Game 17 AfterThoughts: A Win Nine Years in the Making

Some comebacks mean a little bit more

If you want to know how this game started for Dallas, I think this tweet pretty much says it all:

When one team has their best first period of the year, it usually means the other team did not. But what else is new for the Stars, who seem to eschew any sort of conventional wisdom about how to win games? If you’re going to break a nine-year drought in Ottawa, you might as well try to do it dramatically, I suppose. And for this team, going down 2-0 is starting to feel less like drama than routine preamble.

“They came out with a lot of jump,” Glen Gulutzan said of Ottawa after the game. “They hemmed us in the forecheck. I didn’t think we were quite ready with our legs and our play, for the pace. But once we got up and running, I thought we did a good job in the second half.”

And with superstars like Mikko Rantanen, the early deficits fade into the recesses of memory a whole lot faster. Because after falling behind 2-0 for what feels like the 20th time in 17 games (gonna check the math on that), the Stars pulled off yet another comeback win in the unlikeliest of locations, for them. But as you would expect, Rantanen was a huge part of things. And after his goal, everything started to fall into place.

But the Stars would probably prefer not to have to dig out of holes to begin with.

“We talked, and one of the keys to our game was, they dump the puck at the second-highest rate in the league behind Florida,” Gulutzan said. “So we knew that they come with this heavy forecheck, and we just didn’t handle it well in the beginning. We were losing battles, losing wall battles, and not breaking out clean.”

The heavy pressure by Ottawa was making a lot of Stars breakouts feel like a penalty kill, with more than a couple nice keeps by Ottawa prolonging a tough shift for Dallas. But credit to Jake Oettinger and company, because the Stars didn’t let the lead get past 2-0, and that allowed them to turn the tide with the game still in reach.

“They had the momentum. Once we kind of got it stabilized, got our puck play and our legs going a little bit, we got it to neutral,” Gulutzan said. “And then we could start to play after that, so I give credit to our guys. They just stick with it. They knew the game plan, and they knew what they were facing. It just took us a while to get up and running.”

Indeed it did.

Drake Batherson got the Senators on the board by scoring on the first shot on goal of the game. He started out the shift trading stick-whacks with Esa Lindell, and he eventually got a pass at the end of the shift after Robertson couldn’t quite clear the puck. Batherson then ripped his shot past Oettinger’s blocker side from just above the faceoff circle, standing mostly still.

It was a great shot, but it’s almost certainly one the goalie would like to stop more often than not.

Miro Heiskanen and Tyler Seguin nearly combined to tie it up seven minutes in, as Heiskanen easily beat the first forechecker at his own blue line, then drove the middle of the ice with Seguin going to the net. A shot from Heiskanen looked to tick off Seguin’s stick, but not quite past Linus Ullmark.

Oettinger made his own slick stop after a deflection at the other end, but it was only one save among four he was asked to make in a dominant, minute-long shift from the Shane Pinto line. And eventually, that line would get a gorgeous chance after a give-and-go play beat multiple flagging Stars off the half wall, giving the pinching Nick Jensen a Grade-A chance that even third-pairing defensemen are going to finish, and he did—though he might have hit the puck at nearly the same time as Michael Amadio, which surely made it impossible for Oettinger to read off the blade—not that it mattered from five feet away.

Alex Petrovic got pulled away from the net-front just a tad as he tried to stick-check Giroux, and Jensen beat all the gassed forwards to the net with little trouble. All told, it was a nice play by Ottawa against tired players that really paid for getting hemmed in their own zone.

“Obviously not not ideal,” Oettinger said afterward of giving up two goals early, “But just try to tell myself, ‘Keep it at two.’”

That turned out to be a good mantra, and Oettinger followed his own advice.

So yes, it was 2-0 Ottawa not even halfway into the first period, and the Stars looked like the slower team, outside of the Hryckowian line. Even a power play drawn by Miro Heiskanen couldn’t generate much for the sluggish visiting side, though Roope Hintz did force a sparkling glove save out of Ullmark from the slot, 90 seconds into the man-advantage. Call it a foreshadowing if you want.

After the first half of a second period saw fewer Grade-A chances on both sides, it was Mikko Rantanen who got the Stars going to kick off a slew of chances for his team.

First, Rantanen led a 2-on-1 with Johnston that didn’t quite connect (though the puck almost bounced in). And second, after a lengthy shift in the Stars’ zone (which featured another failed clearance by Robertson), Rantanen made a nice defensive play high at the point, and Robertson fed the turnover softly up the ice to Rantanen to catch. The breakaway was eventually deposited right between Ullmark’s pads for a five-hole goal that Rantanen made look simple, and suddenly the Stars had life.

“I think definitely when you’re out there with Mikko,” Robertson said afterwards, “He’s one of the best players in the world. So whenever we’re out there together, I try to look for him. I know he’s going to be making those reads, if maybe he has a step, you know, give him the puck. Give him a chance, and be ready.”

Rantanen was more than ready, as it turned out.

Robertson added after the game that while it was a bit of a sudden play, it really did change everything for the team after that, as the Stars controlled the bulk of the chances for the rest of things.

“I think it just gave us a reason, like we’re in this game, one shot away, we’re gonna push, we’re gonna push. And I think we kind of took over after that.”

And take over they did, as the Stars outshot Ottawa 20-8 in the third period and overtime combined.

“It was a good push,” Rantanen said after the game. “Last 30 minutes was ours for sure. Even the first 10 [minutes] in the second, not great, not generating much. “[Started] pushing a little bit better in the third, and found our legs.”

That awakening included Robertson, who finally—finally—got back to scoring a trademark goal in a big moment, as he and Rantanen continued their chemistry on the power play to tie the game up.

Rantanen’s move at the blue line here is just absurd, by the way. Poise, stickhandling, whatever you want to call it—he creates space by doing what looks like nothing at all. And then he feeds Robertson, who has circled up high in order to come downhill with the puck and fire—and he does.

Robertson’s celebration after the goal was a big one, and you can’t blame him one bit. It was a huge moment for him to tie the game up after scoring just one goal in his last 14 games. Goal scorers need to score goals, and you could practically see the weight come off Robertson after that one.

“I was relieved, but I mean, at the same time, it was a big goal in the game,” Robertson said. “We were coming back, so I think [the celebration] was just a building of excitement, and yeah. Got it done.”

Linus Ullmark was under siege for most of the third period, as the Stars outshot Ottawa 17-6 in the final frame. It was a stunning turnaround after a moribund start, but what else is new?

However, the final test wouldn’t come until overtime. And given the weird nature of 3-on-3, you could have seen the Stars’ being happy to get just one point, and perhaps sagging just a bit. But according to Mikko Rantanen, the momentum carried over.

“I think momentum stays [into overtime] if we’re pushing [at the] end of the third, which I think we had some chances to win the game even there,” Rantanen said. “So I think it carries over. I think they had some good looks, and Jake made some big saves. An overall team win.”

And the way that win came was narrow, as Tim Stützle hit the post 30 seconds into overtime. But for once, fortune favored Dallas in Ottawa, and that gave them time to settle into an extra frame that Robertson called one of the chippiest overtimes he’s ever seen.

Oettinger had to be sharp, but Ullmark was the star, until Roope Hintz finally found a way to end it. But how it happened took every bit of persistence the Stars had to give.

Jason Robertson carried the puck behind the net, then made a perfect pass to Heiskanen at the far side, with an empty net beckoning. But then Shane Pinto went Full Hero Mode, and blocked two shots that were earmarked for the back of the net.

Heiskanen clearly decided he was sick of shooting the puck into Shane Pinto, so he passed it over to Robertson, who took a shot himself—only for a sprawling Ullmark to get a piece of that shot.

That’s when Roope Hintz decided enough was enough, and he took the rebound and ended things, much to the delight of all.

That final sequence was a great metaphor for the Stars in Ottawa over the last decade, too. Shot after shot, chance after chance, but for nine years, it always seemed like they didn’t quite get that one last superhuman effort to push things across the finish line.

So of course, on a night where they began with an early 2-0 deficit, we saw the Stars do what they have so often been doing with 2-0 deficits. And if that magic is even working in Ottawa, of all places, maybe it really is something worth believing in. For now, at least.

Esoteric Song of the Game

Lineups

The Stars began with this lineup:

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

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lyubushkin
Bichsel-Petrovic

Oettinger in goal

However, Robertson and Steel swapped places late in the second, and it stayed that way until near the end of the third period, when Steel was put back up there in a tied cross-conference game with a few minutes remaining.

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Ottawa brought this group:

Perron-Stützle-Batherson
Greig-Cozens-Zetterlund
Amadio-Pinto-Giroux
Cousins-Eller-Hodgson

Sanderson-Zub
Chabot-Spence
Kleven-Jensen

Ullmark in goal

AfterThoughts

• The Stars’ penalty kill was huge in this one. If either of those Ottawa power plays had been converted to make it 3-0, I don’t know that this comeback ever gets started. It’s a good sign from Dallas to see the other side of special teams getting back to what they’ve done in prior years (especially while the power play continues to cook).

• The Senators wore their new red alternates tonight, and I think they looked quite sharp. More color in the league is a good thing. Imagine if the Stars had worn their home greens in this one!

• Thomas Chabot left the game after taking a hit from Colin Blackwell in the first period and did not return. That was a huge loss for Ottawa, to put it mildly.

• I’m not sure if the linesmen in this game were trying out for the Olympics or something, but I haven’t seen anything close to that many players kicked out of a faceoff circle in any other game this year.

• Oskar Bäck also left the bench in the second period after what appeared to be a late hit from Hayden Hodgson along the bench. Bäck was not expecting the hit, with his back to the Ottawa bench, and he got bent over backwards pretty painfully, by all appearances. He returned after only a couple of minutes, however.

• Lian Bichsel took the first Stars penalty of the game (for holding), but he had no choice, as he and Petrovic got split for a near breakaway by Tim Stützle. That’s a player you really have to prevent from executing his A move, whatever the cost.

• Lian Bichsel also took the second Stars penalty of the game (for holding), after he had to sprint back to his zone to win a race and prevent a breakaway. He got a handful of jersey in the process, and that one was a bit more avoidable.

• Lian Bichsel also drew the Stars’ second power play of the game, midway through the third period. It was an eventful night for Lian Bichsel, is what we’re saying here.

• Lian Bichsel (and I am not making this up) then drew the Stars’ third power play of the game with a bit of an odd one, as the stick of Ridly Greig (who had also committed the earlier tripping penalty) caught Bichsel with his stick along the wall. However, no penalty appeared to have been called in the moment, and Ottawa was not thrilled with the ruling that did come after the officials huddled, as you can imagine.

  • Lian Bichsel: He Makes Things Happen.

• The hanging video board has a white-on-red scheme for displaying Senators players’ time on ice time that is almost as difficult to read as the black number on the team’s red sweaters, even without the weird blur that my phone camera added to the picture.

  

• Oettinger had a huge stop on Drake Batherson with 1:30 left in the first period after a couple of sly pick plays by Ottawa to open space in the offensive zone. At the time, it felt like one of those “remember that save” moments, but then, when you go down 2-0 after 20 minutes, every save is kind of in that category. Still, it was a huge stop on a back-door play that looked for all the world like the third Ottawa goal. Never giving up is a good idea, it turns out.

• Adam Erne got thrown out with Rantanen and Johnston (who were double-shifting) late in the first period. Erne was one of the few forwards who looked like they had jump in this one.

• Colin Blackwell was one of the Stars’ better forwards early in this one, and a sequence just over seven minutes into the second period illustrated why: After joining in for a chance at one end of the ice that resulted in a good Alex Petrovic shot, Blackwell then backchecked hard to cover for Petrovic on what looked like a 2-on-1, only for Blackwell to point to the puck carrier for the lone defenseman to cover. And as the pass came back across to the other side, Blackwell dove and poke-checked the puck away at the last moment, earning some taps of gratitude from his teammates after the whistle.

• Rantanen scored a goal-scorer’s goal to halve the deficit in the second period, finding the space between the heel of Ullmark’s stick and his skate. Goal-scorers know how to hit these spots.

  

• Robertson collided with Ullmark early in the third period in the goal crease, but no penalty was called. I believe it’s because Ullmark was extending his blocker hand, which was the primary point of contact, and initiating the contact a bit. But you could see why Ottawa was annoyed, since Robertson did go into the crease of his own volition, and contact was made. Certainly that has been called goaltender interference at times, but not this time.

• Speaking of annoyance, it sounds like that frustration extended to GM Steve Staios, who may have attempted to speak with the officials after the game about the high-sticking call on Greig in the third period, according to Bruce Garrioch.

• Radek Faksa and Adam Erne got a 2-on-1 in the third period after the Stars spent a long time defending in their zone. Faksa got a shot off that Ullmark saved with the blocker, but it was a good example of how the Senators’ hard pressure down the walls can burn them if a team turns the puck north quickly enough. But it took the Stars most of the game to start executing well enough to do so. Better late than never, as they say.

• Gulutzan had a good line in the postgame presser: “I just told Lindy (Lindell) this morning, I said, whatever you’ve done in the past, do the opposite.”