Game 30 AfterThoughts: Esa Lindell May Still Be on the Ice When You Read This

The Stars have a pretty nasty flu bug going through their lineup right now, and this time, it didn’t even have the decency to wait until the end of the game to take a player out.

With Thomas Harley out of the lineup with the same flu bug that had previously taken out Casey DeSmith and Nils Lundkvist, Dallas knew they had their work cut out for them. But in a homestand where the Stars played down to their competition against Nashville and barely grabbed an overtime win against a Blues team on its second coach of the year, it just figures that their biggest margin of victory would come against a team on a 10-game road winning streak with the best points percentage in the NHL–with Dallas playing most of the third period with just five defensemen after Lundkvist had to leave with a recurrence of the same bug he’s been battling over the weekend.

While just getting a roster together might have been the biggest challenge of the day, the players who made it to tonight’s lineup did their best, and that ended up being more than enough.

“It was just, ‘try and get six guys tonight to the game healthy enough to play,’ and then ‘try and get through and scramble the group enough with the healthy guys to compete’,” said DeBoer after the game. “We have a pretty big bug going through, and Thomas Harley’s a big hole. He plays big, important minutes for us in all situations, so I though the guys all responded.”

With the Stars employing a patchwork of six defensemen, it was always going to be a bit of All Hands on Deck, and probably on said deck for longer than normal, in some cases. And given that one of those players is their designated seventh choice, another was (they thought) getting over the same bug, while the third was playing just his third NHL game, it was always going to be a big challenge. But when the biggest challenges face Dallas, they look to their most important players to stand up. And tonight, three of those key contributors all happened to be countrymen.

Esa Lindell played 30:37 in a 60-minute game, which is almost unheard of unless you’re Cale Makar and your team is struggling. And in Lindell’s case, those weren’t easy minutes, or even supplemented power play minutes. In fact, of the 8:00 Dallas played shorthanded, Lindell was out there for 7:58 of it. And by the way, Dallas killed all four of those penalties, two of which were taken by Smith and Ilya Lyubushkin, who would otherwise have been helping with said penalty kills.

“I told him he’s the Ovie of the penalty kill,” cracked Oettinger after the game. “He’s a treat to play behind, and he makes me look a lot better than I am.”

With respect to Oettinger, he looked quite good himself tonight while facing his friend Charlie Lindgren. Washington generated good chances that Oettinger spat back, and they often sat waiting for rebounds he didn’t give up. In short, the goalie didn’t look better than he was, but in fact looked every bit as good as he is, which is to say Quite Excellent Indeed.

Miro Heiskanen also had to shoulder a huge load tonight (as was always going to be the case), though it’s crazy that we can say he “only” played 27:42, thanks to Lindell showing him up with a marathon. DeBoer highlighted both Heiskanen and Lindell in his postgame conference, calling the pair “absolutely outstanding for us tonight.” Heiskanen ran the entirety of both power plays, although that total is less impressive given the Stars cut one of them short with an efficient power play goal.

And finally, Roope Hintz had a game that felt well overdue, looking like one of the fastest players from the getgo. Hintz scored two goals at crucial times, and as DeBoer said after the game, it’s exactly what the Stars need (and have been needing) from their top center. A team can only struggle to score for so long before they start dropping games in bunches, and the Stars are not in a position to utilize any margin for error right now in the Central Division. But Hintz looked great at both ends of the ice, including a fantastic hustle play to beat out the icing right before Lian Bichsel’s goal, so we’ll go ahead and add a spiritual assist to his point total on the night as well.

All in all, this is the sort of game that galvanize a team, and it’s one that should have loomed at the biggest challenge of the three home games this week. But with Toronto and New York awaiting a Stars team that surely won’t be fully healthy for a while yet, it’ll be up to the Stars to show they can put up big games against every team rather than just statement wins against behemoths like Winnipeg and Washington.

(But if you have to choose, I suppose beating the best teams is always more fun. Can’t complain, you know.)

***

The lineup got all mixed up on the blue line, as was always going to happen. Bichsel began on the left side with Heiskanen, but he also wound up playing shifts on the right with Smith and Lundkvist, and even on the right with Heiskanen at one point. I don’t think this was an overall great game by Bichsel, who only had a few shifts in the second period after a pretty rough first (about which you should watch this Bichsel first period breakdown by Craig Ludwig). But he was called upon much more in the third period with Lundkvist heading down the tunnel after just one shift, and Bichsel ended with 16 minutes on the night. Whether he stays up after Dumba comes back is still doubtful to me (at least in the short term), but it’s clear to me already that DeBoer sees him as a viable option in some regard, and that’s already a very positive thing indeed.

The forwards also got shuffled later on, as Bourque moved up to Hintz’s right wing, while Johnston went to his familiar linemates in Benn and Dadonov, and Steel to the fourth line. DeBoer said afterwards that he didn’t love the start by the Stars, and that played into the decision.

“The first period, and the first five, six minutes of the second, I just didn’t feel we had anything going offensively,” said DeBoer. “We were kind of hanging around, but it was almost hanging around waiting for something bad to happen. So we shuffled some of the lines around and got a spark, got that power play goal. That got us going.”

I do wonder if the right wing shuffle will continue in the future, as Robertson added another two assists in this game to his reappearing scoring, while Johnston is a better center than Steel for that third line, and Stankoven just hasn’t been able to find the net, despite doing lots of good things next to Duchene. It’ll be something to watch, but you know Bourque needs to capitalize on those chances up the lineup when he gets them.

For Washington, they put Jakub Vrana back in after 10 straight healthy scratches, so that was something. Also both of their goalies are right-catching, which is just ridiculous. Frankly, I think they should convert one of them to defense and sell them at the deadline. This is called Maximizing Assets. It is perhaps not likely that I will be asked to help run a team any time soon.

***

Despite DeBoer’s valuid criticism, I will say that this was a much better start for the Stars than in recent first periods, with Mason Marchment in particular getting a couple of very good looks from the slot on Charlie Lindgren, with one coming from a sloppy Washington turnover, while Ty Raddysh tested Jake Oettinger on a great look from the right circle early on. Wyatt Johnston also tested Lindgren, and in general, it felt like the Stars were at least breaking even in the first period, before Washington started to lean on them more heavily in the second.

Duchene took a hooking penalty against Pierre-Luc Dubois early, but the Stars probably had as many looks as Washington did on the ensuing power play. Notably, Esa Lindell also played the entirety of the kill, as he was wont to do a couple of years ago. Notably, Esa Lindell would do this three more times. Notably, Esa Lindell is probably annoyed that I am not letting him write this sentence, because I should probably be on the bench while he does it.

Anyway, the Capitals would get the 1-0 lead late in the first period when a Jakob Chychrun wrister from the point floated out perfectly for Dylan Strome, who tipped it neatly past Oettinger’s shoulder. You could see Bichsel hang his head afterward, though it’s hard to fault him too much for not chasing his man out to middle of the slot rather than staying low. Still, it was Bichsel’s first official minus in the NHL, and those never feel good, I am told.

Sam Steel nearly equalized for Dallas on a scramble down low in the final minute, but Lindgren repelled his effort, and the Caps blocked successive efforts from Dallas, with Ivan Miroschnichenko taking a particularly painful puck during the onslaught. And after all that, Oskar Bäck got called for a bit of an iffy tripping call to put Dallas on another penalty kill to start the second period.

This power play was slightly more dangerous for Washington, but only because of a Tom Wilson tip that Oettinger stopped. But the rebound of said tip fell right to Connor McMichael, who couldn’t beat Oettinger’s pad. And McMichael’s luck continued a few minutes later, when he rang the crossbar soundly on a glorious chance.

Matt Duchene had a chance to reprise his breakaway glory from overtime on Saturday when Marchment fed him for a breakaway he had to create by busting through the defensemen, but a great move to his backhand was enough to pull Lindgren down, but he couldn’t quite elevate it in the end.

Dallas then fell under siege, with some rough coverage giving up a couple of open looks to weak-side forwards for the Caps. But desperation blocks and Oettinger’s glove hand bailed them out. But the Stars went back on the penalty kill for the third straight time when Brendan Smith ran into Tom Wilson in front of the net, and he must have been carrying a basket full of sea urchins or something, because Tom Wilson fell over in apparent agony despite Smith not really even appearing to extend his arms with a cross check or anything like that. But Wilson fell over, and because his nameplate doesn’t read “Marchment,” a power play ensued.

And maybe that was Smith’s plan all along, because the Stars looked stronger and stronger with each Caps power play, with Ilya Lyubushkin and Sam Steel both getting decent rush looks shorthanded. And with the Stars’ having killed three Caps power plays while only trailing 1-0, the game felt very much within reach against a team on a 10-game road winning streak.

Sure enough, the Stars would capitalize on their first power play chance when the Stars created a good chance, collected the rebound, and set up Hintz for a great look, and he did not miss. It was a crucial power play goal, and suddenly the Stars found themselves in a tied game thanks to excellent special teams work.

You can watch the replay here. Johnston fires a shot that Fehervary blocks right back to him, and Johnston immediately feeds it down low to Benn, the master of bump passes, who sets up Hintz in the golden scoring area, and the Stars’ top centerman fired it over a befuddled Lindgren’s shoulder with apparent ease.

From there, tension ramped up, and Brendan Smith got the fight he had been looking for against Brandom Duhaime, who fell into Oettinger with Heiskanen barely bumping him, but without a call. The incredulous Heiskanen then dealt out a vicious cross check just before Smith came over to grab Duhaime, and they dropped the gloves. It was a fight without any serious punches landed, but it felt like an injection of momentum to the crowd in person. And the next goal capitalized on that energy in full.

Roope Hintz beat out an icing with that extra jump he’d been showing all game, and the Stars managed to get the puck back to Bichsel, who capitalized on just his fourth shift of the entire second period with a shot that careened off the wrist of Rasmus Sandin and behind Lindgren. This may also have been planned by Brendan Smith. You cannot technically prove otherwise. Whoever ultimately deserves the credit, the Stars took a 2-1 lead to the third period, which is a good place to be against any team, let alone the team with the best points percentage in the league.

Hintz drew another power play in the second period when he hustled around Matt Roy and forced him just far enough out of his position to take an interference call. But this power play failed to test Lindgren much at all, and the one-goal margin remained firmly in place in what had become a very, very good hockey game.

With Smith still in the box, defense pairs in the third continued their mix-and-match trend, with Lundkvist and Bichsel getting a shift together. But shortly after Smith’s release, Lundkvist headed down the tunnel, and Sam Nestler observed what looked like some queasiness from Lundkvist, who had been dealing with the flu over the weekend, and the Stars were right back down to five blueliners in the final 12 minutes of tight, competitive game. DeBoer would confirm afterwards that Lundkvist indeed had not quite recovered from the nasty bug doing nasty things to the Stars.

Matt Duchene had the Stars’ third goal on his stick with another great chance, but his scoring does seem to have lost its talisman since Seguin’s departure, and Lindgren flashed out his glove, which he has the temerity to wear on the sinister side, and the puck went either off or past it on its way to the crossbar, then sang off the iron and into the netting. That same goofy glove would repel Bäck a minute later on a rebound chance, with Oettinger equalling the save with a fantastic doorstep stop of his own (doorstop?) to get the crowd going.

The crowd continued making loud noise with nine minutes to go, when Tom Wilson fell over Ilya Lyubushkin’s stick and drew a fourth Caps power play, but like clockwork, the Stars’ penalty kill generated a scoring chance when Lindell crept in on the weak side after Sam Steel delayed with possession and found him, with Lindgren just managing to hold onto Lindell’s effort from the circle. A Lindell goal would’ve been almost absurd given everything else he did for his team tonight, so maybe it was good not to get too greedy. Anyway, Washington threatened for the remainder of the job, but Oettinger continued to have less work to do when down a man than he did the rest of the game.

Jason Robertson didn’t score a goal in this one, but he did rack up two primary assists, and his second one was the prettier of the two. John Carlson made a pretty lazy reversal right to Robertson, who then waited for just the right moment to thread a pass to Hintz in the low slot, and he found him. Hintz bang-banged the pass right back pass Lindgren’s right side, and the Stars had their insurance goal.

Logan Stankoven had a chance to put a beautiful exclamation mark on the game by getting back on the scoresheet for the first time in (you know how long it’s been, who are we kidding), but fate showed it still has a cruel sense of humor even on the sweetest of nights, and he wasn’t quite able to maneuver a backhand into the gaping net. I suppose it’s good to leave some goals on the table for future games rather than accomplishing them all in one go, after all. We are all day to day, when you really think about it.