If the Stars’ captain was looking for an exciting welcome in his first game back, he certainly got one.
Jamie Benn returned to the ice Tuesday night for the first time this season after being out with a collapsed lung. The crowd greeted the captain with cheers as he came on in warmups and another as he skated his first shift.
Both teams started the game at a crawl, with the first period going scoreless and without any penalties. Then the New York Islanders found their legs and spent a lot of time in Dallas’ zone after the Stars failed to clear the puck. Forward Calum Ritchie took advantage, and shot a puck past Jake Oettinger to put the Islanders on the board.
Just under two minutes later, Jason Robertson had an answer. The forward stole a puck from New York and found himself, Tyler Seguin and Roope Hintz in a three-on-one rush down the ice. Robertson passed to Seguin, Seguin slid it back and Robertson got the puck behind goalie David Rittich to even the score.
If the first period seemed slow for fans, the third period certainly made up for it. The Islanders found more space at the beginning of the third when Bo Horvat scored in the first two minutes.
Dallas got a chance to respond when Oskar Bäck took a high-stick to the nose from Horvat that drew blood, also drawing a four-minute minor and a ten-minute misconduct in the process.
But New York’s Kyle Palmieri had other plans. The forward scored shorthanded and doubled his team’s lead despite Dallas’ man advantage. Before the Stars could get their power play back on track, the Islanders got a high-sticking penalty of their own, courtesy of Benn. Neither team scored, and five-on-five play resumed.
But the high-sticking did not stop there! Matthew Schaefer, the rookie with the most points in the league, delivered a blow to Robertson. The Stars went back on the power play until Robertson got called for hooking. He made up for it, however, when he knocked in Seguin’s rebounded puck behind Rittich to bring the score to 3-2 with 1:59 left in the third.
In a mad dash towards towards the net after Rittich slid the puck to his right, Mikko Rantanen collided with Islanders defenseman Alexander Romanov who then slammed into the boards. New York’s tempers flared both on the ice and on the bench, and head coach Patrick Roy had some strong words to share with the Stars.
As a result, the officials gave Rantanen a five-minute penalty for boarding as well as a 10-minute misconduct. The Stars did not stop pushing. Miro Heiskanen fired off a slap shot that Rittich saved, just as Robertson and Islanders defenseman Ryan Pullock entered the crease. With under half a second remaining, Wyatt Johnston whipped the bouncing puck into the back of the net.
The crowd erupted, but the league immediately reviewed the play for goaltender interference. Robertson’s contact with Rittich turned out to be enough for the call on the ice to be overturned and the action-packed third period ended in a Stars loss.
Dallas will be on the road for the next four games and will head to Vancouver to take on the Canucks Thursday night at 9 p.m. CT.