Game 1 WCF AfterThoughts: Swing and a Miss (or Four)

Not much to say, so no lyrics to say it with

***

There’s something really unsettling about seeing former Stars’ coach Glen Gulutzan pumping his fists in celebration on the visitors’ bench after a double overtime playoff victory.

There’s something even more unsettling about Jamie Benn being tangled up with Wyatt Johnston, leading to a 4-on-3 situation for the Oilers that ended things abruptly. Is this some sort of grand symbol of the Stars’ need to extricate themselves from their past in order to chart a new course for the future? Or, put another way, are they even going to win a Game 1 of a series again?

These are the questions you ask after a frustrating loss. Or at least, I think it’s a frustrating loss? I don’t really know how to feel about this one, given how many chances the Stars squandered, on the power play and otherwise.

On the positive side of the ledger, you have Tyler Seguin continuing to step up when needed, particularly with a really late goal to force overtime. Then you have Jake Oettinger, who made some incredible stops, but none more absurd than this:

OETTINGER JUST ROBBED MCDAVID IN OVERTIME pic.twitter.com/40GtbiBf3s

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) May 24, 2024

By the way, if that save looks familiar, it’s because Jake Oettinger basically foreshadowed it in the last game of the season:

So, yeah. With a massive save like that, Jake Oettinger absolutely gave his team every opportunity they could have asked for to win the game.

Of course, it’s the first game of a playoff series, so that means even absurd plays like that won’t matter. Dallas is dedicated to the proposition that all series must start with overcoming a deficit, and well, who’s gonna argue with them at this point? The proof is in the pudding, or whatever players eat before a second overtime.

Look, the Stars had some bad breaks in this one, but they also had some good ones. As much as I’m still taking them over Edmonton for this series, you got to see firsthand how the Oilers are planning to make this series a tough one. Dallas actually got outplayed at 5v5, and yet they still got 10 minutes of power play time to Edmonton’s two. That’s your way to steal a herky-jerky game on home ice without apologizing, and yet the Oilers’ less-vaunted side of special teams ended up being the difference.

Yep, you heard it here first: I am saying Mattias Janmark led the Oilers to victory. Shame on all of us for doubting him.

If you’re looking for negatives, you can criticize Oettinger for what I think was a premature poke-check flinch to open up the five hole on the second Oilers’ goal. But then again, Esa Lindell missed a glorious chance right before that one off a Benn feed from below the goal line. This game was, from front to back, more about Dallas’s refusal to take what was given them than their failure to prevent Edmonton’s eventual success.

But then again, Tyler Seguin did take what was offered on the Stars’ first goal, albeit only after Jamie Benn nearly muffed his own chance after the giveaway by Brett Kulak. But once Seguin finally hammered that one home, you could feel the door cracking back open after Dallas had allowed it to close.

And when Jason Robertson forced his way to the center of the ice–he does that now, in case you haven’t heard–and fired a shot that richocheted to Seguin for an easy dunk to tie things up, you all believed again. You foolish, forgetful people. Do you need to wander another 25 years in the Cup Desert before you’re learn how this works? It’s Game 1. Stop hoping! Resign yourself to a weird series, not an easy series. The victory laps only come after you climb the stairs.

Robertson would’ve rivaled Seguin for the number one star of the game if he’d managed to defeat the post on the Stars’ four-minute gift to start overtime, and man, that really was the Stars’ best power play of the night, wasn’t it? Everything was waiting right there for Dallas. Edmonton could’ve griped about the penalty differential (not that there was much to gripe about, from what I saw), but it’s all about tapping those game pucks into the weird cardboard cutout in the locker room, and it doesn’t matter how you get there once you tap it in. Win this one, and you’ve earned it, even if you don’t feel like you’ve earned it, per se.

Instead, Dallas has something that feels much more earned: a stupid loss, and more lost sleep for us working stiffs. Aw, dang.

***

As much as you got tired of reading (or listening to) a million series previews that talked about McDavid, Draisaitl, and Zach Hyman, who’s laughing now? The Oilers scored three goals, and each of their big boys potted one. Sometimes, the narrative is just a description, not an interpretation. The Oilers’ best players had to be their best players, and they were. That was enough, eventually.

Dallas, however, had to find goals from whatever smoothie they got served from the line blender. And again, credit to Peter DeBoer, because that Dadonov-Seguin-Robertson line was humming, with Dadonov once again missing a wide-open breakaway, presumably because he has a punch card or something, and he’s nearly earned a free Subway sandwich. It’s such a roller coaster with a player like Dadonov, who is extremely valuable and brilliant while also being just that little bit exasperating. But then again, earning chances and missing them is better than never earning them at all, right? *holds finger to earpiece* Ah, I’m being told Mason Marchment disagrees vehemently with this stance.

I don’t want to dissect too much tonight, because it’s midnight and we’re all bummed out. You might be annoyed that Wyatt Johnston wasn’t able to be present for the game-losing goal (a new phrase I just coined, don’t research that), but he really wasn’t the reason for the goal.

The problem, I believe, is this:

And then Bouchard collects the puck on the half wall, and this is what he sees as he rips a pass to the back door:

Many a hockey coach will scream at defensemen for following players behind the net from time to time, but every last one of them will be annoyed at both defensemen doing so while leaving the netfront wide open for Connor Literally McDavid. Not that we’re here to bury Tanev or Lindell for a weird play where Jamie Benn was a split second from blocking Bouchard’s pass, but man, that one stinks.

But it also feels about right. You simply cannot squander a game in which you claw back to force overtime, then immediately get a double-minor power play with the chance to send McDavid into conniptions in the penalty box as Pantera fills the AAC. You can’t not convert on that chance, right? Right. Glad we’re all agreed.

So the good news here is, Dallas could’ve won a game they probably didn’t deserve to. This wasn’t Edmonton imposing their will on them like Vegas, strangling whatever meager efforts the Stars could manage. True, the third period was looking grim until the Seguin goal, with the Stars only managing three or so shots before their final push, but this feels like a series that Dallas can absolutely win, even after suffering their second overtime loss in as many opening contests. Miles Wood and Connor McDavid are both welcome to have a trophy commemorating this accomplishment while the Stars are playing in the next round.

That’s what an arrogant person would say, at least. But again, Glen Gulutzan appears to have done something good against Dallas, and that doesn’t feel right at all. He’s a great guy, absolutely, but that era of the Stars should not hold any sway, in any way, over this behemoth of a team. If depth is your greatest strength, then wouldn’t a prolonged overtime be the exact scenario you’d look for to see it show out? But nope; instead, Dallas got goals from one player making almost $10 million, and nobody else. Dallas somehow out-Oilered the Oilers, and it did not turn out to be good thing! (Oilering never is.)

I’m more annoyed than worried after that game, if that doesn’t seem too deluded a thought to offer. Yes, Dallas needs more from a variety of places on the roster, but they’ve always gotten that extra bit when they’ve needed it, and I don’t see anything in this Oilers team that should prevent Dallas from coming right back at them in Game 2. Tweak the power play entries a bit, and do that passing play that makes Stuart Skinner roll around like a spastic armadillo, except also shoot the puck this time. That is my advice, and it is free, like everything on this site. What a deal! You get what you pay for, unless you bought a ticket to this game, in which you also got what you paid for, so long as you paid for pain with a side of suffering. Some days you win, and some days you get your soul pureed and served to you in a melancholy milkshake.