Heika's Take: Stars find a way to earn another nail-biting win

DALLAS -- Friday's home opener was a lot like the Stars' season so far.
Lots of chaos and grumbling and frustration followed by the right play at the right time for a timely victory.

The Stars were outshot 45-22, they handed one of the best power plays in the league 11 minutes of man advantage time, and they lost Jani Hakanpää to a game misconduct penalty for a kneeing major. Yet, Braden Holtby was spectacular making 43 saves in goal, Dallas dominated much of the third period when it came to scoring chances, and Denis Gurianov shook off the early season doldrums with a sizzling overtime backhand for the win.

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In the end, the Stars grabbed a 3-2 overtime victory against the visiting Kings before a rambunctious full house of 18,532 and moved to 3-2-0 on the season.
"There's two things that come out of that game for me," Stars head coach Rick Bowness said. "One, good teams find a way to win. We found a way to win. That's the most important thing.
"Two, is we know we can play a lot better than that. That's the good thing."
That lesson is one the team has studied a good deal so far. The Stars are getting outshot pretty much every game and spending way too much time in their own zone. They're struggling to connect on passes and find line chemistry. They're pretty lucky that Holtby has been as good as he has been after signing a one-year free agent deal for $2 million in the summer.
And everyone pretty much knows all of that.
"He's been spectacular," Bowness said. "It's a game because of Braden. It's because he did his job. We weren't on top of our game for two periods, and he kept us in there and gave us a chance to win."

Tyler Seguin added about the former Stanley Cup champion and Vezina Trophy winner: "You've seen it in practice since Day 1. It can't be that much of a surprise with his history. We're fortunate that Holts wanted to come here. He likes our system and our D do a great job, and we play pretty defensive, and he's been unbelievable."
Seguin had a goal and an assist and had seven shot attempts. Still, he said it felt like the team was struggling at times.
"We got dominated there for a while," Seguin said. "That was the message between players that we thought we had a lot more to give. There's nothing really pretty about tonight, but good teams find ways, and we did tonight."

The Hakanpaa penalty was awkward. The 6-foot-6 defenseman was coming in to make a hit on Kings defenseman Drew Doughty, who was carrying the puck down the right wing. They hit knees together and Doughty had to be helped off the ice. He didn't return and Kings coach Todd McLellan said after the game that Doughty will be re-evaluated on Saturday. Hakanpaa received a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct. He said he felt the play was unfortunate.
"I was just trying to deny him the entry to our zone," Hakanpaa said. "It was unfortunate what happened."

Bowness said the Stars will deal with any potential supplementary discipline if the league decides it is needed.
"Jani is a competitive guy, he's not going out there to hurt anyone," Bowness said. "It was just one of those hockey plays. The league will deal with it as they see fit. We hope Drew is OK because he's a great player and a great asset to our league. But it wasn't intentional at all."
The Kings then scored on the ensuing power play to take a 2-1 lead, and the man advantage pretty much allowed LA to continue a stretch of puck domination that led to a 31-10 advantage in shots on goal after two periods and a 56-23 margin in shot attempts. Dallas not only couldn't get out of its own way, spending so much time was a big reason it took so many penalties.
Getting it turned around in the third period was significant.
Bowness juggled his lines again and came up with some combinations that worked in preseason. Seguin went back with Jamie Benn and Alexander Radulov, Roope Hintz was centering Joe Pavelski and Jacob Peterson, and Gurianov was placed on a line with Radek Faksa and Michael Raffl.
Dallas finished with a 14-5 advantage in unofficial quality scoring chances from the start of the third period to the end of overtime, and really did take charge of the game.
Holtby was remarkable again. He currently has a 1.78 goals-against average and .950 save percentage through 235 minutes. That's a sharp contrast to the 3.67 GAA and .889 save percentage he posted in 21 games with Vancouver last season, and it's also exactly what the Stars have needed to squeeze some points out of these games.
A part of that is his optimistic attitude about overtime.
"Compared to shootouts, I think we should do overtime the whole time," Holtby said. "You get scoring chances, guys can show off their skill, and it's a fun challenge for us goalies. It's awesome."

Then, on the end of all of that was a pitch perfect play by Gurianov. The 24-year-old winger has looked frustrated and lost for much of the early season. Even in practice Thursday at the AAC, he flubbed a few drills and was clearly upset.
But Bowness decided during the high-paced overtime that Gurianov might be able to break through. The coach placed the young winger out with Miro Heiskanen (who finished with a goal and two assists) and turned him loose. Gurianov got his speed going down the right wing, curved to the net and lifted a backhand over Jonathan Quick for the win.
It was the kind of play that made Gurianov a first-round draft pick back in 2015.
"I was trying to get him out there in overtime," Bowness said. "Denis had some flashes where he was using that speed, and we need that."
So, to sum it all up, lots of highs, lots of lows, a few lessons learned, and move onto Monday at Columbus.
"We lost a lot of games in overtime last year where we had good chances and the puck just didn't go in," Bowness said. "We hit posts last year and I would say the record looks worse than what we're trying to get done out there. But this year, so far, the pucks have gone in.
"We've got to try to avoid getting in all of these one-goal games that put us in this position," he added. "That's the main goal."
And there are a lot of parts to solving that puzzle.
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heikais a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.