Game 15 AfterThoughts: Digging Deep and Finding Out

Sometimes a comeback gets fueled by the supporting cast

Mavrik Bourque spent the better part of 10 games playing next to scorers like Wyatt Johnston and Jason Robertson. But coming into Nashville, Bourque had just one assist and no goals in his last ten games. And with Roope Hintz returning to the lineup, that resulted in Bourque’s being moved down to the third line, with Justin Hryckowian and Oskar Bäck.

Apparently, that was the magic formula, as Bourque opened the scoring with a goal, then set up a huge third-period tally for Hryckowian with an outstanding bit of forechecking. That was pretty much the story of this game, too. Or at least, it ended up becoming the story, as the Stars managed to come out with yet another one-goal win in a seesaw affair on a Nashville afternoon.

Third-period goals by Justin Hryckowian, Sam Steel, and Adam Erne led the Stars to victory when frustration was looming. None of Wyatt Johnston, Jason Robertson, or Mikko Rantanen scored a goal. This game wasn’t ideal in more than a few ways, but so much of the randomness that is the NHL requires good teams to show they can rise above the turmoil and come out with points. And the Stars, for the eighth time in nine games, got points out of a game. Two of them, in fact!

The team is 8-4-3, which is a very good record. The fact that seven of those eight wins have come by just a single goal is perhaps less “very good,” but the hockey season tends to have a ton of ebbs and flows. If you can squeeze more results out of the good times, you can weather the bad with far more confidence, and ride into the postseason ready to face whatever it holds.

Roope Hintz was dangerous all night, and that’s a sight for sore eyes, isn’t it? But otherwise, the top guys were a little quieter than they’ve been, including Wyatt Johnston’s costly (and uncharacteristic) moment in the second period (which we’ll get to). And Mikko Rantanen scored just a single point in this one, which is practically a slump for him right now.

The hard Nashville forecheck really started giving Dallas problems in the second period, and I’m wondering if that’s a bit of the book on Dallas right now—counter their more deliberate breakouts with harder forechecking pressure along the walls, the way Florida was doing. And in fairness, that sort of pressure when executed well has a pretty demoralizing effect on the other team.

But the Stars have a Plan B and a Plan C, and they ended up needing a whole lot of alternatives (and alternates) to get this one done tonight. It’s a day game, and those are always weird, so any time you come out on top of the weird ones, it feels a bit like found money.

Tough sledding for Nashville these days, though. Hoo boy. The Stars caught Nashville on a change early, and man, when a team is struggling as badly as the Preds right now, those forced line changes always seem to burn you, don’t they?

It was a nice job by Bourque to keep his stick in the right spot for the shot, and perhaps a nicer job by Heiskanen to feed the puck just right to prevent Annunen from cutting off the pass.

But if you go back a bit further, you see that this all came from the Predators’ flipping a puck out to neutral because the third line’s forecheck had hemmed them in for a while—hence the space Heiskanen had to walk in on the far side after the Stars collected the flip. Check this out:

The Stars and early leads haven’t exactly been best friends this year, but you’d still rather score the first one than not, right?

(…right?)

Well, apparently the Stars decided they couldn’t risk taking a lead into the second period, given what happened against Anaheim. So they cleverly conceded a goal off a won face-off by Nashville, which saw a puck find its way through no fewer than four players at the near post.

The lesson here: don’t lose faceoffs, I guess? Feels like a “shrug it off” one, to me, and Gulutzan more or less said the same thing after the game. You can’t get too annoyed by shots from the point that find a way through decent coverage. Of the options you can give other teams, that’s not among the most dangerous.

Anyway, the Stars’ grand plan to avoid intermission leads was proven a smart one when Roope Hintz executed a nice split of the defense that echoed the Jussi Jokinen Finnish Cut play from power plays of yore. 2-1, Stars .

Rantanen put Hintz in a post-goal headlock similar to his celebration with Mavrik Bourque a few games ago, and you can’t help but think Rantanen feels like everyone’s big brother on this squad at times. (Maybe all the time.)

Dallas nearly went up 3-0 shortly after that, in circuitous fashion.

First, a Filip Forsberg interference penalty gave Dallas their fourth straight power play of the game. But you knew that the smallest infraction would likely result in a call the other way, and a Johnston tripping call off a faceoff proved that point.

However, the resulting 4-on-4 set immediately gave Dallas a Grade A scoring chance, when Heiskanen found Seguin the guts of the slot for a shot that Tyler Seguin beat the goaltender with, only to hit the crossbar.

This area of the ice was far too open in Nashville’s end for much of the game, and Dallas probably ought to have gotten more goals out of it, if we’re being honest. (Jason Robertson is nodding vigorously right now, one suspects.) This one here looked like a 3-1 lead for certain, but that *ping* off the crossbar was a harbinger of second-period doom for Dallas, as the Predators immediately got two goals back.

Nic Hague scored another point shot past a screen (which looks like it may have deflected off Robertson’s stick on its way), and that tying goal came just a bit too easily for a team that seemed to be on the ropes.

But hey, you can live with those. If that’s the best chance you’re giving up, you’re probably doing a lot of things all right. Fine.

Then a big mistake from the Stars led to a chance that a team should never allow:

Sure, just before the goal, Harley has a puck get by his backhand along the boards. That’s not a perfect play or anything, but there’s no way it should have resulted in Forsberg’s getting a wide-open one-timer from the hashmarks.

If you watch #53 in white on that play, you’ll see Wyatt Johnston break his stick on a blocked shot and go to the bench for a new one. And that is a long way he goes to get a new stick, as he winds up beneath the far blue line as Forsberg takes his shot.

This is just a guess, but I wonder if Johnston (who does a shoulder check before fully leaving the zone) either thinks his two teammates in the corner are going to get to the puck in time to clear it when he leaves, or else he forgot he had the long change until he got to the blue line, after which he was already committed. Who knows?

(Or the third option, I suppose, is that he shouted for the Stars to run their Secret Super Breakaway Plan as he was leaving the zone. They didn’t run that play.)

Either way, you just cannot abandon your post as a center in that situation, for that long. The remaining skaters clearly weren’t expecting to have to cover for the absence, because nobody did. Nashville grabbed the lead, and it hurt.

Justin Hryckowian got the Stars back to level after an exceptional shift from Mavrik Bourque (again) and Oskar Bäck, who fed Hryckowian at the net front after a hard forecheck turned over the puck. And despite Annunen’s making the initial save, the Stars rookie stuck with it to finish the job.

However, the Predators were always going to get a power play or two with the 5-1 disparity coming into the third period, and Lian Bichsel’s hit to the numbers of Tyson Jost was sufficient grounds for making up that gap.

And no one exploits even the tiniest gap like Steven Stamkos on the one-timer:

Oettinger was sliding over, and he tries not to over-slide here, lest he open up the far side. But Stamkos’s shot sneaked just inside the near post, and that’s one a goalie is always gonna say they don’t enjoy giving up, even if a Stamkos slapper is among the more forgivable sorts to let by you.

Then—and I don’t know any other way to say this—Colin Blackwell happened.

Aside from the nice shot from Erne to elevate the puck past Annunen, the crazy thing about this shift was how Blackwell generated a great scoring chance for himself just a dozen seconds earlier, when he did a beautiful bit of stickhandling to get to the slot and fire a puck that Annunen had to stop. But on the goal, Adam Erne gets to the right spot, and Blackwell got the puck to him with a slick bit of playmaking. That’s a very big goal from your fourth line (as they always seem to be).

(Don’t overlook the keep-in by Petrovic on that play, either.)

Then the game really kicked into gear, as Roope Hintz came in and generated a chance himself, only to try a pass that didn’t quite connect rather than firing it. So then Wyatt Johnston decided to one-up Hintz by showing how to properly execute the “Pass When They Yell Shoot” play, as he set up Sam Steel with a gorgeous pass (after some great work by Rantanen to send him in to begin with) for a big goal to regain the lead they would end up holding.

Seriously, that one little stickhandle by Rantanen at the blue line to delay and open up the lane to Johnston is casual, but oh-so-critical. Great players tend to find great players, I hear.

ESotG

Lineups

Dallas trotted out this group:

Steel-Johnston-Rantanen
Robertson-Hintz-Seguin
Bäck-Hryckowian-Bourque
Erne-Faksa-Blackwell

Lindell - Heiskanen
Harley - Lyubushkin
Bichsel - Petrovic

Oettinger

---

Nashville went with this:

Forsberg-O’Reilly-Evangelista
Stamkos-Haula-Marchessault
Bunting-Svechkov-Wood
Jost-McCarron-Wiesblatt

Skjei-Perbix
Hague-Blankenburg
Stastney-Barron

Annunen in goal

AfterThoughts

• Brent Severyn is filling in for Daryl “Razor” Reaugh as the color analyst this weekend while the latter is at NHL Hall of Fame festivities in Toronto this weekend.

  • Bob Sturm, consequently, filled in for Severyn on Stars Aligned with Brien Rea. That’s a pretty deep bench of Talking About The Stars Talent, I’d say.

• Brady Skjei’s trip on Sam Steel gave the Stars an early power play, and Jason Robertson immediately got a good chance with a shot coming downhill. But the 1-goal-in-14-games drought continued for Robertson, and the frustration was evident. You really do feel like he’s just one game away from a big run.

• The second power play (drawn after a nice feed from Rantanen to Johnston in flight) gave Dallas a chance to go up 2-0 in the first, but the Nashville penalty kill bowed up a bit. Given how hot Dallas’s power play has been, going 0-for-2 felt like a bona fide dry spell.

• Radek Faksa tempted fate a bit with his hop in between Annunen and the net, but hey, what’s the worst that could happen—he pushes the net off?

• Mikko Rantanen nearly scored a beautiful goal, as I think the Stars were smelling some defensive haplessness from the Perds early on. So subtly excellent, this.

• A scary moment came late in the first, when Seguin tried to hold onto a puck and deke Annunen, only to appear to get a stick on his hands before tripping into the boards. Thankfully, Seguin hopped right back up albeit with a look of some consternation on his face.

• Speaking of consternation, how about the ice gremlins just inside the Nashville blue line? Always fun to see hockey players meeting up for a fun time.

• Roope Hintz nearly scored a second goal off the rush, when Seguin fed him a slick backhand to send him in at the blue line. But Hintz tried the blocker on that time, and Annunen was able to find it. I suppose you have to keep ‘em guessing.

• Jake Oettinger had to make a really nice save with about 7:30 remaining in the second period, but my oh my, Petrovic’s attempt to clear the rebound nearly went awry, as the puck slid just wide of the post in the aftermath.

• The Stars got a late power play in the second, and chances flowed pretty constantly, with Robertson and Johnston both testing Annunen point-blank, but with no result. Day games, man.

• Ozzy Wiesblatt nearly cleaned out Roope Hintz at the blue line, and Justin Hryckowian jumped in to file an objection after the whistle. He very much does like to stick up for his teammates.

• Despite the Stars’ penalty kill not looking like itself early this season, the two kills they did make in the third period were game-savers. Timing is everything, I have always been told.

• Speaking of timing, Esa Lindell didn’t have to worry about it late in the game, as he just stayed out for every bit of the final five minutes. Officially, he played the last 5:22, though a TV timeout and a Nashville timeout (along with another couple of whistles) probably helped him not to get worn down to a complete nub. But nonetheless, Esa Lindell is just something else. He might be everything else.

  

  The giant green bar is the omnipresent Esa Lindell.

• Finally, I think the Stars in general deserve credit for largely defending well in their zone. Oettinger didn’t have to face nearly as many interior chances as Annunen did, and that’s kind of the idea behind defending.