Game 34 AfterThoughts: Bouncing Bäck from Adversity

The Stars bounced somethin' fierce tonight

I think it’s fitting to start off tonight by talking about Oskar Bäck, who scored the game-winning goal.

Or rather, it’s fitting to listen to Glen Gulutzan talk about Bäck. So, let’s do that.

“For a guy who does everything right every day, you just love when they get rewarded for doing the right things all the time,” Gulutzan said. “He’s a guy we haven’t talked about a lot here, but he is very valuable to our group.”

After mildly surprising some by making the NHL squad out of camp last season, Bäck has won over a second coaching staff in two years with his consistent, reliable play, whether on a line with Justin Hryckowian and Mavrik Bourque, as a fourth-line winger playing seven minutes a night, or as one of the go-to penalty-killing forwards for Dallas.

“You know, he’s such a good two-way player,” Gulutzan added. “He’s an integral part of our penalty kill. He’s got a long stick. He’s got long range. He’s got hockey IQ. You know, he’s a hard guy to play against in his way, and he probably doesn’t get as enough credit.”

Bäck so often gets overlooked by players who score more, play more, or end up skating more. But despite not piling up points, he has done a lot of the hard work in tough situations, and he’s never wavered in his approach—which his teammates don’t fail to notice.

“That shift by Bäcker was great,” Casey DeSmith said afterward. “He got the puck of his zone, held a guy off, got it in there, then obviously a great tip. He’s had a couple of really nice tips. He’s great at getting up front, and I’m happy that he got rewarded.”

Tonight is a great example of Bäck’s consistency, as he took a puck in the throat early in the game, then got nailed with a phantom tripping penalty to put the Stars on a 5-on-3 the Kings would get a goal from. But in the end, he wound up scoring a huge goal that his team desperately needed.

“A lot of [the media] have asked me the question, ‘Who surprised you?’” Gulutzan said. “He surprised me. He’s like a security blanket for a coach.”

There’s more to discuss about this game, certainly. But when the huge, game-winning goal comes from a fourth-line role player, it’s worth pausing to consider what that meant to this team, at this time. After 40 minutes, the Stars had finally clawed back to level despite multiple no-goal calls and a couple of penalties they didn’t agree with. But they had still been out-shot 24-14 by Los Angeles, and this team isn’t one that has been scoring much at 5-on-5 lately. Anything could have happened there, as Stars fans well know.

So for the tide to really start turning because of a one-timer from Radek Faksa that gets tipped in by Oskar Bäck, of all people? That’s a moment you remember, and one you build off of, and the Stars ended up doing so, with both a highlight-reel goal by Mikko Rantanen (and he set up Duchene with a highlight-reel pass in the second) and an empty-net tally from Wyatt Johnston.

They managed to take what started as a tough, frustrating game and change the ending by sheer force of will along with a fair bit of skill. They roared out in the third period and out-shot LA 12-4 in the final frame, and they thoroughly earned the win they got. That’s a good way to move on from an annoying last couple of games.

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As for the game itself, it didn’t take long for the Stars to get their first big chance of the game, when Mikko Rantanen was fed out in front by Thomas Harley for a shot that looked like it would have beaten a screened Kuemper, had Brandt Clarke’s knee not gotten in the way.

Los Angeles would get the better of things for the next ten minutes or so, with DeSmith having to face an odd-man rush (on which he made a couple of dynamite saves) and a couple of chances in-tight when Dallas’s defensive structure broke down a bit.

The New Duchene Line (NDL) nearly scored for Dallas about 14 minutes in, when a slick Duchene leave for a tap-in was blocked out of play just in time. Then the Johnston line did score when the young center banked a puck off a prone Kuemper, only to have the goal immediately waved off. Here’s why:

The Stars didn’t challenge the call of Goaltender Interference to negate the goal, but no penalty was assessed either. All told, it’s probably the right call, as Rantanen’s arm contacts Kuemper’s head pretty solidly there.

As for the goaltender, Kuemper left the ice, and he would not return to the game. After the contest, coach Jim Hiller wasn’t happy about the play.

“I saw a player come into the blue paint and run into our goaltender, that’s what I saw,” said Hiller.

For Rantanen’s part, he said he was engaged in battling with Dumoulin and didn’t see where Kuemper was, though he immediately checked on Kuemper after the play stopped.

“Yeah, it was unfortunate,” Rantanen said after the game. “I was just driving the net, and thought my route was top of the blue [crease]. Dumoulin was there kinda pushing me that way. I didn’t see he [Kuemper] was top of the blue.”

Rantanen and Kuemper were teammates in 2022, when Colorado won a Stanley Cup.

“Unfortunate to see him go down,” Rantanen reiterated. “I told him right away, ‘my bad.’ Hopefully he doesn’t miss too much time.”

Gulutzan echoed Rantanen after the game, even going so far as to say that, had the score been different, he might well have challenged the goaltender interference call.

"That one’s close for me to challenge,” Gulutzan said. “I thought some of the contact was in the white, and there was some pushing there. I hope Kuemper’s not hurt […] It certainly starts outside the white, and that’s kind of the criteria for those things, you know, is he going into the blue on his own? And he wasn’t, really. Unfortunate they collided, but it would’ve been close with a different score, for me.”

After the Stars elected not to risk compounding their misfortune (no irony intended toward Jim Hiller here), the Kings would draw the first power play of the game just before the intermission with a strong shift against the Stars’ third D-pair and fourth line, after which Bäck was tagged for interference.

Shots were 11-5 for the Kings after the first period, which wasn’t the most encouraging sign from a Stars team that hadn’t hit 20 shots on goal for three straight games. But the Stars’ penalty kill got back to its old rhythm, and things got back to 5-on-5 without incident.

DeSmith kept having to make saves from distance with his defense doing their best to box out, while the Stars were a bit pickier with chances of their own. But Lindell and Harley both got Grade A looks that they couldn’t get past the goaltender in the first 7 minutes, and then Rantanen drew a tripping penalty after another good shift from the top line to put Dallas on the job.

Nothing would come of it, though the Stars got a couple of good looks, but the Kings brought the same high diamond in the neutral zone to hamper the entries, and yeah, you’d expect we’ll keep seeing teams try that.

Los Angeles’s aggressive defense of the blue line during a Dallas power play

After that chance went without a goal, the Stars got into some penalty trouble of their own. First, Faksa got the extra two minutes after an altercation with Brandt Clarke, and then Bäck got tagged for another minor after Andrei Kuzmenko lost an edge going into the boards.

Still, the Stars won the faceoff during the abbreviated 5-on-3, so it looked like they might be able to survive the worst of it. Unfortunately, DeSmith waited on Heiskanen before clearing the puck, and that extra second proved costly, as the puck Kuzmenko happily tapped the puck through the goaltender’s legs before he could release it.

You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but DeSmith was quite displeased with the outcome of that play in the moment. After the game, however, he was able to view it with a bit more levity.

“I’m really happy that that goal didn’t cost us anything,” DeSmith said with a chuckle. “Just a miscommunication between me and Miro, and yeah. Nice to put that one in the rear view mirror.”

Unsurprisingly, the Stars got a power play of their own almost immediately after killing the remaining penalty, but once again, they couldn’t quite capitalize despite a couple of golden chances, including a back-door look from Bourque that Forsberg stopped.

Still, the adversity looked to have woken Dallas up, and they continued to push as the second wore on. A great chance came when Jamie Benn took a strong whack at the puck and got it over the goal line—along with Forsberg’s pad. Thus, the officials adamantly waved off the goal, though of course Benn would tell you he’s shooting the puck there and has a right to take a big whack, and it’s not his fault he’s so strong.

Gulutzan acknowledged that the puck might not even have fully cross the line, but he did reveal what his conversation with Jamie Benn was like after the play.

“Well, if you want the truth,” Gulutzan said, “I said to Jamie, ‘How hard did you push his pad? ’Cause it might be in.’ And he goes, ‘Pretty hard.’”

However, the Stars’ persistence would finally pay off when Duchene—who had spent a good portion of the second period up with Johnston and Rantanen—finally got a puck over the goal line legally, after an incisive pass from Rantanen fed him as he arrived at the net:

The third period saw the Stars’ push continuing, with multiple lines getting good looks in the LA zone. And the fourth line would score a pivotal goal to give Dallas the lead after some good work in the offensive zone led to a Radek Faksa one-timer that Oskar Bäck was ready for, as he tipped it through Forsberg’s five-hole to make it 2-1:

“I mean, we do it in practice all the time,” Bäck said afterward. “Just trying your best to get a stick on it. It’s easier like this one, when you don’t have a guy lifting your stick or right on your back.”

From there, Dallas buckled down to defend their hard-won lead, but they didn’t do so passively, which Duchene said was a big key for them when the game was 2-1.

“I like that we stayed on the gas once we got up a goal,” Duchene said. “We kept trying to pin them in their end, and I think a lot of teams fall into the trap of, ‘Okay, we’re up one.’ You know, you want to be a good teammate, you want to do the right thing, get the red line, get it in, and you do that to a fault. I think you gotta stay on the gas and keep on trying to go.”

While Los Angeles tried to push in earnest a couple of times, it didn’t really take. And after a couple of good rebuttals, Dallas came up with the best response of all: Mikko Rantanen.

Whether it’s the crossovers as he works his way up the ice, how he chips the puck past Fiala’s stick to gain the slot, or the five-hole laser to ice the game, it’s a pretty, pretty goal.

“If you’re able to put a game away before the goalie gets pulled, it’s massive, right?” Duchene said. “I liked how we stayed with that kind of killer instinct to end the game and not just go into prevent mode. I think that’s good for us, and I think that’s good for us, and something I don’t think we’ve done enough of. We win a lot of games by a goal, two goals maybe. I think we can do even a better job of continuing to end games early when we’re feeling it and have that kinda hunger.”

Wyatt Johnston would add an empty-netter, and the game ended in a 4-1 score that was infinitely more cathartic than the way the first half of the game was shaping up.

Thus, the Stars stopped their losing streak by scoring three five-on-five goals against a stingy team. That’s a pretty good way to respond to a shutout loss.

ESotG

Lineups

Dallas rolled this group:

Steel-Johnston-Rantanen
Robertson-Hintz-Benn
Hryckowian-Duchene-Bourque
Bäck-Faksa-Blackwell

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lyubushkin
Lundkvist-Petrovic

DeSmith

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Los Angeles tried this:

Kuzmenko - Kopitar - Kempe
Fiala - Turcotte - Moore
Foegele - Laferriere - Armia
Malott - Helenius - Perry

Anderson - Doughty
Edmundson - Clarke
Dumoulin - Ceci

Kuemper

AfterThoughts

• As we suspected he might, Glen Gulutzan started Nils Lundkvist on his off-hand side—but on a pairing with Alex Petrovic.

  • That meant the Petrovic-Harley pairing was broken up after a couple of games, which would have been a fairly easy time to reunite Lundkvist with Harley, as the Stars began the season doing. Instead, Harley was put back with Lyubushkin, his most frequent partner for much of last season.

  • One of the biggest priorities is to get Harley going. To that end, reuniting him with a well-known partner reads a bit like an attempt to get him comfortable and not thinking too much, but playing instinctively with a partner who he knows how to read off of.

  • As for Lundkvist, his skating affords him at least a tiny bit more time to collect pucks on his off-side, so that seems likely to be the thinking behind playing him there, rather than Petrovic.

• Not sure if I’ve mentioned this already, but with Seguin out of the lineup, the two players wearing an “A” on their jerseys are Miro Heiskanen and Esa Lindell.

• Mikko Rantanen let up a bit on the backcheck on a Kings rush in the first period, and his resulting lost positioning nearly cost Dallas:

  • It’s not a huge deal from a player who was like second on the team in ice time last game, but you’d like to see a bit more effort in that situation, given how dangerous that third man in can be.

• Esa Lindell tried his best to be dangerous after a great shift by the Hintz line featuring multiple overlaps and handoffs, when he skated out in front and put a backhand over Forsberg’s shoulder, but off the crossbar:

• Duchene’s goal also snapped a nearly 200-minute streak since Dallas had last scored at 5-on-5. I hear it’s important to score at even-strength.

• Colin Blackwell laid a pretty good hit on Cody Ceci in the third period. I didn’t clip it, but any time a 5-foot-8 guy lays a good hit on a 6-foot-3, 210-lb former teammate, it’s noteworthy.