Game 18 AfterThoughts: When It Rains

The Stars now have two multi-goal wins this season

Coming into this game, the only win Dallas had recorded by more than a single goal was the 5-2 victory over the Wild in Game 3, where a 3-0 lead became a 3-2 nailbiter, until two late empty-netters by Faksa and Hintz sealed the game late.

Now, the Stars have two multi-goal wins. But this one was a whole lot more multi than most.

Every single defenseman on the team had at least a point. All but three of the forwards did, too. Casey DeSmith had a shutout, and Jason Robertson scored two more goals to show that sometimes, one goal is all you really need to start getting results.

When a third-pairing defenseman is jumping into the rush and scoring goals, you know the team is probably feeling pretty confident. Take a look at this:

Alex Petrovic said after the game that being plus-five was probably more special than scoring his first regular-season goal in eight years. And that’s a good barometer for the team as a whole, I think. They’ve had a lot of nights where they’ve come back from deficits, eked out overtime or shootout wins, and even held on against great teams despite bending as much as you can possibly bend without breaking.

But this one was a relief, even if it came after Casey DeSmith was under siege early. Because in hockey or anywhere else, you can withstand a siege if you prove to have better weapons than your opponent. And the Stars proved that in spades, tonight.

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DeSmith began the game with a Grade-A stop on Mike Matheson, who came down the slot entirely unopposed. That was a good preview of the entire first period, in which Montreal out-shot Dallas 14-5, and could have easily piled up a multi-goal lead like Ottawa did the other night. (Also a lot of other teams, recently.)

But as DeSmith has so often done this year, he let the Stars off the hook with multiple big saves, and that gave them time to counterpunch—which they eventually did. And did again. And so on.

(You know, I’m starting to wonder if the Stars are getting off to the sort of starts they would really like to on most nights. Just a small thought that’s been percolating. Maybe no one else has noticed this.)

Roope Hintz had the Stars’ first two decent shots at the net, including a shot off the rush from the slot that just missed the near corner. He looked like a dangerous player in this one early, and that’s usually a very good sign for him. It turns out that in this one, it was a good sign for everyone.

The Stars put together a decent penalty kill after Bichsel took an interference penalty midway through the first, and they built off that momentum to draw their own power play shortly afterwards. Special teams really can be the big RESET button a team needs. And while the best scoring chance in the first minute of the Stars’ power play was actually a shorthanded rush by Jake Evans, DeSmith came up huge once again.

Gulutzan described the early part of the game as one that could have gone either way. And when you’re playing the Stars, giving them a power play is a very good way to ensure that the game will start to go the other way. Because that DeSmith save on Evans left time on the man-advantage for Roope Hintz to make a nice touch pass to Johnston in the slot, who recorded an easy-looking power play goal to make it 1-0, Dallas.

That also turned out to be Wyatt Johnston’s 100th career goal, which is a crazy number for a 22-year-old. He also got to that number pretty fast. Pretty good company there, even if your French is as bad as mine.

(One suspects that Roope Hintz knew this, given his vehement pointing at Johnston after the goal.)

The second period was a bit cagier, as the Stars managed not to get hemmed in quite as much despite a couple of early icings. Their fourth line, in fact, created some good pressure in the offensive zone, and that led to a painful blocked shot by Kirby Dach, who took a puck off the hand or arm (I believe) and had trouble getting back into the play. And you know what they say: If you give the fourth line and Esa Lindell open ice in the slot, you’re going to see them score a goal every time. At least, I’m saying that now, as Lindell found the net from the slot.

The Stars continued their second period surge with a familiar play: Jason Robertson feeding a fellow forward for a breakaway for the second game in a row. This time, it was Tyler Seguin who was busting down the ice, but Robertson found him with a perfect pass, which Seguin finished with all the ease of someone dropping a quarter in a jukebox.

(Man, it’s good to see Seguin getting those chances again this year, isn’t it?)

From there, the Stars began to embody what Gulutzan talked about early in the season when they weren’t holding leads. They forced the Canadiens to take some chances, and they started burning them on the counterattack.

More specifically, Jason Robertson started burning them.

First, after making sure he stayed onside, Robertson benefited from some lovely work from Rantanen and Harley to go backhand shelf to make it 4-0.

That’s confidence and patience in equal measure, right there.

And then just a couple minutes later, Robertson got the puck from a couple of local Quebec boys, and he shielded it until he found his spot: high in the slot. 5-0.

That was Justin Hryckowian’s first assist of the season, by the way, and I suspect it was a tad bit more special coming in this building. He had two goals already, so I suppose it’s nice that he’s sharing the love now.

Speaking of sharing, the Canadiens decided that Jakub Dobeš’s night was over after 40 minutes, and they brought Sam Montembeault into the game to finish it out. So of course, he promptly got scored on by Alex Petrovic off the rush, as he hit the top corner. Yes, that’s correct.

It was Petrovic’s first regular season goal since the 2017-18 season with Florida, in case you wanted to know what kind of night it was for the Habs. And just to rub salt in the wound, Casey DeSmith came up with his biggest save of the night on Ivan Demidov, sprawling from right to left to make a caliber of save worthy of the city in which he did it.

In fact, DeSmith mentioned after the game that he grew up as a Canadiens fan, living in New Hampshire. So this game was, as you would imagine, particularly special for him. Even in a 7-0 game, he kept earning the shutout he would eventually wind up with. He has kept the Stars in quite a few games they might not have deserved to stay in, so of course, he would get a full road trip’s worth of goal support all in one game—and in the arena that means a little bit more to him than most.

The Stars are currently 3rd in the NHL with an outstanding 11-4-3 record. And if you want a single goal that encapsulates what that journey has felt like, it might just be the Stars’ seventh of the night: a baseball bat goal to finish off a football score.

You can’t make the playoffs in November, but you can certainly keep annoying the Avalanche by refusing to let them create a cushion. Maybe the real Pesky Stars were the ones Gulutzan is meeting the second time around.

ESotG

Lineups

The Stars began with this lineup:

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

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lyubushkin
Bichsel-Petrovic

DeSmith in goal

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The Habs brought this lineup:

Cole Caufield – Nick Suzuki – Juraj Slafkovský
Alex Newhook – Oliver Kapanen – Ivan Demidov
Zach Bolduc – Kirby Dach – Brendan Gallagher
Joe Veleno – Jake Evans – Josh Anderson

Mike Matheson – Noah Dobson
Jayden Struble – Lane Hutson
Arber Xhekaj – Alexandre Carrier

Jakub Dobeš

AfterThoughts

• The Stars put Adam Erne on Injured Reserve (IR) this evening, which opens up a spot on their 23-man roster. They currently have about $816K in cap space, though they can put someone on LTIR if needed to create more room. I’d be surprised if they didn’t add a player before their four-game road trip begins on November 20, but we’ll see how it all shakes out.

• Thomas Harley has also been dealing with something for a little over a week, according to Glen Gulutzan this morning. They haven’t disclosed the specific issue, but they’re trying to give him as much rest as they can, including morning skates like today.

• Justin Hryckowian and Mavrik Bourque went sans-chapeau during warmups in Montreal tonight. The two Québécois players had nearly 200 family and friends combined in attendance at the Bell Center tonight.

  

• Bourque played in Montreal last year for Dalas, but this was Hryckowian’s first NHL game in Montreal. I asked Canadiens’ head coach Martin St. Louis what it’s like for players from Quebec to play their first NHL game back in Montreal. Here’s what St. Louis said about his first game back in his home province (he had a lot to say):
  
  “I was flying,” St. Louis recalled of his first game in Montreal. “You grow up here, you idolize the Canadiens, you watch Hockey Night in Canada with your family, and now you’re the guy. You’re the guy on the ice. It’s amazing. It’s an unbelievable feeling. It’s hard to describe. It’s like, you’re a kid chasing your dream, and you know? I did it. And at the same time, you haven’t done anything, but just it. You check that box. You played in the NHL, and the Bell Centre, and as hard as that is, to get to that, it’s harder to do what’s next, to stay in this league a long time. There’s nothing better for a Quebec kid to get to experience than that.”

• And of course, Glen Gulutzan made sure Hryckowian and Bourque were in the starting lineup tonight. Nice gesture from the coach.

• It’s a quibble, but there have been a few times in recent games where the Stars’ in-zone defending struggles to find a “stop” in play. I don’t know if it’s just a quirk of recent stretches, or if there’s a systemic flaw that other teams are exploiting, but it’s happened frequently enough (including early in this one) that it’s tough to ignore. Results are the main thing, but the process is important, too. Some better decisions and chemistry without the puck probably still need to be found for this team to maintain the dynamite record they’ve built. But that’s a much better sort of problem to solve than the converse, I suppose.

• Speaking of Gulutzan, I was told by a couple of folks that Razor mentioned on the Stars’ broadcast that the Stars’ head coach had a few individual meetings with players to address some issues. Results aside, the Stars certainly haven’t looked like a team threatening to win a Stanley Cup with their play at times, and it makes sense the coach would want to get ahead of that, rather than waiting for results to catch up with them.

• Joe Veleno missed a great scoring chance after a Royal Road pass found him five minutes into the first period. Remember when everyone was surprised about his falling to 30th in the draft? There’s a player there still, I think.

• Ilya Lyubushkin hooked Alex Newhook early in the second period, which led to an awkward and painful tumble into the boards for Newhook, who had to be helped off the ice. It wasn’t the dirtiest of plays, but it was a penalty, and the result was hard to watch. Newhook did not return.

  • Lyubushkin would answer for that hook (I guess) when he dropped the gloves with Arber Xhekaj, who laid a hit on him before the two began sparring. It was more of a wrestling match in the end, though.

• Nate Bastian jumped in with Josh Anderson after the latter slashed Lian Bichsel at the end of a pretty chippy battle between the two. These things tend to happen in a 6-0 game late, but the hard slash to Bichsel’s knee from behind the play isn’t something you like to see. He’s a tough one, though.

• I’ll have more about this road trip to Ottawa and Montreal with a bit of a personal piece later on, but I will say this: the hot dogs in Montreal are incredible, and just far better than any I’ve had at another concessions venue anywhere. They toast a piece of bread and fold it up, then put a juicy dog in there for you to garnish as you like. (Mustard is the correct answer.)

• I can neither confirm nor deny that some players were dual-wielding these hot dogs after the game. It’s a tradition, I hear.

• This city isn’t one where you can see everything in one trip, even across a couple days. But it has been a very cool experience, speaking personally. I’ve had a wonderful week, so it’s nice to see the Dallas hockey folks put together a pretty good trip, too.

• There are a couple of pretty cool things coming up back in Dallas this weekend, too.