Sam Steel’s shot came out of the high slot, traveled through a screen of bodies and slipped between Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s pads. The value was easier to see on the scoreboard: a second goal for Dallas, with the game still close.
For the Dallas Stars, it was also the moment a 1-0 game became something far more manageable. Steel scored with 9:36 gone in the second period, and Dallas went on to defeat Buffalo 4-0 Thursday night. The margin eventually looked comfortable. The situation when Steel scored was anything but.
Dallas had opened the scoring 9:03 into the game, when Jason Robertson finished a 2-on-1 with a low blocker-side shot. Mikko Rantanen and Wyatt Johnston received the assists. That gave the Stars an early lead, but not much insulation; Buffalo finished with a 26-18 advantage in shots and continued to create enough activity around Jake Oettinger to keep one bounce from mattering considerably.
Steel’s finish supplied that missing cushion. Thomas Harley and Rantanen were credited with assists, and Steel did the important part himself: he put the puck through traffic from a dangerous area. There is no need to turn one goal from a depth forward into evidence of a newly discovered scoring habit.
Its importance was more immediate and more practical. Dallas had a lead that could still be erased, then found a way to make Buffalo chase two goals instead of one.
The rest of the second period belonged to the more familiar names. Nils Lundkvist sent a shot from the left point off the end boards; the goal that followed came at 13:57. Rantanen collected the rebound and backhanded it into the open net as Luukkonen moved across the crease.
The play rewarded a puck that reached the end boards and a forward who arrived in position to use the rebound; it did not require Dallas to win every exchange beforehand.
Roope Hintz added the fourth at 15:34 on the power play. Johnston’s pass reached Hintz in the right circle, and Hintz snapped the shot into the far upper corner. From Steel’s goal to Hintz’s conversion, Dallas scored three times in 5:58. The finishes were usefully different: one through traffic, one off a rebound and one completed after a power-play pass to the right circle.
That sequence gives Steel proper credit without giving him too much. His goal was the hinge between a promising start and a decisive middle period. Rantanen still drove the night’s production with one goal and three assists, touching all four Dallas scores.
Johnston supplied three assists, on Robertson’s opener, Rantanen’s rebound and Hintz’s power-play finish. Robertson and Hintz also found the net. The celebrated pieces carried the scoring load; Steel made the lead sturdier before they finished it.
