Dallas Cashed In Early, Then Had to Guard the Lead

At 1:43 of the first period, Columbus goaltender Jet Greaves put the puck over the glass and gave Dallas a power play. Thirty-three seconds later, Mikko Rantanen had scored. In a game where goals were scarce and chances never arrived in waves, that sequence supplied the Stars with their most valuable piece of offense.

Dallas defeated the Blue Jackets 3-1 on Saturday at American Airlines Center, and the early conversion shaped the evening without deciding every detail. Greaves’ delay-of-game penalty was avoidable, the sort of small mistake that becomes expensive when the opposing power play needs only 33 seconds to punish it.

Rantanen’s goal at 2:16 gave Dallas a 1-0 lead, with Wyatt Johnston and Jason Robertson credited with assists.

The value was tied to the setting. Dallas finished with 17 shots, while Columbus had 25, and the Stars never built the kind of offensive margin that makes a lead feel safely banked. When a team is operating with limited shot volume, a power play is more than a chance to add another goal to the ledger.

It can be the cleanest route to creating separation before the game becomes a contest of patience and goaltending.

Dallas made its first opportunity count. Rantanen’s goal was the Stars’ only power-play score in two chances, but one conversion was enough to give the team an early advantage in a four-goal game. Dallas went 1-for-2 with the extra skater; Columbus went 0-for-1. The special-teams difference was small in quantity and large in consequence.

The contrast arrived in the second period. At 12:26, Columbus was penalized because too many of its players were on the ice, sending Dallas back to the power play with a 2-0 lead. The Stars did not score.

The missed chance did not cost them the game, but it left Columbus within reach and kept the rest of the night dependent on Dallas finding enough at even strength and preventing the Blue Jackets from converting pressure into another goal.

Dallas did produce useful support outside the power play, with Harley scoring just before intermission. Thomas Harley scored at 19:59 of the first period, making it 2-0 just before intermission. Damon Severson answered at 6:21 of the third, cutting the margin to one.

Those were the two five-on-five goals, one for each team. Arttu Hyry’s late goal came with one second left and Columbus’ net empty, so it provided insurance rather than another ordinary-strength breakthrough.

Harley’s goal kept Rantanen’s power-play tally from carrying the entire scoring burden. Hyry’s finish made the final score look more comfortable, but it did not erase how little room Dallas created offensively. The Stars recorded nine shots in the opening period, five in the second and three in the third.

Only two of those third-period shots came before Hyry scored; the empty-net goal was the third.

Hyry still gave Dallas an important secondary contribution. He finished with one goal, one assist and four shots in 15:23, assisting on Harley’s first-period goal before eventually scoring himself. Miro Heiskanen assisted on Harley’s goal and Hyry’s empty-netter while playing 26:12.

A successful power play still needed help from players whose points came in different situations. Dallas received that help without finding much additional shot volume.

Jake Oettinger supplied the margin Dallas could not manufacture with shots. Columbus put nine shots on goal in each of the first two periods and seven in the third. Oettinger stopped 24 of 25, including all three Columbus power-play shots, and held the score at 2-1 after Severson’s goal until Hyry finished the empty-net sequence.

The goalie’s work mattered because Dallas did not answer Columbus’ 25-shot total with sustained attacking volume of its own.

The victory also required help outside the power play. Dallas scored once at five-on-five, killed its only penalty successfully and held Columbus to one goal despite being outshot. Harley’s late first-period goal also gave the Stars a second important scoring moment before the game tightened. A 3-1 victory required more than one successful man advantage.

Still, the first power play carried more leverage than the second. Dallas turned Greaves’ mistake into a lead almost immediately, then failed to turn Columbus’ later bench mistake into a larger cushion. In a game with just four goals and 17 Dallas shots, an unused opportunity does not disappear merely because the final margin looks tidy.

The early goal bought the Stars room to operate; the missed second chance left Oettinger responsible for preserving it. For one quiet night, that exchange was enough.

Sources

NHL: official final box score

NHL: official play-by-play

NHL: official game summary and completion time

Stars: regional broadcast territory