One flaw in Dallas Stars’ game could prove fatal in series against Golden Knights

Vegas needed just 83 seconds to take the first lead of the series over Dallas Monday night and create a one-goal cushion that was ultimately enough to secure Game 1.

Despite the Stars coming off four days off — and an electric environment at the American Airlines Center when the game began — the Golden Knights came out sharper, and the Stars found themselves in a similar hole that they’ve often been in this year.

But unlike most of their previous games, Dallas was unable to climb out of it.

“You take a penalty on the first shift of the game, kind of an unfortunate one,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said Tuesday. “It ends up in the net. I don’t know how you practice that or simulate that. I think our intentions and our hearts are in the right place. I think our group was ready to play. Sometimes, it’s just hockey.”

On the night of Dallas’ fourth-to-last regular-season game against Buffalo, DeBoer spoke about the double-edged nature of the Stars’ play this season — particularly their tendency to sacrifice an early lead to opponents.

“It’s a testament to our character and our leadership that we can recover, but it’s also a little bit of a red flag that we’re behind in games like that early,” DeBoer said. “Particularly, it feels like we’ve given up the first goal quite a bit. That’s something we’ve got to fix come playoff time.”

But with the playoffs now here, it doesn’t appear that Dallas has resolved that issue, and it’s one that could plague the Stars, especially in a series against Vegas.

DeBoer is right: the Stars have sacrificed the first goal an uncharacteristic number of times for a team that finished so high in the standings. Dallas scored first in just 40 of its 82 games. When it did, it recorded a 29-6-5 record (72.5 win percentage). When it sacrificed the first goal, it had a 23-15-4 record (54.8%).

The Stars set a franchise record with 26 comeback wins this year and won a league-best 23 games after giving up the first goal. They won over half of the games they trailed first in.

As good as Dallas is when leading first, Vegas is just as strong with a 31-9-5 record (68.9 win percentage). However, when sacrificing the first goal, Vegas was just 14-20-3 this year (37.8%). If Dallas can find a way to score first in the upcoming games of this series, it could be an instant difference-maker.

Scoring first is an obvious advantage both in the regular season and the playoffs. Teams that scored first went 847-280-155 this regular season and 66-32 in the playoffs last spring.

“You can’t chase the game the whole series,” DeBoer said. “I thought we were chasing the game all night. We’ve got to make sure we fix that going forward.”

Monday will likely not be the last time Dallas gives up an early lead in the postseason. When it happens again, the Stars need to capitalize on other advantages they have to get back into the game.

DeBoer pointed to the goalie advantage of an experienced Jake Oettinger in net and special teams — where despite the Stars being the better team (top 10 in both PP% and PK% compared to 20th and 16th for VGK), Vegas went 2-for-2 on the power play, and Dallas was held scoreless.

The Stars rarely take the easiest road to victories and have put themselves in some challenging holes both this season and last playoffs. They were able to crawl out of 2-1 deficits in both of their first two series last year.

While scoring the first goal each night may not guarantee a trip to the second round, it could make the road a little easier on the Stars, who are already playing from behind.

“It’s going to be a good battle,” Mason Marchment said. “This series is a long way from over. We’ve got a lot of believers in this group and no quit here.”

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