The Dallas Stars scored two straight and held on tight in a 2-1 win against the Vegas Golden Knights at American Airlines Center on Tuesday.

Stars lines

• Robertson – Johnston – Bourque
• Steel – Hryckowian – Benn
• Bunting – Hryckowian – Erne
• Bäck – Hyry – Blackwell

• Lindell – Heiskanen
• Harley – Lundkvist
• Bichsel – Myers  

• Oettinger
• DeSmith

Scratches: Petrovic, Capobianco, Bastian, Lyubushkin, Hintz (injured).

Top story

Leadership.

I wrote about this below when it happened. But I wanted to drive the point home.

Dallas has great leadership. It starts with captain Jamie Benn.

He has led on the ice for so many years, putting up elite offense in his best seasons. Then, as he aged and slowed down, he changed his game. That’s not easy to do. There’s a reason athletes so often clearly slow down after a certain peak. It’s really difficult to first; accept that you can’t play the same style anymore, and second; dedicate yourself to the craft of building a new style that keeps you at a high level.

But Benn is the type of guy to do that. He’s also the type to host teammates, pick them up at the airport, have their backs all over the ice, and be there in the worst and best times. He knows when to say something, when to do something, and when to just let the emotion of the game take over.

Tonight, it was saying something — Well, he did plenty of things too — but specifically, he knew when to skate up and down along the bench and keep his team’s effort on the pedal. He felt the game dip in the second period and understood that it was the key moment that could easily flip the game on its head.

If Dallas lets up for even one minute, Vegas could find a way to tie the game or worse.

Benn kept it simple. As he skated up and down through the entire TV timeout, he tapped his stick, nodded his head, and said just a few words. I can imagine they were the same words over and over. Something about staying on their toes, keeping focus, and not letting up. And it worked. Dallas rode that through the final 30 minutes and locked down an impressive 2-1 win against a team who always seems to tie things up late in this rivalry.

“Jamie coming banging the bench to say to stay with it,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. “Saying the right things (defensively, reloading, changes), just echoing those sentiments. But when [Arttu Hyry] wins a draw out there late against a good draw man, and then he comes to the bench and (Benn) tells him, ‘good draw,’ all that adds to the younger guys here feeling valued.

“When it comes from your captain, it’s a lot better than when it comes from your coach.”

Benn is just the top of the pyramid. This type of leadership also comes in buckets from Matt Duchene, Tyler Seguin, the Finns, and others.

Speaking of this rivalry… I actually cannot wait to watch these two duke it out on a football field at AT&T Stadium early next year.

Live game notebook

Period 1

• Arttu Hyry is in tonight – with a real chance to earn a full-time spot in the lineup due to injury. Gulutzan said Hyry was actually close to making the team out of camp. He was good for the Texas Stars in the AHL and earned his call-up. Then, he got sent back to Cedar Park before the deadline — keeping him eligible for the AHL playoffs — scored two goals in less than a minute, and was immediately called back up to Dallas.
• That line of Oskar Bäck, Hyry, and Colin Blackwell has been great. Multiple shifts with offensive zone time and good battle level.
• Jason Robertson didn’t have his head up to find Thomas Harley wide open in the slot, but he did make a good play on the back check, collecting a puck at his own blue line, checking over his shoulder, and firing a long pass on the tape of Blackwell on a breakaway from the far blue line. Blackwell hit the post, as a slash forced the puck to roll off his stick at the end of his forehand-backhand deke.
• Vegas has had plenty of zone time, but Dallas has really kept everything to the outside and cleaned up the slot.
• Tyler Myers and Lian Bichsel crashing into the same scrum along the wall is certainly something. Big humans.
• Not much going on in this period.

Stars 0, Golden Knights 0

Period 2

• We got a goal! But it was the wrong team. And I know Jake Oettinger can make this save. I think it’s the perfect example of the soft goal Oettinger has allowed a bit too consistently this season — although Oettinger did mention that the shot deflected off Heiskanen’s stick on its way in.

• And just after, he makes a sprawling blocker save to his right after giving up a big rebound down the right wing. He makes the elite, highlight-reel saves. Just needs to make one more of the standard ones.
• Dallas has created a bit, but mostly one and done.
• All of a sudden, shots are 14-5 Vegas. Really good start to the second for VGK.
• Harley really got away with a stretch pass out of his own zone that should have been intercepted at the blue line. Somehow, it got through, and Blackwell played some schoolyard puck, with the backhand pitchfork deke to the middle of the ice. Adin Hill just got the top of his pad on the backhand, but Bäck was there for his first goal in nearly two months.

“I thought he was noticeable with energy,” Gulutzan said of Blackwell. “Important play for us… You guys know, you’ve seen him enough. You’re not playing in the league at 5’8, 5’9 and with that kind of juice and spark without having an internal engine that never quits.”

• Bichsel took a high stick right above his eye. He stayed down for a bit and left the game. Dallas to the power play. — Bichsel returned quickly.
• Benn used to play baseball. He has excellent hand eye, and was very good at deflecting pucks earlier in his career. In fact, he used to be one of the first players on the ice at practice or morning skate, working on exactly that, deflecting pucks shot by Nils Lundkvist. He doesn’t do that anymore, but he looked pretty good shoveling a wobbly puck out of mid-air to give Dallas its first lead and PP goals in 10 straight games.

• As he usually does after a goal he doesn’t like, Oettinger has been excellent. Two great saves moving side to side and easily able to see a point shot through traffic and catch it in the glove.
• Harley to Myers up the ice 2-on-1?? Yes, more of that. Myers came close but Hill just got the blocker on his chip shot from the right circle.

Stars 2, Golden Knights 1

Period 3

• Dallas is unable to convert on a power play, and Justin Hryckowian is called for tripping — it wasn’t even close to an actual trip, Eichel just fell making a tight turn at the blue line.
• Dallas killed off the penalty. All is right in the world again.
• During the TV timeout, Benn was skating up and down in front of the bench tapping his stick and talking to his teammates. I imagine he said something about keeping the focus and energy. This is the type of game where a quick slip up can mean a 2-1 lead turning into a 3-2 deficit. Vegas overcame a three-goal lead against Dallas before the Olympic break.
• Despite having a goal, the Stars power play has looked pretty bad tonight. They got another chance after Mavrik Bourque drew a trip with good work behind the net. Robertson scored on the backdoor pass… But it was pretty much the definition of a puck kicked into the net. He knew it, too.
• Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Dallas and Vegas are in a one-goal game in the third period.
• I give the Stars a lot of credit. They have taken on some zone time, but really, they haven’t given up the Grade-A at the end of the play. Just a lot of possession and passing. When it gets to the vital part of the sequence, Dallas finds a way to block a shot or get a stick in a lane and clear the zone.

“That’s the way we play,” Gulutzan said. “That’s probably one of the changes we made at the start of the year. But they play the same way. So it’s hard to get inside… It’s a battle to get there. It’s exhausting to get there.”

• They have to do the same for 30 seconds more.
• They did. What a game.

Final: Stars 2, Golden Knights 1

Quotable

Gulutzan on what they like most about their recent stretch:

“I think just how good we’re playing defensively. Just so tight we’re checking. And we are still creating offense…