Game 38 AfterThoughts: Seeing Red

An entertaining game ended with a bit of bitterness. Merry Christmas.

There are some cross-conference games that creep towards overtime, where both teams are happy with a point that doesn’t affect the other team’s playoff chances before getting down to business in the extra frame.

Gulutzan said afterwards that it was a great hockey game, with physical play, special teams, and overall just a lot of the things you like to see.

“I actually liked the way we played,” Gulutzan said. “I’m not gonna judge our team on losing a point or winning a point. It usually evens out in the end, and I thought we were pretty good tonight through the game.”

The second period was probably Dallas’s best in at least the last few weeks, and you got the feeling that if things hadn’t devolved into special teams with five power plays in the third, the Stars might have been better-positioned to grab two points. But a couple of mistakes at bad times cost them, and they’ll have to brush off the lost extra point over the next three days.

On the plus side, Dallas looked dangerous. They got a key goal from the makeshift Duchene line at even-strength, and their power play got two goals against an aggressive Detroit penalty kill that was clearly prepared for them (if still unable to contain them). The best players did a lot of great things.

On the down side, Justin Hryckowian and Mikko Rantanen had mistakes in the third period which Gulutzan calmly described as a “learning experience” and getting “overzealous,” respectively. But given how tensions ramped up after the Stars grabbed the game by the scruff of its neck in the middle frame, you never really expected measured decision-making to win the day.

I know that after a game like this, the fan instinct is to assess blame, to rage about how player ____ or coach _____ or referee _____ cost you a moment of delight that seemed likely after the Stars went up 3-2. You want a scapegoat to toss into the volcano or whatever, but I really did appreciate Gulutzan’s stoic reaction to this one, because he understands that in games like this, some things are going to get out of hand, and you have to take your lumps and ride the waves. Tonight, the final wave crashed on the Stars’ shores, and that’s just how it goes every now and then. Really, this game would have been a well-earned tie by both sides, were this game taking place back before 2005. But we have to have a result, and that’s what we got. Overtime is a coin flip.

The biggest positive, for me, was that Thomas Harley looked like last game never happened. He was Dallas’s best defensemen all night, and his confidence seemed to be infectious, as Nils Lundkvist had a couple of smart crosses in the offensive zone, too. Given how acrimonious this game was as it went on, I thought it was a really good sign to see Harley looking so poised, both because of what it says about his mental fortitude and his playmaking ability. He’s a very, very good player.

Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz deserved more than they got in overtime, too. That pair with Mavrik Bourque was the Stars’ best weapon at evens (though the Faksa line nearly chipped in a couple of times, too). Detroit played pretty well even when Dallas was dominating them in the second period, but the Stars looked like the better team for the majority of regulation, and that’s not nothing. Tonight, in fact, it was worth something: Exactly one point. Which is, by the way, more than zero. Way more!

---

The first period was a lot of what we’ve seen in recent months: Detroit had the puck a bit more than Dallas, but the Stars’ diligent defending kept the most dangerous chances to a minimum. Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz each had chances to test John Gibson, as their chemistry continues to be apparent. Hintz’s wraparound try barely got foiled by Gibson, while Robertson’s snap shot was snared with a dramatic glove save by Gibson.

The Red Wings got on the board first when Michael Rasmussen banked a puck to himself off the boards and avoided one Heiskanen stick check, then managed to avoid Heiskanen’s second stick-check with a feed across to James van Riemsdyk. (Brent Severyn pointed out how Rasmussen’s left leg juts out to help protect the puck here, too.)

The puck didn’t get shot cleanly by van Riemsdyk, but that ended up helping Detroit, as that extra beat pulled DeSmith a bit further out of position, and Petrovic was too far away to help. 1-0, Detroit

Thomas Harley had a couple of good plays in the first, including a good scoring chance of his own after a nice keep at the offensive blue line that saw space for him to creep down and fire a puck from the slot, only for Gibson’s chest to be in the right spot.

Harley had another moment in his own zone where he decided to leave a puck for DeSmith to cover, and it looked like the goaltender was caught by surprise before freezing the puck. The two chatted after the whistle, but otherwise, Harley looked more comfortable early—and perhaps more so than Miro Heiskanen, which was a surprise.

Dallas drew the first power play of the game after Sam Steel was held when carrying the puck behind the net, and Dallas had a late chance to equalize before hitting the intermission. Roope Hintz and Wyatt Johnston both tested John Gibson, and Mikko Rantanen tried a couple of shots himself on what was a pretty strong power play for Dallas, other than the lack of a goal. With 20 seconds left on the man-advantage, intermission arrived.

Dallas got a couple more chances early, with an end-of-power-play rush by Heiskanen and a stickhandle-into-chaos move by Duchene both forcing Gibson to do something. But after that, things settled back into the familiar rhythm of the first period, with a lot of defending and point shots by Detroit.

Speaking of, look at this chart from early in the second. Notice how many of Detroit’s shots on goal came from the point (the five blue dots near the blue line on the left graphic):

HockeyViz.com

From the tops of the faceoff circles on down, Dallas had generated much more. In fact, I’ll crop the image again to show what is, I think, a pretty good illustration of what the Stars are trying to do, and trying not to do (long-range shots without much chance of doing anything).

Detroit thought they’d made it 2-0 when a rebound got put behind DeSmith, but it was pretty clear it was kicked in, and also I was pretty sure it was initially offside anyway. Anyway, the former call was not disputed, and play went on.

From there, Dallas mustered a big push that ended in a Detroit icing, followed by another good Dallas push. The Johnston and Hintz lines both leaned heavily on Gibson and the Wings, but they couldn’t quite break through, and it remained 1-0. But that point nearly midway through the second period felt important for Dallas, a bit of a sign that they were done waiting for the game to come to them—they began to force the issue a bit.

That was further evident when Dylan Larkin tripped Wyatt Johnston in the neutral zone, putting Dallas back on the job just as their momentum was at its zenith. Unfortunately, J.T. Compher got the first chance of the power play, and the eagle-eyed readers out there might realize that he is not a member of the Dallas Stars. In fact, it was a shorthanded rush by Compher, but DeSmith swallowed up the backhand.

After another 80 seconds, the Stars would finally convert, as the top unit kept passing and collapsing the Detroit penalty kill until Rantanen passed from a spot I’m sure John Gibson couldn’t believe he passed from.

Roope Hintz could believe it, and he shot perfectly against the grain, beating Gibson who had to get out of a shot-stopping crouch to push across to Hintz, leaving some net available for the tying goal.

Dallas then leaned on the gas heavily, with something like three full minutes of puck possession in the Detroit zone. Multiple lines changed for Dallas, while Detroit had at least two players caught on the ice for nearly the entire time.

Unfortunately, nothing came of it, and because the tension had built to a crescendo, the Stars would take a penalty when Emmitt Finnie drew a high-sticking call on Casey DeSmith away from the play. But the Stars’ penalty kill handled even more point shots from Detroit, and Lindell’s nearly three-minute shift (as he stayed on after the two minutes) ended with a puck in the netting.

It would have been a shame for the Stars not to have the lead after such a strong second period, and apparently Jamie Benn felt the same way. Because he managed to steal a puck in the neutral zone with a great back check, then finish the play after Hryckowian and Duchene worked in harmony to set him up.

Brent Severyn’s breakdown of this whole play in the second intermission laid out how cool the whole sequence was, so I’ll plop that here (sound on) for our general edification:

Note especially the Duchene saucer-catch of the puck from Hryckowian, which is a play I’ve seen Nils Lundkvist and Kyle Capobianco (among others) working on at morning skates this year. It initially looks like a small thing, but players like Duchene can chain together these sorts of deft little moves to create time and space, which he obviously used to great effect right before the second intermission.

The Wings got another play when Justin Hryckowian reacted, let’s say negatively, to a hit to his numbers from Jacob Bernard-Docker, and he stood up for himself.

Unfortunately, the officials appeared to judge that Hryckowian turned into the hit a bit, so he got the only penalty of the sequence. It was a play that I think Hryckowian would be better-served to let lie, or at least to let someone else take up on his behalf.

And unfortunately, it would cost Dallas. After a couple of high-quality stops by Casey DeSmith, Emmitt Finnie would convert the power play on his third kick at the can, which is to say he roofed it after DeSmith made two more stops:

The Stars’ fourth line gave them their own chance to strike back, when a great shift by Harley and Bäck drew another Stars power play—though it ought to have drawn more than that, as a Ben Chiarot high-stick drew blood on Bäck during the delayed penalty, but it wasn’t called. Where is Nathan MacKinnon to instruct the officials to review these things when you need him?

This time, Dallas’s power play couldn’t hit paydirt, but shortly after another great shift from the fourth line (where Erne nearly tucked a puck past Gibson), Dallas drew a call on van Riemsdyk in their own zone to get on their fourth power play of the game. And this time, they would make it count to get the lead back.

Dallas could have extended their lead shortly after that, when Ilya Lyubushkin was cross-checked by Lucas Raymond into the boards for another power play.

Lyubushkin would head down the tunnel to a chorus of “REF, YOU SUCK!” chants by the Detroit faithful, who admittedly had become accustomed to Dallas players being injured without calls earlier. It would all be moot, however, when Rantanen deployed a pick play that was too obvious not to be called interference midway through the power play, ending the opportunity for the Stars.

Dylan Larkin made it 3-3 on Detroit’s vestigial power play, when a slick pass by van Riemsdyk found Larkin through some skates to tie things up.

Dallas pushed hard in the remaining time, but the game was probably destined for overtime from the start, and that’s where it would end.

The Wings nearly won it off the faceoff before doing so shortly after. The first chance saw a nice save from DeSmith send out a plump rebound that bounced over Larkin’s stick to let Dallas off the hook. But later in the opening minute, Heiskanen, Hintz, and Robertson were caught on the ice, and both forwards failed to defend Larkin as he rushed in, and the Detroit captain beat DeSmith with a shot that may have caught a bit of Robertson’s stick, but not nearly enough to send it awry.

Neither forward cosplayed as a defenseman very effectively here. It had to kill Heiskanen to watch that play happen, but 3-on-3 is man-on-man, and Larkin knew which side to attack.

It was a shame for Dallas, who probably felt they deserved better after having the lead for most of the final 30 minutes. It’s a rare game where Dallas doesn’t win the special teams battle after getting two power play goals, but the Red Wings do look better than they have in a while right now, and they earned the extra point before the Christmas break.

ESotG

Lineups

Dallas rolled with familiar lines and pairings in this one:

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

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Lyubushkin-Petrovic

DeSmith in goal

---

Detroit did this:

Finnie Larkin Raymond
DeBrincat Copp Leonard
Rasmussen Compher JVR
Kasper Danielson Appleton

Edvinsson Seider
Chiarot ASP
Johansson JBD

Gibson

AfterThoughts

• Adam Erne’s starting back in Detroit was a decision Gulutzan said before the game that he made partly with Erne’s four seasons with the Red Wings in mind. Obviously you can’t always give every player what they want, but Gulutzan chose to do so this time.

  • I couldn’t help but be reminded of Brendan Smith last year, when he was scratched by Pete DeBoer for the Stars’ game in New Jersey in February, their first out of the Four Nations break. Smith had played for the Devils for two seasons right before coming to Dallas, and my sense was that he was really hoping to get into that game. Instead, he sat for both games of the back-to-back in Jersey and Long Island.

  • Of course, Nate Bastian is the player currently in the midst of a long stretch of scratches (though he did play in New Jersey himself, back on December 3rd). Bastian last played on December 5th.

• Gulutzan has involved the traveling Stars Dads in everything you can imagine: Video breakdown meetings, postgame talks, morning skates, and so on. I’ve said it before, but Gulutzan just continues to strike me as a supremely confident and fearless coach. He isn’t worried about disclosing secrets, but about making this time as special as it can be. That confidence also trickles into how he talks about the team and tactics, where he’s much more forthright (though not always completely so) when discussing basic strategy. You can tell that he believes his team is good enough, and their approach solid enough, not to be subverted by someone figuring out what they’re doing. It’s an interesting mixture of humility and confidence.

• This play by Adam Erne to help out a defenseman under forecheck pressure has to be something coaches appreciate. Note how he makes his stick available and works hard to be right in Petrovic’s sightline immediately, making for an easy outlet as the other defenseman is changing. As Vin Scully used to say: A modest thing, but thine own.

• On the Stars’ first power play of the game, Mikko Rantanen was up in the faceoff circle, with Hintz down low along the goal line. I wonder if that approach was part of the pregame power play meeting, because we’ve seen Rantanen run things from below the goal line with a lot of success. Perhaps Detroit was prepared for that, and Dallas was hoping to confuse them, though.

  • In any case, Rantanen was more frequently down low later on, including on the Wyatt Johnston power play set, before some rotation moved players around. Perhaps it’s just about giving Rantanen space to operate, since opposing teams are overplaying him a fair bit these days (as they should).

• Rick Bowness interviewed Jason Robertson before this game on the TNT broadcast, and it’s worth your time. Neat moment, that.

• Dallas Stars prospects Atte Joki (4C) and Emil Hemming (1RW) both played in a pre-tournament game for Finland tonight against the USA. World Juniors begin on December 26, and both of those players are ones well-worth watching.

• This is pure speculation, but Heiskanen didn’t look 100% tonight. Perhaps the illness running through the team caught him in its grip, because he missed some plays that he almost never does in this one. Good to know he’s mortal, I suppose.

• The Robertson-Hintz-Bourque line was outstanding all night in this one. It’s a shame Hintz and Robertson were on for the overtime goal against, because that line was cooking, and Bourque’s confidence looks as high as it’s been in a while right now.

• Gulutzan has begun overtime with two defensemen against teams like Edmonton in the past. Larkin was a man on a mission in overtime, and probably, Dallas could have used Esa Lindell out there until they were able to get the puck. Hindsight is 20/20, though.

• Check out Sean Shapiro’s 20/20 following this game. I haven’t read it yet, but they’re always great. You know Sean. He’s great.

• We at ST plan to be a bit quiet around here for the next couple days, barring any big news. But hey, if you need a last-minute Christmas gift, a link I personally love is starsthoughts.com/subscribe. It’s a gift to others, but mostly to me. Which makes it a gift to all of us, when you think about it. (Don’t think about it too much, though.)