Game 19 AfterThoughts: Lightning Only Strikes Twice, Stars’ Stick Around

Even though Steven Stamkos and Mikhail Sergachev aren’t there anymore, it still evokes 2020 each time the Stars play Tampa Bay these days. And through the first 20 minutes, this game absolutely felt like those games did four years ago, when Tampa was equal parts patient and lethal, able to strangle you defensively and cut you incisively.

This Tampa team isn’t that team, as was laid bare in the playoffs last spring. But they’re still very good, and Dallas looked to have their work cut out for them, given that Tampa was coming off a weird 7-6 overtime loss against the Columbus Blue Jackets, who also got Jim Montgomery fired by trouncing Boston the other day. In any case, you felt like the Bolts would come out making a statement, but it turned out that Dallas would have the last word.

The lineup was interesting, as defense pairs (with Lundkvist skating but still recovering from his injury the other night) started thus: Lindell-Heiskanen, Harley-Lyubushkin, and Smith-Dumba.

But at the beginning of the second period, the pairings got a big mixed up, with Harley getting time with Heiskanen, while Lyubushkin had spells with both Smith and Lindell. Here’s a beautiful shift chart from HockeyViz that shows you everything you could possibly want to know:

All told, Heiskanen played 26 minutes in a regulation game, which tells you how much action the third pairing got/didn’t get in this one. I’m not sure Matt Dumba was signed for two years in order to play 10 minutes in games against the Eastern Conference, but it’s early enough still that the Stars are still figuring the pairings out, and that’s okay. Heiskanen’s average is probably healthiest when it’s closer to 24 minutes than 26, but in this game, you can see why the top two defense pairs essentially alternated shifts for the final 10 minutes. And man, in a great game like this, why wouldn’t you play your best player for 26 minutes?

Colin Blackwell sat for his fourth scratch in a row, and when I asked Pete DeBoer after practice on Friday, he said that the fourth line has simply been playing really well, and he praised Oskar Bäck in particular for making it tough to take him out of the lineup. It’s a tough pill for Blackwell, I’m sure, but it’s a good thing for the team as a whole to have four lines that feel this solid, and the fourth lines had another strong performance in this one, with Dadonov yet again chipping in a goal.

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Both teams had great chances early in the game that didn’t result in anything, but Tampa Bay probably had the better of the play in the first 20 minutes.

First, Brayden Point got a sweet feed from Nikita Kucherov to get on the wrong side of Harley and Heiskanen, only for Oettinger to repel his effort at opening the five-hole. And the next great chance came for Dallas, when a Tyler Seguin shot came packaged with a moment to wind up and attempt to beat a prone Vasilevskiy, who had been scrambling at the netmouth before the puck popped out to Seguin. But it appeared to get stopped by the goalstick, of all things, proving that Seguin really does need to perform an exorcism on the puck, or the goalposts, or his sticks, or maybe just the sport of hockey in general.

In fact, with the goaltender pulled for Tampa late in this one, Seguin was on the ice for multiple faceoffs, along with Jamie Benn and Sam Steel. I’m not sure if that’s something of a Defensive Specialty line or what, but I’m sure Seguin would have loved an empty-netter as a reward for his many recent efforts that just haven’t falled on the right side of the luck line.

And the irony of those first chances for both teams is that it would be two low-percentage plays to generate the first goals; low-percentage aren’t no-perchantage plays, after all.

Anthony Cirelli scored two goals off rebounds from relatively low-danger shots. One shot came from below the goal line, hit Oettinger at no angle at all, then popped perfectly out to Cirelli for a fortunate put-back. It was probably one where Wyatt Johnston would tell you that he needs to be tighter to his man, but I’m sure it’s tough to figure out whether to worry more about blocking a royal road pass or tying up your guy there, as the low forward playing defenseman after Dumba and Smith had to rotate around to stick with their respective men.

You can see Johnston blocking the pass here, which ended up being a shot off Oettinger, and Johnston just couldn’t close fast enough after the rebound popped perfectly to Cirelli.

Cirelli knew what to do with rebounds in this game, and he got a plump one to send home.

The other initial shot was also no trouble for Oettinger from distance, as the puck deflected up and off the center of his chest. But it then popped back to Cirelli, who managed to fend off Heiskanen’s harassment and turn quickly, using his reach to wrap the puck past the Stars’ goaltender’s right pad for his second goal before all the seats were even warm.

In the intermission, Brent Severyn pointed out how Heiskanen hadn’t done enough to get under Cirelli to prevent him from getting a piece of the initial shot there, and that’s a really good point. If Heiskanen has his guy tied up more effectively to begin with, Cirelli might not get a piece of that, and Oettinger would have an easier time either collecting the initial shot or sending it further away. Hindsight, I suppose.

In between those unfortunate moments, the Stars continued their recent trend of countrymen combination goals, as Ilya Lyubushkin fired a low-danger one-timer of his own from the high slot, and the puck found Evgenii Dadonov’s skate, bouncing off it and pinballing off Vasilevskiy before heading back over the goal line. If this game was beginning to remind you of the 2020 Cup Final, it’s because this is what it was like, except with a good amount of decent scoring chances for Dallas.

Miro Heiskanen got the Stars into trouble with a delay of game penalty late in the first, only to totally redeem himself^TM right afterwards, when he busted down the far side of the ice after Matt Duchene made a great takeaway and a prescient lead pass on the backhand, just barely beating multiple Lightning backcheckers to put the puck perfectly on Heiskanen’s tape, and man, was the ka-chunk of Heiskanen hitting the good bar over Vasilevskiy’s shoulder ever a cathartic bit of onomatopeia. It was a goal worth watching as many times as you can, because this replay shows you just how otherworldly both Duchene and Heiskanen really are, as hockey players. My goodness, that one was pretty.

I appreciated the officials belatedly canceling out a weak penalty on Lyubushkin after Jake Guentzel absolutely grabbed hold of the defender’s stick and fell down to draw a call. Sam Steel got lightly picked by Brandon Hagel on an attempted entry, and the officials didn’t hesitate to even things back up, giving Dallas an abbreviated power play the more or less coincided with the final 90 seconds of the opening frame.

The second period started off with Jake Oettinger having to prove the first two goals weren’t a developing trend, as he made a great stop on Cirelli’s backhand by himself on the front stoop, as well as on a few other pucks through traffic. Dallas was also getting a couple of chances, but like far too often in the 2020 series, Tampa just seemed to generate the medium-grade chances far more often than Dallas through the first part of the middle frame.

In fact, one of the first chances off the hop resulted in Oettinger getting pulled out of the net, but Lyubushkin continued to be all things to all people, doing his best imitation of a reverse VH in this screenshot courtesy of Twitter user Adam:

Still, the Stars were getting chances of their own, and rapidly so beginning at the halfway point of the game, when a foolhardy Lightning rim-around attempt ended up setting Dadonov’s table, only for him to fan on a chance he never would expect to get. And don’t be fooled by this screenshot, as it really did come out of absolutely nowhere and disappeared just as quickly. None of you would have been able to score this one either without a crystal ball, I promise.

By the way, Lyusbushkin also had a great rush up the ice, which is something Deboer wants his defensemen to do when it’s there to be taken. It ended without result, unless you count a big hit and Lyubushkin retaliating a result, which it certainly was, in terms of entertainment.

Then Dumba and Smith couldn’t team up to corral a bouncing puck, and Gage Goncalves (real person) got past them both, and Smith had to haul him down. It was probably the right decision by Smith, but it did put Dallas on their third penalty kill of the game. Thankfully, the Lightning power play is about as effective at home as the Stars’ has been this year, and a particularly peppy penalty kill was able to get through the two minutes.

In fact, it did more than that, as Benn found Dumba coming out of the box and sent him in alone, but Vasilevskiy’s glove was untroubled, and man, I don’t think any other goalie looks that big after making a save, do they? You can see why Jake Oettinger considers him the best goalie in the league.

With a couple minutes left in the second period, the Stars’ fourth line once again showed why Pete DeBoer has been so happy with them lately, as they generated multiple deadly chances. The first one came to Thomas Harley in a spot he was automatic from last year, only for Harley to miss the net. The second one came when Lyubushkin once again joined the rush, feeding a chance back into the slot that Oskar Bäck put on goal. The rebound then slid out perfectly to the onrushing Dadonov, only for Jake Guentzel to wisely hook his hands, preventing the shot.

That led to the Stars getting a power play with one minute to go in the second, but despite some better puck movement, the Lightning were able to block most of the shot attempts and make it to intermission. It was a good sign for Dallas, who seemed to have recovered from an out-of-sync first 30 minutes to begin controlling the game. So, going into the final frame,Oettinger and Vasilevskiy both looked like goalies who weren’t going to let any other first attempts get by them unless it was a special shot. And indeed, the next goal would be.

After the Lightning started to get some pressure, Hedman came down low with the puck and attempted to dish it out wide, only for it to get intercepted by the wrong forward line for Tampa to turn it over to. Matt Duchene smartly nabbed Hedman’s pass, and he took Tyler Seguin and Mason Marchment (hey, I wrote about them!) up the ice on something of a 3-on-2, albeit with heavy backchecking pressure. But After Duchene made a wise drop pass to Seguin, the second-most veteran Dallas Star did not shoot it, but rather dished it back to Duchene, who ripped a shot past Vasilevskiy’s glove from a sharp angle just above the goal line.

You may have heard that Duchene has garnered some interest from Team Canda, and given how he’s playing right now, you can see why. If Team Canada selects players in a way even remotely similar to the delightfully dysfunctional method Team USA used last decade, he will have at least a shot at getting there. Nights like tonight do not hurt his case, certainly.

Dallas wouldn’t rest on their laurels, though. After a Tampa Bay offensive zone penalty by Guentzel (who did not look like a prize free agency acquisition in this one, with two penalties taken, no points, and no shots on goal), Roope Hintz gave his best imitation of Jussi Jokinen, cutting between the blue line defenders with speed on the power play, receiving a pass from Wyatt Johnston perfectly in stride to get in all alone and beat Vasilevskiy high blocker side in the blink of an eye to make it 4-2.

It was a huge bang-bang combination of goals in the span of a minute, and the Stars wouldn’t look back after grabbing the game by the collar. Wyatt Johnston almost combined with Hintz again shortly after that when he got around Hedman with ease and put a now-breakaway chance off Vasilevskiy’s pad. Hintz found the rebound immediately, but the ensuing backhand chance wasn’t clean, and it fluttered into the goaltender with no further harm done.

Oettinger didn’t coast in the third period, to be clear. Nick Perbix (real person) had a very good look on a 2-on-1 that Oettinger had to stop, as well as another one a few minutes later that Oettinegr was able to trap against his chest. Kucherov also wired one with just over six minutes remaining that Oettinger had to blocker aside, and there was the expected flurry after Tampa pulled Vasilevskiy with about two minutes left, during which Oettinger had a pad save off a chance he barely saw.

But by and large, the Stars’ ability to survive the Lightning’s big push in the first period without falling too far behind was the key to getting into the final five minutes with a two-goal lead. It helps not to fall behind by multiple goals, as anyone who watched the Anaheim game would certainly tell you. And this time, Dallas kept the game well in-hand, and their best players made some amazing plays to win a game they deserved to win.

Now they march on to Carolina, a team looking as fearsome as any in the league, which Carolina always are…in the regular season.