Game 4 WCF AfterThoughts: Let’s Remember Why We’re Here

I’m livin’ in the day and night, night and day

It can go so wrong, in a million different ways

***

One of the things I’m really enjoying about running my own operation here is that I’m not beholden to convention. What comes more naturally, these days, is departing from it. And after what sure felt like the worst game of the playoffs thus far, tonight feels like a pretty good time to mix things up. So clean up that shattered TV screen glass, finish that third Angry Beer you’re drinking right before bedtime on a work night, and let’s take stock of things.

***

Sports make people really, really happy. At their best, sports create memories that last a lifetime. I’m flying back to California to attend a Dodgers game with my family this summer because we grew up doing that. Once a year, my parents would load all five of us kids into an old Chevrolet Caprice Classic station wagon that used to deliver furniture at my dad’s old job, and we’d drive four or five hours down to Dodger Stadium. We’d get there before the gates even opened, and I remember how happy my dad would be if we were the first car in line. Later I would learn that arriving to destinations so early that you were closer to being late for last year’s than early for this one wasn’t unique to my father, but was a baked-in trait for dads the world over.

We would get into the stadium for batting practice, and we’d unpack a cooler you were allowed to bring in, usually filled with sandwiches to avoid having to buy pricey stadium fare. My dad was always diligent about making each of our sandwiches the way we preferred them (mustard, no mayo for me), and he’s always bring peanuts and some Snickers bars for later in the game, though my little sister would always want the candy before the first inning was over.

Those games were special. We would stay until the end, every time, and then we’d walk up to the Top of the Park gift shop to browse, with my brother or I very occasionally making a purchase as we got older and starting working jobs in high school. (This venture also had the virtue of allowing traffic to filter out of the stadium before we walked back to the car, thereby fulfilling Dad Goal #2: Avoiding Traffic, Always.)

We would eventually leave a near-empty Dodger Stadium well after 11pm and trudge back to the station wagon. We’d crawl inside and turn on the PostGame show, and some of us kids would start to fall asleep before we even left the parking lot. I usually made it about an hour onto the highway before passing out, eventually waking up back at home close to 3 in the morning. It was more of a pilgrimage than a night out, and I loved it every time.

***

Things had been going so right. Wyatt Johnston scored again to bolster his team-leading playoff goals collection, and Esa Lindell banked a puck in off Darnell Nurse’s bottom (his BOTTOM!) to give the Stars a hilarious 2-0 lead.

When Tyler Seguin’s backhand glanced off a surprised Stuart Skinner’s stick and trickled just wide of the net rather than making it 3-0 in the first period, it felt like a Moment had been just barely avoided, like the Stars had missed that fleeting moment when the girl across the gymnasium floor dares, just once, to flash a gaze that says more plainly than if it had been spoken aloud, “I’d dance right now, if you asked me.” Skinner could well have been yanked if that puck goes in, I think.

But they missed it, and then they messed it. Ryan Suter reached out with his free hand to cause trouble for Darnell Nurse, and he for some reason latched on, only to get spun off into his own goalie when Nurse cut away from the net.

We know from last postseason that Suter is not going to be interested in discussing this play, what went wrong, and what he learned from it. But man, that one hurt. If Suter just stays upright, Oettinger easily collects the Corey Perry shot and the Stars get the whistle, and maybe this game settles into a slog before going off the rails.

But Suter didn’t stay upright, and the game did ramp up, with a desperate Oilers team happy to pounce on a shaken Stars squad to hit them with a 1-2 punch (after Bouchard deposited a rapid-fire 2-on-1 chance from McDavid) that nearly finished with a third goal, only for a late Oilers power play to continue its odd inefficiency.

The Stars had made it to the intermission in time to take a breath, reset, and take another crack at a game that had started so well, only to turn into a microcosm of Game 3 in the blink of an eye.

***

I remember playing baseball from five years old. First it was T-ball, then Farm League (with coaches basically pitching), then Minors, then Majors. There were little moments of individual glory sprinkled in there, like my first home run in Minors when I was playing for the “Astros” as a ten-year-old, albeit without an outfield fence, so it was really just a poke over the left fielder’s head that rolled far enough on the parched elementary school outfield for me to circle the bases. No trash cans involved, I promise.

But my favorite moment from childhood baseball was when I was 12, just before I came down with an empyema and had to have a surgery that wiped out my next year of ball. I was playing for the “Twins,” inexplicably in black and yellow uniforms, and I was good, but not great. I think I barely made the All-Star team that year, but I knew I wasn’t the best player out there. We would only play six innings, but there were fences and everything. It felt real, and the local weekly paper would even include some of the scores from Saturday’s games when the editor bothered to collect them.

But one game, I think it must have been on a Wednesday or Thursday evening, saw me come in for the sixth inning to pitch. We didn’t usually think about things like Saves or whatever, but it was just the way it worked out. We were playing the “Cubs,” who were dressed in white and blue pinstripes, and they were good. We were up something like 6-5, and I was throwing to Jonathan, our diminutive catcher whose family grew up just a couple blocks over from me, until their house burned down a few years later. I never found out why, but I saw the smoke, and when we all got there, we saw his mom outside, just sobbing into a neighbor’s arms. Everyone was okay, though.

I got the first couple of batters, though another one got aboard thanks to an error, then advanced when I threw a wild pitch. It all came to a head when Elijah was batting with the runner on second, and yes, I knew him, too. My dad was the pastor of a small church in a small town, so most of the families in our community tended to know us, one way or another.

Elijah had intense gray eyes and curly blond hair that poked out from under the back of his batting helmet. But after I threw the first pitch on the inside part of the plate, Elijah swung hard, and high. He missed it by a solid six inches, and suddenly everything just clicked. I caught the ball back from Jonathan and called time, which is a stupid thing for a pitcher to do, but I was 12 and it was the last inning, and I had seen movies, so it seemed like the thing to do.

I told Jonathan to move his glove inside, as it seemed clear to me that Elijah wouldn’t be able to figure out an inside pitch. I realized later that I was making an awful lot of assumptions there with little justification, but this was baseball: hearsay counts for wisdom if you get the third strike.

I threw a second pitch, and Elijah foul-tipped it, probably because I missed over the plate. But the third pitch hit the exact spot I wanted for the first and last time in my short pitching career: right on the inside edge of the plate, just under the elbows. Elijah swung, and he missed. Game over, and we celebrated. It wasn’t even a playoff game or anything, but it meant something and still does, a tiny bit.

***

Mattias Janmark was a wonderful surprise, the lesser of the Mattiases in the Erik Cole trade at the 2015 trade deadline. I remember seeing the news that the Stars had “sold” Erik Cole and being sad. That trade came just weeks after Dallas acquired Jhonas Enroth in a futile effort to salvage the backup goaltender position after the Anders Lindback/Jussi Rynnas experiment flopped, which I believe Mike Valley had to answer for. A promising season had gone south, but at least Dallas had gotten a second-round pick, and also two guys named Mattias.

Then Mattias Janmark surpassed Backman, scoring 15 goals in the last year the Stars finished atop the Western Conference in 2015-16. He bettered that under Ken Hitchcock, scoring 19 goals after missing 2016-17 (which, good choice by him) to deal with his degenerative knee condition, osteochondritis dissecans. The fact that he made it back from that, and the fact that he is still playing at a high level, albeit scoring token goals rather than bunches, is remarkable. He is a remarkable player.

Janmark scored one goal in 26 games in the Edmonton COVID bubble, and the Stars promptly said “thank you for your service” and dropped him off at the bus stop called Unrestricted Free Agency after the season. Janmark spent more seasons with the Stars than Devin Shore did, which seems incredible. Or at least remarkable.

Unfortunately, the remark I made upon Janmark scoring a shorthanded goal was less printable than even the ramblings you’ve read so far. It had been a bad power play for Dallas even before the 2-on-1 rush, with Thomas Harley far from the only one to blame for its impotence. But Harley was there when his shot didn’t get through, and he was there when Connor Brown made the easy (for an NHL player) dish to Janmark, who carefully but correctly placed it over a sprawling Oettinger.

Mattias Janmark's SHORTY gives Edmonton the lead in the second period!#LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/4aTzEjEeIU

— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) May 30, 2024

Janmark will remember that goal, regardless of what Edmonton does in this series. Scoring goals against people you know, against an organization that said “no thanks” when you reached UFA status, is meaningful. It’s not the infinitesimal potatoes that is recreational league baseball for children. The furthest thing from it! But I think Janmark, more than most, knows how much goals at this level ought to be cherished, and it’s hard not to be happy for him right now.

The Leon Draisaitl goal after that felt inevitable, and the skittishly ineffective power play in the third period just confirmed our worst fears: Dallas was rattled.

***

I played baseball one more year, when I was 14. My coach that year was Chris, an “edgy” 20-something who drove a 4Runner and had an earring, and who enjoyed telling teenagers about attractive women he saw on the freeway. Chris also enjoyed dropping the occasional Bible reference, knowing I was from a pastor’s family, though he didn’t enjoy my quibbling about the usage of the Greek word Petros when he said “your hands have to be like a rock on the bat, like Peter’s the rock of the church.” Sometimes I am amazed I didn’t get beaten up more.

My lasting memory from that season was our last game of the year. I was up with the bases loaded with us down by two or three runs, and I had dreams of glory. I hopped on a hanging curve ball and pulled it way foul, down the line. It would’ve been gone, I know, if I had waited.

Instead, I came back and grounded into a fielder’s choice at home. But I had gotten on base, at least, I rationalized.

Here’s the thing about this new league, which was called Juniors for some reason: you could take lead-offs when on base. This is not a skill I had learned much about, other than knowing the rules and everything. I hadn’t stolen any bases that year or really done much of note, having missed the preceding year. Coach Chris constantly assumed I was 13, since I hadn’t been in the league the prior year, and my playing time suffered. I also had to recover from the loss of muscle mass from the prior year, which was bad timing in a lot of ways.

So anyway, I got on base, at least. And I decided the one thing I could do was to get a healthy lead so that I could at least feel like I did something in a game, in a season, in a league where I had mostly been a passenger.

I remember the pitcher glancing over at me once. It didn’t register with me then, but I swear I can now recall him shifting his weight a tiny bit after that first glance, which should have told me what was about to happen. But I didn’t see it at the time, and as I dove back to the base far too late, I realized that PICKOFF was the word that I should’ve been screaming to myself internally. Instead, I got embarrassed, and the game was over. Coach Chris was not particularly thrilled, although I was not particularly thrilled with Coach Chris, all told, so we’ll call it even.

***

Chris Tanev means everything to the Stars. He’s already come back from one scary moment in his Stars career, when Adam Larsson got a major for hitting Tanev in a way that made all of us fear for a broken arm. Instead, Tanev was fine, and we all marveled at how tough this guy was.

Seriously, just search “Chris Tanev Scary” or “Tanev Face” and you’ll come up with tons of grisly videos that catalogue the various journeys of all of Tanev’s former teeth. He’s been through it.

But this one feels different, because it’s so clear what happened.

Chris Tanev has gone to the Stars dressing room after blocking a shot. pic.twitter.com/FbwQCPA1AC

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 30, 2024

Tanev limped back to the room after a puck hit his skate. He didn’t return. People are speculating about a fractured heel, and that doesn’t seem crazy, given the evidence we have. But then again, DeBoer said this:

"Game 6, 5…… 12?" – Pete DeBoer

Coach DeBoer is questioned regarding Tanev's return
but seems to be experiencing the late playoff season brain! pic.twitter.com/zzkALAdBys

— BarDown (@BarDown) May 30, 2024

It’s funny how quickly things can be taken from you, whether it’s a 2-0 lead in the first period, a 2-1 series lead, or a critical defensive presence. Sports don’t guarantee anything other than suffering, for one party.

Maybe Tanev won’t be limping the next time he’s on the bench, and all will be well once again. I suppose we’ll find out during media availability on Thursday, but it’s hard to be optimistic right now, about a lot of things.

***

I later found out that my parents, who had been watching my save against Elijah and the Cubs out on lawn chairs on the hillside, had been talking to another family. My mom, bless her heart, has never been the most avid sports fan, although she enjoys the atmosphere, if not the details.

My mom, during my final inning, had been talking with another mom who was following the game more closely. And when I struck out Elijah, my mom noticed that the other mom was a little slower to answer her question about whether the game was over, and was that batter out.

That other mom was, of course, Elijah’s mom. And she, to her credit, was very patient and gracious with my mom, who apparently clapped quite enthusiastically after Elijah’s mom told her that yes, Robert had just won the game by striking out that boy on the Cubs.

(My mom told me all this afterwards, feeling mortified once she saw Elijah being consoled by his mom after the game.)

All sports really guarantee is that at the height of your exuberance, someone else will be given an indelible memory in the valley of the shadow. Someone has to win, because someone has to lose.

***

Roope Hintz could’ve scored on his breakaway, but he didn’t. Seguin could’ve scored when it was 2-0, but he didn’t.

Jake Oettinger’s stick made a save (or at least could have), and Radek Faksa had a clutch shot-block on McDavid. Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson got another 2-on-1 at the end of the second period that didn’t generate a shot. There were things that, in another world, would’ve been fun, memorable reasons for why Dallas won. Instead, they are oddities that you’ll barely remember, because the pain of this loss will either be drowned out by later victory or overtaken by much greater suffering later on.

Stuart Skinner looked shaky for most of this game, giving up rebounds, struggling to track pucks, and generally just begging to be tested. But after jumping out to a 2-0 lead, Dallas failed to emulate, well, themselves from earlier series, and Edmonton roared to life. Dallas couldn’t keep up, and they probed Edmonton, but never really poured it on again. This was always going to be a challenging series, but now we know it’s going to be a hard one.

Darnell Nurse must be getting pilloried up in Canada, because my word, were broadcasters and writers going to great lengths to talk about how he was proving everyone wrong in this game. I mean, I suppose? I don’t think Edmonton really showed anything we didn’t already know, in this one. Knoblauch swapped out some depth players, including one of their worse defensemen. At best, Broberg for Desharnais was Lundkvist for Petrovic, and you’ll excuse me if I don’t retroactively award a Jack Adams for a coach Doing Something with an obviously incomplete defensive group.

Jake Oettinger, meanwhile, continued to be the better goalie of this series. It’s just unfortunate that it didn’t really matter, given how rough the Stars looked for long stretches. Oettinger came up huge in the second period when the Stars lost Zach Hyman on the far side during a line change, and he came in all alone, only for the Stars goalie to flash the blocker and stymie the 50-goal scorer in a crucial moment.

Jason Robertson got a great chance of his own later on when Edmonton backed off of four Stars skaters, allowing Robertson to drop his shoulder and make a backhand-forehand move that he unfortunately put right into the chest of Skinner. One goalie was tested, and the other was present, and they both got full marks for participation. Isn’t that just the way it goes, sometimes?

The infirmary got some heavy usage in the second period, with Mason Marchment taking a puck to the face and heading off for repairs, only for his return to activate the turnstile, with Chris Tanev heading the other direction after taking a puck to, paradoxically, a much worse place than his uncovered face. Isn’t that just the way it goes, sometimes?

The most comforting words I can offer you are these: this series has been filled with nonsense, and neither team really seems capable of controlling an entire game. Momentum is swinging around like a censer, and you’d best keep your head up when it passes you, lest a cinder fall onto your shoe or you get conked in the forehead.

Dallas has to win two games out of the next three. This is doable, eminently doable. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if Dallas can’t do this very doable thing, then they’ve probably answered all the most important questions any team with Cup aspirations has to answer. Miro Heiskanen has been carrying a heavy load, but he’s had help this time. Jake Oettinger has been great, and he’s had far more help than he did in 2022. Every part of this team should expect to win on any given night, and I really think they do. But I have to wonder how this loss is going to affect them.

After last game, we wondered whether Edmonton would be shaken after blowing a 2-0 lead in the first period. The answer seems to have been, “Yes, but not for long.” For most of the postseason, Dallas has thrived on being a team that gets going after the first game, the first period. So wrapping up the back three of a seven-game series should be right in their wheelhouse. They won Games 5 and 7 against Vegas, and that would be sufficient this time, too. But the first step is simply to make Game 5 look like a contest you’re capable of winning at all.

Sports are fun, but the stakes are high. You can’t play the Fan Game without enduring the concomitant disappointment from time to time, and this one was a doozy. Thankfully, Dallas has proven that they can get off the mat, whether after one loss or two. Now’s the time for them to prove it, if they can. But if not, at least we’ll all be suffering together. Get there early on Friday. I’ll bring the sandwiches.