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May 23, 2025; Dallas, Texas, USA; Edmonton Oilers center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (93) scores a goal against Dallas Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger (29) in the first period for game two of the Western Conference Final of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

3 Takeaways From Stars’ Game 2 Loss vs. Oilers

Originally posted on The Hockey Writers
By Jeremy Schouppe | Last updated May 24, 2025 10:05 AM ET

In Game 1 of the Western Conference Final, the Dallas Stars fell behind early, but scored five goals in the third period to close out a 6-3 multi-goal comeback victory. To make this comeback, the Stars had a clear game plan in the third period, and that was to make things complicated for Stuart Skinner. After scoring two goals that Skinner could not see, the game snowballed away from the Edmonton Oilers.

The Stars looked to carry this momentum over into Game 2. However, they struggled to replicate the same performance and were shut out by the Oilers. With the series evened up at one game apiece, let’s discuss some takeaways from the Stars’ 3-0 Game 2 loss.

Stars’ Mid-Game Meltdowns

In Game 1, the Stars gave up the second and third goals within two minutes of one another, falling behind 3-1 before making their comeback. For the second straight game, the Stars gave up back-to-back goals within two minutes in the second period, falling behind 3-0. However, this time, they were unable to make the comeback.

While in Game 1, the Stars showed that it is not impossible to come back from these multi-goal deficits, giving up back-to-back goals at any time is never good. But when it happens in two minutes, the momentum swing is incredibly hard to manage. That was shown in Game 2, when the Oilers could coast to victory by locking down their defensive zone after taking the 3-goal lead with 25 minutes left to play and not having to take chances to create offense.

Once again, in Game 2, the Stars came alive in the third period, having 17 scoring chances to the Oilers’ three. Up three goals, the Oilers were happy to concede some offensive zone time to the Stars, committing to protecting the front of their net, unlike the third period of the first game in this series.

Going back to Edmonton, the Stars need to find offense earlier in these games and avoid these lapses, which allow the Oilers to take multi-goal leads and go into shutdown mode. We saw the Game 1 comeback, but that does not change the fact that falling to these deficits is an unreliable way of winning games.

The Stars Did a Better Job Defending Connor McDavid

Despite the 3-0 loss, the Stars did a much better job defending Connor McDavid ‘s line with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman. McDavid did have an assist in this game, but it came on Brett Kulak’s goal. He took a shot from the top of the circles, and the rebound off Jake Oettinger went right back to him, and he put the second shot in.

Oilers Brett Kulak snaps a 35-game goalless drought dating back to the regular season pic.twitter.com/qaNULVqaO1
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) May 24, 2025

In Game 1 of this series, when McDavid was on the ice at 5-on-5, the shot attempts were 24-15 for the Oilers. On Friday in Game 2, the Stars held the Oilers to 13 shot attempts when McDavid was on the ice. Again, this is partially due to the Oilers protecting a big lead for the final 20 minutes of the game. However, they did not let McDavid run wild as they did in the first two periods of this series. Since then, they have done a good job of slowing him down.

McDavid will likely always pop and find a way to get on the scoresheet, but if the Stars can play McDavid’s line to a stalemate and not let him take over games, they have a great chance of advancing to the Stanley Cup Final. The Stars’ depth lines have been winning their minutes through the first two games of this series.

Alex Petrovic Should Play Again in Game 3

Following the Stars’ Game 1 win, they elected to make a lineup change on their third defensive pair. The Stars opted to go with Alex Petrovic instead of Ilya Lyubushkin, who was credited with three giveaways in the first game of this series and has the worst goal share percentage among Stars defensemen in the playoffs.

In Game 2 with Petrovic on the ice, the Stars had 20 shot attempts to the Oilers’ six, and 78.78% of the expected goals. Petrovic winning his minutes has been consistent with him; the Stars have controlled 57.89% of the shots and 56.81% of the expected goals while he has been on the ice in the playoffs.

When Lybushkin has been on the ice compared to Petrovic in the playoffs, the Stars allow 2.68 more goals, 13.39 more shots and 21.66 more shot attempts per 60 minutes. With the Oilers having McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, the Stars’ depth needs to win their minutes. Petrovic has been helping to do that, and Lyubushkin has not.

We will see if the Stars keep the same lineup, continue to slow McDavid down and try to find that offensive spark they found in the third period of Game 1 on Sunday, May 25, in Edmonton at Rogers Place for Game 3.

Stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick