalie.

Weird. Real weird. Like your friend Tony would say, “greeeaaat!” I don’t even know at this point…

Or as Robert puts it… It’s all bonkers.

Want to get weirder? How about a Colin Blackwell bardown breakaway goal from Radek Faksa to put Dallas up for the third time tonight?

You got it.

I wasn’t going to include any more video if the Stars won… but like… I have to put this in here.

Are you kidding, Mikko Rantanen? This is so many types of absurd. (Bad) Patrick Kane memories.

Dallas once again found a way to play a mostly solid road game and, more importantly, found a way to score the big goals in key moments and get the biggest saves in those same moments. This team is very hard to beat on the road. Decent at home too, eh?