Dallas Stars Training Camp: Editing Bin, Preseason's End, and Jake Oettinger's Mask Men
Almost there
Back in late May, Stars fans got some pleasant news alongside a painful playoff exit in the third round: Three Stars players had been subjects of the next season of the Inside the NHL documentary season shot by Amazon.
Those players: Thomas Harley, Wyatt Johnston, and Mikko Rantanen.
On the surface, you could hardly ask for better subjects. Johnston is a young star on a great team that faced its own hardships and drama, while Thomas Harley showed his talents on an international stage at the Four Nations Face-Off before scoring the series-clinching overtime goal against Winnipeg.
(I’m also told Mikko Rantanen had one or two interesting moments last year, too. Remind me to look into that sometime.)
But when Amazon and the NHL announced the next season of the series’ release this week, something was conspicuously absent:
The docuseries has many moments like that featuring characters like the Tkachuk brothers, Sidney Crosby, Anze Kopitar, Seth Jarvis, Brad Marchand, Sean Monahan, William Nylander, Brendan Shanahan and Zach Werenski.
As the assiduous readers out there have noticed, this group does not include any of the aforementioned Dallas players. Harley and Johnston are not featured in Season 2 at all, while Mikko Rantanen mostly shows up just during his brief time in Carolina.
So, why would such apparently great Dallas storylines get left out? Well, as Carol Schram of Forbes.com tells it, that omission isn’t anything nefarious.
In the end, Amazon simply ended up choosing the best storylines for the six episodes they did, and the footage they took of Dallas players sounds like it didn’t wind up being good enough to beat out the other material they shot.
Or to use their own words, those stories “didn’t quite gel” like they were hoping they would:
The unpredictability that makes sports so compelling also throws the occasional curve ball at even the most seasoned documentarians. After announcing in May that Mikko Rantanen, Wyatt Johnson and Thomas Harley of the Dallas Stars would feature in Season 2, only Rantanen survived the editing process. He’s seen primarily after his January trade from the Colorado Avalanche to the Carolina Hurricanes.
“These stories tend to really come together in the edit,” Martin said. “We have an idea of what we’re trying to tell, and the best characters to facilitate that. But sometimes you get into the edit and characters that you think are going to work together in episodes just don’t. It just doesn’t quite gel in the way that it does when you write it on a piece of paper. We always try and think to ourselves that the best story should always win.”
I haven’t watched the series myself just yet, but I’m sure it will still be fun to see Sidney Crosby admit that he occasionally enjoys things that aren’t hockey-related.
(By the way, Gavin Spittle will be chatting with Schram on Spits and Suds next week about this decision, so look out for a bit more information there.)
Friday Practice Notes
Now, for something that does involve the Dallas Stars, let’s talk about practice in Frisco today, which was the last day of what I suppose you could still call “training camp” for the Dallas Stars, before their final preseason game against Colorado tomorrow night.
First of all, today’s media session involved Glen Gulutzan calling himself “a big Swiftie.” I have no follow up to the music side of that, but it did lead into a nice digression about Gulutzan’s daughter, who also lives in Texas.
As for Saturday’s hockey lineup, Gulutzan is prioritizing having more options, if he can get them.
“We’re just gonna go over the roster now with Jim [Nill],” Gulutzan said on Friday. “We’ll go see who’s gonna play. We have a really good idea. We actually have two rosters that we’re kinda looking at. One gives me a little bit more flexibility to move guys around, you know, with different combinations. With ‘Benny’ being out, that’s kind of what we’re doing here a little bit, is to try to move guys around.”
The Stars are scheduled to have an off day on Sunday, and NHL rosters get finalized on Monday. We’ll probably see at least one or two players put on waivers to be sent down to Texas before then, but it’s not entirely certain which ones those will be.
So for the players still fighting for a roster spot, time has just about run out to make an impression on the coaching staff. Glen Gulutzan said as much today.
“I’ll be totally honest with you,” Gulutzan said. “You get to this last preseason game […] We’ve got young players. We’ve got decisions to make. We’ve got young players now that are trying to take a bite into our roster and stay here. So you wanna see, from them, you wanna see all the systems come together seamlessly.”
Gulutzan went on to say that the other big thing you want out of the preseason is just to “get through clean,” which is to say without any injuries. And given all the injuries we’ve seen around the league (including the collapsed lung suffered by Jamie Benn), that really ought to be a priority for everyone right now.
One other priority Gulutzan mentioned today stuck out to me: He wants to have everyone playing regularly, including the 13th forwards and 7th or 8th defensemen.
“With this schedule, I’ve kind of already made up my mind that I’m not going to let guys rot on the vine,” Gulutzan said. “I want to make sure that they’re getting in their games up here.”
This would be a notable contrast to Pete DeBoer’s approach last year, which sometimes saw players like Colin Blackwell or Brendan Smith sitting for long stretches at a time in the regular season.
DeBoer’s methodology was explicitly geared toward winning every game by putting his best lineup out for each night. And over time, it became clear that DeBoer’s ideal lineup didn’t change much from game to game, unless injuries or illness dictated adjustments.
But Gulutzan sounds like he’s preaching a different approach.
“Whatever D finds himself on the seventh or eighth hole, or whatever it is, I won’t let guys rot on the vine,” Gulutzan said. “I think guys need to play. And the schedule’s gonna dictate that, night in and night out. It’s just too heavy.”
Again, it’s worth pointing out that DeBoer also preached rotating guys in regularly last year. But when players fell out of favor for reasons either clear or unclear, they often wouldn’t get back into the lineup for a good bit of time.
Of course, the other side of making sure those other players get into games is the part where that necessitates someone else coming out for them. And Gulutzan admitted that conversations about guys being scratched, even for one game, are never easy ones to have, regardless of why the moves are being made.
“They’re harder for a coach than people think,” Gulutzais said. “However, you have to make all your decisions based on one thing. And if you have that one thing in mind, then it’s easier to make the decisions. And it’s winning. If you think this helps you win, then you make the decision.”
As with all coaching decisions, we’ll see how this one works itself out as the season goes on. Promises in training camp don’t always survive the rigor of a season and a battle for a playoff spot in a brutal Central Division. But at least in theory, Gulutzan’s approach right now sounds like a clear philosophical shift.
Rantanen and Johnston Won’t Be Limited to a Single Role
As for the players on the ice, here are the combinations the Stars practiced with on Friday in Frisco:
Steel-Hintz-Rantanen
Hryckowian-Duchene-Seguin
Robertson-Johnston-Bourque
Blackwell-Faksa-Hyry
Erne-Bäck-Bastian
Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Petrovic
Kolyachonok-Lyubushkin
I’m going to refrain from dissecting practice lines too much until we see what actually gets used in live competition, but it’s worth pointing out that Steel did spend the third period in St. Louis on that top line the other night, while Robertson likewise played the final frame next to Johnston and Bourque. No harm in keeping people on their toes in an exhibition game or two, I suppose. And the fact that we saw them again today suggests they’re something the coaches are at least considering, I think it’s fair to say.
Speaking of options under consideration, Gulutzan said today that he sees Wyatt Johnston’s ability to play on the wing as well as center as “flexibility,” more than a mutually exclusive deployment as “either” one position or the other.
“If you ever want to ‘load up’ a line,” Gulutzan said, “which, you know, there’s a history of that for me, it gives me an option to move [Johnston]. Again, I’ll say it: I like guys on their off-wings, especially hockey sense guys like that.”
Gulutzan was careful to point out that if a game were going as planned, with the Stars in the lead comfortably, the act of “loading up” a line would be less likely. But if his team was trailing and needed to score, he would have no problem doing a Dallas version of what Edmonton often did in putting Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid together in order to shorten the bench and generate extra offense.
“If you’re ever chasing or something, you want options,” Gulutzan said.
In that way, at least, it sounds like Wyatt Johnston could be occasionally deployed very similarly to how he was used in years past under DeBoer, when Johnston would play wing up on the top line with Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson. Though with Mikko Rantanen now in Dallas, that “loading up” will mean Johnston is more likely to play left wing in those situations, when they happen.
The other deployment question Gulutzan answered on Friday was with regard to the same Rantanen’s playing on both units of the power play. And that also was a pretty straightforward answer from the new head coach: Rantanen will sometimes stay out for the full two minutes of a power play, but whether or now he does depends on how the first minute goes.
“The other part of that is just where you are in the power play, right?” Gulutzan said. “If [Rantanen] had to go up and back two or three times to get it, or you’re tired. You’re watching it, he’s coming off, probably, right? But if we’ve had them hemmed in there for a minute, and he’s sat in the spot he likes to sit in, and he’s had a couple good looks and hasn’t burned up a lot of jet fuel? Then we’re gonna keep him out there.”
Indeed, why wouldn’t keep one of the top scorers in the NHL out for more power play time, given the option? And from what Gulutzan has said, options are what it’s all about, this year.
“It’s like two units, but it’s almost two-and-a-half units,” Gulutzan continued. “In that the ability to move ‘Harls’ and Heiskanen to each unit would give us some other units. So all that stuff’s being played with.”
New Goalie Masks for Oettinger and DeSmith
Casey DeSmith has been sporting a new mask throughout training camp this year, in case you haven’t seen it yet:
(Who among us didn’t go through a dinosaur phase at one point or another, right?)
As for Jake Oettinger, today was the first time we saw him wearing his new green mask, and Sam Nestler managed to snap a close-up of the new headpiece, which features the number 29 on the chin, and a much more intimidating creation above that:
The other side of Oettinger’s new mask features the Stars logo below a bit of the Dallas city skyline, if you can see it in my far-away photo:
In talking with Oettinger about the mask today, he said the concept was done by “the equipment guys,” which includes Dennis Soetaert and Nick Lazor, along with assistants Andrew Stegehuis and Trevor Heinzerling. Oettinger even said he went so far as to avoid seeing any of the design elements until the mask itself actually arrived from longtime mask designer David Gunnarrson.
This isn’t the first time Oettinger has relied on the Stars’ equipment staff to design one of his masks, either.
Given the job the group did on his last one, they’ve clearly earned the trust the Stars’ franchise goaltender has put in them.
One notably absent element of this mask is that, unlike some of his gear in past years, this one does not feature any of Oettinger’s teammates. (And given how many of those depicted teammates ended up being traded, perhaps that’s just as well.)
My personal favorite element of the new mask is how the muscle-bound Otterzilla(?) is grabbing “The Ball” that sits atop Reunion Tower, as one of the aforementioned designers confirmed it to be today.
If I were to guess, I’d expect that you will see the new mask paired up with the team’s home green sweaters this year.
Final Friday Fun Fact: Ilya Lyubushkin, Number 46
Ilya Lyubushkin confirmed today that he was looking to pass when he wound up scoring against St. Louis with a puck that bounced off a Blues’ skate and into the net.
“I was going for Dutchy’s stick,” the defenseman said after practice on Friday.
I mean, they can’t all be breakaways, right?
However, that isn’t the fun fact. The real fun fact for today is the answer to the question, Why does Ilya Lyubushkin wear number 46?
Well, it turns out that’s pretty easy: His birthday is on…April 6.
Lyubushkin’s first goal was so funny, I remember having so many missed opportunities up to that point in the game then he made it look so natural on the breakaway