Game 24 AfterThoughts: The Ballad of Casey DeSmith
With two wins against Winnipeg and Colorado, the Stars as a team had managed to reset the memory banks after their road struggles last week. But two players hadn’t quite done that, as they hadn’t played since the Chicago humiliation the day before Thanksgiving: Matt Dumba and Casey DeSmith.
The goaltender is usually the most important player for your team, and DeSmith was no exception in this one. DeSmith needed a good game after losing his last few starts, including a particularly ugly loss in Chicago last week where the very first shot went in without great reason for doing so. But in this one, DeSmith showed his ability to play in any sort of game, and he weathered a big storm in the first period and some really difficult flurries throughout the contest, flashing some exceptional work with his pads, and some athletic work with his positioning and puck tracking.
It was a reassuring sight after the Chicago game in which DeSmith let in a couple of goals he usually doesn’t, and it was a very reassuring sight when DeSmith was kicking out pucks from the goal line, frustrating Utah increasingly as the game went on. All in all, DeSmith was the better goaltender on the ice, and he was absolutely the difference in the game when the Stars needed a little more help from their goaltender than usual
As for Matt Dumba, he looked fresh in this one. He did a good job of tying up his man’s stick on a netfront chance halfway through the third period, and he looked pretty smooth overall in his first game back in the lineup after a couple of scratches. He also got regular shifts even in the third period with a narrow lead, which is a sign of trust from this coaching staff (and every coaching staff). It’s the sort of performance he needs to repeat, as no publicity is probably good publicity for Dumba right now.
Watching a game in a new arena is always weird, but it’s particularly odd so when the arena feels more like a basketball venue than a hockey one (which is the case in Utah, in all fairness). The empty space behind the net in the Delta Center reminds one a bit of the Barclays Center aesthetic, where a truck in the corner and multiple obstructed-view sections were the highlights of a venue the Islanders couldn’t move out of fast enough. DeSmith said after the game that he liked it, as the seats feel almost like they’re on top of the ice, which DeSmith said reminded him of playing in college arenas. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
For Utah, they’re hoping that some upcoming renovations due to be completed in 2027 will make the Delta Center more palatable to the average fan, but it was hard to escape the fact that Dallas had a whole lot of fans in a visiting building. That’s always nice to see, after too many bankruptcy seasons where the AAC was routinely taken over by visiting fans.
Lines looked different for Dallas in Utah, with Mavrik Bourque starting on the fourth line at center and Steel on the third line between Benn and Dadonov. That meant Stankoven would have his first shot on Duchene’s right wing, and he held up well. But despite some great chances created by the Duchene line, it would end up being the third line that came up huge, with Dadonov and Benn, the two oldest players on the team, scoring the only two goals to lead Dallas to a win. Who says youth is wasted on the young?
It was a gritty road win, in DeBoer’s words, with the Stars’ third game in four nights, all of which were tough ones.
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The Utah Hockey Club had two high-quality chances in the opening couple of minutes, but much to the Stars’ (and DeSmith’s relief), Utah missed the net both times.
DeSmith was the only Stars player to arrive to Utah on time, as he made good saves on Clayton Keller and Logan Cooley in the first five minutes, and a great one on Alexander Kerfoot just after those. On the other end of things, Karel Vejmelka didn’t face a shot until a low-danger effort from Matt Duchene six minutes in, but the more dangerous early chance for the Stars was when Colin Blackwell absolutely lost Roberto Bortuzzo, then fired a shot through traffic that Vejmelka saved, but may not have seen.
The defensemen also tested the Utah goalie, as Esa Lindell fired a dangerous shot as the trailer on a rush, but Vejmelka was able to refute the Stars’ opening statement. After a great spot of vision from Marchment later in the first, Thomas Harley got a similarly beautiful look, only to fire a low shot hard, but just wide of the left post. It was another night when Dallas probably ought to have scored more, but they ended up getting just enough to win, which is far better than getting just few enough to lose, all things considered.
Logan Stankoven had the chance that looked most dangerous of all in the first period, which makes sense when you figure that he’s playing with Duchene and Mason Marchment, but Vejmelka once again found a way to get a piece and keep things level.
Mikhail Sergachev had a rough one in this game, as he two penalties and got outworked by Steel on the Stars’ second goal. Sergachev’s first penalty was a slashing call late in the first period, but Marchment would even it up with a tripping call just 30 seconds in to put the 4-on-4 units on deck. With Marchment in the box, Stankoven was paired up with Duchene, which wasn’t a surprise, given how easily Stankoven had slotted into Seguin’s usual spot.
All in all, the first 20 minutes were a great testament to DeSmith’s resilience, as he made some really great saves to show that Chicago was an aberration for the entire team. You can see a lot of shots from between the faceoff dots in the first period in this chart below:
Roope Hintz had a few great chances himself, including a gorgeous toe drag that he fired wide of the near post. It ended up being a pretty even first period, which was more than you would’ve expected after how tilted things were in Utah’s favor in the opening five minutes.
For being the most penalized team in the NHL, Utah drew two of the first three power plays, including a hooking call on Lundkvist in front of the net that led to a beautiful kick save from DeSmith on the penalty kill. But this time it was Utah’s turn to negate their own power play with a penalty, as Sergachev laid a far-too-obvious pick on Blackwell to bring back the 4-on-4 groups for an encore performance.
This time, it was Matt Dumba who would make a nice play, with a great bat-down on a puck that could’ve been trouble, and both teams found themselves 0-for-2 on the power play with barely a minute of time on the job. It was probably a good thing for a Stars penalty kill unit that has been struggling a bit after a red-hot start to the season. But with two straight nights of only taking a couple of penalties (and only a single combined minute of real power play time surrendered in this one), they’ve gotten a bit of a breather to build on.
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The Stars’ first and only real power play came when Clayton Keller did, well, this:
The headlock/takedown/suplex was whistled for two minutes, and the Stars finally got a power play, for real life. They would take advantage of it, or at least they would take advantage of the Utah Hockey Club’s goaltender.
Evgenii Dadonov would score his second power play goal of the season, with something of a silly goal on a silly side goalie:
That goal, by the way, put Dadonov within one of the team lead in power play goals. That’s either a great thing for Dadonov or a sobering thing for the power play group, but I’m not inclined to choose between the two just yet. As for Dadonov, he’s been great to start the season. With seven goals, he’s solidly fifth on the team, which is great value for money, considering how Dadonov is also useful as a fourth-line piece. It’s great to get production from your top guys, but it’s nice to have other players who can supplement their scoring during the dry seasons that a few Stars have begun with so far. It’s even nicer when your captain scores a game-winning goal on a night where you need that one, key goals.
And in fact, it would be Dadonov’s line that would set up the Stars’ next goal, albeit with Sam Steel doing most of the work, as some great forechecking and an even greater setup would find Jamie Benn, who fired it past Vejmelka’s right arm:
Sam Steel is a player in the mold of Dadonov, as we’ve discussed before. But here, he beat two Utah players (including Sergachev) to maintain possession, then beat a third defender with a pass to Benn, who immediately fired it to the correct part of the net. It was a great example of hard work and perseverance, as Steel chased down the Esa Lindell clearance and won the puck to make everything happen. In a bit of an odd game on the second night of a back-to-back, getting two goals from the third line set up the Stars for a textbook third period on the road.
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Against Colorado, the Stars got a crucial goals by Hintz to get a three-goal lead. Against Winnipeg, Dallas stayed at 2-0, and it ended up making things a lot tougher than it needed to be.
The Stars very nearly made it 3-0 early in the third period a couple of times, though. First, when Mason Marchment made a great poke check in the defensive zone that turned into a 2-on-1 with Heiskanen the other way, but Marchment’s shot failed to find the net, which was a surprise, given his recent form. And the second time was when Logan Stankoven joined Duchene and Marchment on a rush after a near-perfect Utah setup, only for Stankoven’s shot to fizzle into Vejmelka’s pads at the final moment.
Seven minutes into the final period, Utah would manage to solve DeSmith, as some breakdowns in defensive coverage led to a Nick Schmaltz goal that led to Miro Heiskanen sending some glares to his fellow skaters. It was a night where a few skaters looked a bit tired, and perhaps that’s just the nature of having a back-to-back against a speedy young team (and the third tough game in four nights) after a few weeks without having to play two in two.
Jason Robertson is clearly trying to shoot his way out of his scoring funk these days, as he has just one goal in his last 16 games. He had a beautiful chance to show he’s still Jason Robertson! in the third, when he came barreling down the wing with the puck on a 2-on-1, only to once again be foiled by a goalie you’d barely have expected him to notice in prior years. I’m still refusing to get too down on Robertson, as his defensive work has continued to be strong and he’s still finding good puck movement with his linemates. It’s just that last bit of execution that he isn’t quite managing. But if Alex Ovechkin can fool us all before going on the tear he did, I am absolutely not going to count out Jason Robertson until he well and truly looks lost. And right now, he just looks frustrated, but not indecisive.
Jamie Benn won a series of faceoffs in the final 30 seconds of the game, and that frustration boiled over in a brief scrum after the final whistle, including a bee-in-his-bonnet Logan Stankoven going after a consortium of defeated Utahn antagonists. But when all was said and done, the Stars walked out of Utah with a 2-1 victory that wasn’t great, but simply good enough. And who’s gonna complain about a passing grade on the road right now?