DALLAS — Wyatt Johnston scored three power-play goals for the Dallas Stars, who ended the St. Louis Blues’ four-game winning streak with a 6-3 victory at American Airlines Center on Sunday.
It was Johnston’s second hat trick this season and third in the NHL.
“It’s really cool to have a chance to do that and see the hats falling on the ice,” Johnston said. “I think confidence is a huge thing. As a power play, just the way it feels right now, everyone just kind of has that swagger. When we go out there, it feels like we’re going to score every time.”
Roope Hintz had a goal and three assists, Mason Marchment and Matt Duchene each had a goal and an assist, and Thomas Harley had two assists for the Stars (39-19-2), who have won five of six and are 10-2-1 in their past 13 games. Jake Oettinger made 39 saves.
“Guys scored on our chances, and we played pretty well after that second period and closed it out the right way. You’re up by one and you need guys to step up and give you some breathing room, and we did that,” Oettinger said. “They threw everything at the net. Sometimes it’s almost nice when you’re getting a lot of rubber and in the rhythm of that. I would almost rather have what I had than what their guys had. You never know what is going to get thrown at you.”
Zack Bolduc, Dylan Holloway, and Nathan Walker scored for the Blues (29-27-6). Joel Hofer allowed three goals on nine shots in the first period before being replaced by Jordan Binnington, who allowed three goals on 12 shots in relief.
“We didn’t execute, we weren’t as aggressive as we have been, and you give a good power play like that time and space, they’re going to make tic-tac-toe plays, and they did that to us,” St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery said. “Our 5-on-5 game was pretty good, our special teams game we didn’t match.”
Marchment gave the Stars a 1-0 lead at 1:56 of the first period with a shot from the top of the right face-off circle for a power-play goal.
“Nice to get back on the board,” Marchment said. “Starting to feel a little bit more like myself. Not too many games played in the last couple of months. Just nice to kind of feel back to normal.”
STL@DAL: Marchment gets the feed from Bourque and picks the corner for PPG
Bolduc tied it 1-1 at 3:22 when he stuffed in a loose puck that was behind Oettinger in the crease.
Duchene responded for the Stars with a one-timer from the bottom of the right face-off circle to make it 2-1 at 13:28.
Holloway tied it again 2-2 at 18:34, scoring a power-play goal from the point through traffic.
Johnston answered back for Stars with his own power-play goal, a wrist shot from the slot to make it 3-2.
“I can’t remember us being outshot like that in a long time, so credit to St. Louis. I thought they played heavy and hard and desperate, like we knew they were going to be,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “You’ve got to find different ways to win, and tonight it was our special teams and our goalie were the difference. We don’t ask either of those things to win us games every night, so once in a while you need that. We got that tonight, particularly the power play.”
Hintz extended the lead to 4-2 at 1:06 of the second period off a cross-ice pass from Jason Robertson.
Walker cut it to 4-3 at 8:02 when he batted a rebound out of the air past Oettinger.
“I think we can take the positives out of it. I think our 5-on-5 game was pretty good, just got to tighten up our special teams,” Walker said. “I think we’re doing a good job taking care of the puck and playing the right way. It’s shown over the last four or five games or so. I liked our 5-on-5 game tonight and we’ve just got to keep that going in the next one.”
STL@DAL: Walker scores goal against Jake Oettinger
Johnston pushed the lead 5-3 at 9:14 of the third period, finishing off a tic-tac-toe passing play at the right of the crease for his second power-play goal.
“I thought in the first two periods we did a really good job of it. I thought in the third, once we fell behind, we tried to make too many east-west plays and we didn’t stick with [the game plan], and it’s a learning opportunity for us to know that we have to play to our identity,” Montgomery said.
Johnston completed the hat trick at 11:11, scoring his third on the power play from the high slot for the 6-3 final.
“We were playing great hockey. We were working hard everywhere and in all three zones. We had a lot of shots on net. Overall, 5-on-5 was a good week for us,” Blues forward Alexey Toropchenko said. “We just need to clean up some special teams. We need to forget about this game. We came off a good stretch and forget about it and move forward.”
STL@DAL: Johnston completes the hat trick with third PPG
NOTES: Blues forward Robert Thomas extended his point streak to 10 games (four goals, 10 assists) with an assist on Walker’s goal. … Johnston became the ninth active player to have at least three hat tricks before the age of 22. The others are: Patrik Laine (eight), Steven Stamkos (five), Alex DeBrincat (four), Connor McDavid (four), Matt Boldy (three), Tyler Seguin (three), Taylor Hall (three) and John Tavares (three). … Hintz has eight points in his past two games (one goal, seven assists). He is just the second Stars/Minnesota North Stars player in the past 40 years to have consecutive four-point games (Seguin, 2018-19).
