Game 10 AfterThoughts: Third Time Lucky

Three posts, but also three wins in a row

Around five games ago, Glen Gulutzan acknowledged that the Stars were having trouble holding leads.

After nearly blowing a 5-1 lead in their opening game of the season, Dallas proceeded to lose multiple leads against Colorado in a seesaw affair that the Avalachne came back to send to overtime. Minnesota likewise turned a 3-0 lead into a 3-2 one in the third period.

That bill finally came due against Vancouver, when the Stars led a 2-0 slip away completely with four straight Canucks goals in the second period. Gulutzan pointed to how the Stars were taking unnecessary risks while holding the lead rather than forcing the trailing team to do the risking, and it was letting teams back into games the Stars ought to have been riding out with more control.

That’s why tonight’s 1-0 win might well be the most impressive one of the season, when you consider the full context. Not only did the Stars hold a lead, but they held the very smallest lead you can possibly have, and they did it for 39 minutes.

Oh, and they did so while playing an 11 forwards/7 defenseman lineup that was borne out of necessity, thanks to the numerous injuries they’ve accumulated just 10 games into a long season.

Yes, Jake Oettinger was very good in this one, even with three posts hit behind him. His positioning and work to track pucks was effective, particularly in a second period where the Stars stopped putting pucks on net at the other end for the final 16 minutes of the middle frame. And especially when Tom Wilson, of all people, was left on his lap to hammer away at a puck. It wasn’t the cleanest game in the world, and Oettinger didn’t have to be quite as heroic as he was against Colorado, for example. But that’s a good thing in a broader sense, because it means these Stars have started kicking some of the habits they developed early in the season, when mistakes were undoing other bits of good work with alarming regularity.

“You know, for me, it’s the way we’re gonna have to win right now until we get some more bodies back. And then, it’s still the way you have to win,” Gulutzan said.

The coach further praised the Stars’ defense for clearing pucks away and largely preventing second chances from being sent on Oettinger—a feat made more impressive by the large bodies Washington puts in front of the net, particularly on the power play.

But the Stars’ penalty kill finally looked like its old self, and that’s as encouraging a sign as any for this depleted squad. Dallas got a fortunate bounce on Tyler Seguin’s goal—one almost identical to Heiskanen’s first goal from the other night—but given some of the misfortune they’d endure this season, you can bet any and all of your sweet bippies that they will happily take such a bounce.

In fact, they not only took it; they held it, for 39 minutes. Imagine being the Capitals during that time, just repeatedly seeing your entries get sabotaged, your O-zone possession ending (usually), and the Stars probing down the ice when you start to get too loose with the puck in the neutral zone. It had to be frustrating, but one suspects that opposing teams feed off that frustration.

Any really, today wasn’t about frustration, but about satisfactio. And Gulutzan allowed himself the tiniest bit of consolation after this one that maybe, just maybe, these wins are a sign of some good things under the hood, as well as over the scoreboard.

“Days like today cement some belief that the system is taking hold,” Gulutzan said. “If you just look at us today, I mentioned keeping our D around our net, and it certainly helped us against that team, eliminating their second chances, and their rebounds, which they’re good at. It just reinforces what we’re doing in here, especially when you can beat a top team like this and hold that lead.”

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The first period proved to be a good indicator of what sort of a game this would be, with neither team really mounting a sustained attack that broke down the other group’s defenses.

So after Seguin’s power play goal in the second period (after a power play drawn by Radek Faksa, who drew two in the game), you might have expected a sleepy contest with an empty-netter at the end.

But it wasn’t entirely uneventful. Oettinger’s blocker save on Protas in the slot halfway through second period was huge, coming at the end of a sequence that began with an Alex Petrovic turnover in the defensive zone. This was a game where very good goaltending made chances seem less dangerous post facto, and that’s a compliment indeed.

Hendrix Lapierre did hit the crossbar behind Oettinger’s blocker later in the same period, and the most wide-open the game got was probably on a Stars rush chance in the same second period that saw Rantanen fire the puck high and wide, leading to a rush the other way that ended with a diving block by Sam Steel to subvert a 3-on-2 by Washington.

The third period reverted to some more cagey, boring hockey, with Dallas sheltering in place a bit, but not giving up too many premium chances. But Mikko Rantanen drew a fourth penalty on Washington five minutes into the final frame, when he got tripped along the wall, giving Dallas a chance to tack on an insurance goal. But the opposite nearly proved true, as some tentative play in their own zone led to the best chance of all: a Protas rush that ended with a puck fired over Oettinger’s glove hand and off the iron once again.

It was a reminder that even in a game that Dallas was finally managing to, uh, manage, Washington is a good enough team to punish mistakes. Thankfully, however, NHL goals still have posts on either end, and said posts came to Oettinger’s aid a third time just a few minutes later, when a Pierre-Luc Dubois one-timer on a feed from behind the net clanked the far bar and out.

Dallas was starting to take on a bit more water as the game ticked away, and that led to a Bichsel interference penalty with 5:04 to play in the third. Alex Ovechkin then got the puck on his stick, and it stayed there for more than millisecond, which allowed him to feed Tom Wilson on the doorstep, all alone. But Oettinger became the latest Stars player to frustrate Wilson, as he squeezed the pads to halt play despite Wilson’s multiple attempts to shove the puck through, and that would be the last dangerous chance of the power play.

So despite some pressure down the stretch, Dallas’s 6-on-5 defense was plenty good enough to get the job done, with Mavrik Bourque even sliding a puck off the post of the empty net (perhaps as a nod from the Fates that the posts work in both directions?) in a moment that looked for all the world like it was going to seal the game, only for it to, uh, not do that.

“Seems we can’t get those [empty net goals],” Gulutzan said with a wry smile after the game. “‘Bourquey’s gonna have a sleepless night. But at the end of the day, and I hate to keep saying it, but there’s so much parity in the league. So it’s going to be tight, and you gotta get on the right side of the tight ones. And tonight we were.”

Empty-netters or no, it was not only three straight victories for Dallas, but also three straight one-goal victories. If you’re winning games in regulation, then you are by definition, holding a lead.

And it’s good to see Dallas finally doing that again.

ESotG

Lineups

The Stars began with a different sort of lineup in this one, rolling an 11F/7D look:

Steel-Seguin-Rantanen
Robertson-Johnston-Bourque
Erne-Hryckowian-Blackwell
Faksa-Bastian

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lyubushkin
Bichsel-Petrovic

Oettinger in goal

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The Capitals began with this group:

Protas-Dubois-Wilson
Ovechkin-McMichael-Leonard
Beauvillier-Lapierre-Frank
Duhaime-Dowd-Sourdif

Fehervary-Carlson
Chychrun-Roy
van Riemsdyk-Chisholm

Thompson

AfterThoughts

• The (arguably) biggest news of the day for the franchise was that Thomas Harley has reportedly agreed to an eight-year extension with Dallas at $10.5872 million per season.

  

  Once Evan Bouchard signed for $10.5 million (AAV) in Edmonton, double digits always seemed inevitable for Harley. And all things considered, this is probably about as good a deal as Dallas was likely to get. Locking down a 24-year-old, top-pairing defenseman with Team Canada credentials for eight more years is pretty much a win every time. And, you know, I hear that the salary cap is going up.

  • As for what this means for Jason Robertson (who also needs a new contract after this season), the answer is probably that, as ever, it depends on what Robertson wants. The Stars still have some room next year even with Harley’s bigger number on the books, to the tune of something like $17 million. But some back-of-the-envelope math suggests that going over $12 million per season for Robertson makes life a tight squeeze indeed for Dallas, who will have to re-sign Mavrik Bourque and re-sign or replace Alex Petrovic and Nils Lundkvist, in addition to whatever performance bonuses of Jamie Benn’s roll over to next season. But tomorrow has enough trouble of its own to worry about, I suppose.

• In addition to the piece from earlier on Tuesday about the Mavericks suing the Stars (fun stuff), the Dallas Morning News also reported later in the afternoon that the Stars may have big plans (potentially) for an arena in Plano at the Willow Bend Mall site. My personal favorite quote from that piece is this one, which you can take or leave:

  

  From The Dallas Morning News

• Colin Blackwell was sent into the boards head-first by Tom Wilson halfway into the first period. Wilson wasn’t penalized, but you could tell Blackwell wasn’t expecting to get finished as hard as he was in that position. Blackwell stayed on the bench after being helped off the ice, but it was not a pleasant sight for the Stars. However, Blackwell didn’t miss a shift, hopping right back out to successfully kill a penalty shortly afterward.

• Wilson finally did take a penalty later in the first, interfering with Heiskanen in the Stars’ zone (and pretty obviously so). And the Capitals took a second offensive-zone penalty a few minutes later, when Aliaksei Protas took a hooking minor against Faksa along the boards. But the Stars couldn’t beat Thompson on either try despite some good looks.

• Wilson took yet another penalty to open the second period after the fourth line generated good pressure, including a great takeaway down low. Wilson made some mocking gestures on his way to the box, perhaps suggesting that he thought Radek Faksa went down too easily. But the mockery didn’t help (as it usually doesn’t), because Martin Fehevary would tip a Seguin pass into his own net in a play eerily reminiscent of the first Heiskanen goal from the other night. 1-0, Dallas.

• Sam Steel took a penalty of his own, but despite a single Ovechkin shot attempt, the Stars once again killed it with efficiency, taking a solid special teams victory into the middle of the game. That was a big moment, as Washington could have negated momentum shortly after the opening goal, but didn’t. Also, all penalty kills are big moments. But you know what we mean.

• Jason Robertson had a breathtaking moment in the final minute of the second period where he dove to glove a puck down and keep the zone, after which he played the puck from his knees to keep the pressure on. The play ended with a Heiskanen point shot that sailed wide just as the buzzer went for the end of the period, but it was a nice bit of skill to create a chance to begin with, despite the lack of a finishing touch.

• Nic Dowd nearly covered a puck in the crease in the third period after a puck rolled tantalizingly close to the goal line behind Thompson, leading to a scramble. But to Dowd’s credit, he managed to bat the puck away rather than covering it, avoiding the automatic penalty shot. Nice work to avoid a major boo-boo.

• Ovechkin nearly got to 900 goals with a deft deflection ten minutes into the third period, but Oettinger’s right pad was there to deny him. One suspects the Stars may have decided upon absolutely, positively not allowing that milestone to happen before the game, but Esa Lindell wasn’t giving anything away after the game. But he knows that you know that they knew.

• Mikko Rantanen’s reversal on Ethen Frank sent the Capitals forward down the tunnel. As you can see on the replay, Rantanen slightly reversed into Frank, but this was pretty much just the result of a 5-foot-11 guy skating into someone whose nickname is very unironically Moose. Here’s hoping Frank is okay.

• Emil Hemming was sent back to Barrie of the OHL by Dallas after starting the year in AHL Texas, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. My sense is that Hemming will get plenty of ice time back with his junior team, and that should set him up to show his stuff for the remainder of the season before getting another crack at AHL competition in the future, whether next season or otherwise. My belief is that the Stars always had one eye on this plan, and there was no reason to get locked into keeping him in Texas if more time in juniors could benefit him. Now that he knows what it’s like to play professional hockey, that goal is more tangible than ever. Because even Thomas Harley will tell you that development doesn’t always have to be completely linear.