Game 4 WCQF AfterThoughts: That Still Only Counts As One

Much as it feels like it should count for more

Well, I'd like to figure out where we stand
Before darkness falls
And I'd like to figure out
Before too late
Before hope is lost
Cause the sun that's shining on my face
Is shining down on you

***

Colorado could not afford to lose this game, and they budgeted accordingly.

Much like Dallas had to come out in Game 2 with desperation to avoid going down 2-0 to Colorado before heading to Denver, it was incumbent upon the Avalanche to avoid going down 3-1 before heading back to Dallas. And Colorado brought both desperation and preparation in skating Dallas out of the Mile High City by what felt like a million of them.

“Obviously they were better than us tonight. It’s all about your response in a playoff series like this,” Pete Deboer said after the game. “I think we know we can play better and we have to play better. But we’ve worked to put ourselves in a good spot with three games left to go.”

Colorado had lost two in a row, and losing three straight in a series is a recipe for disaster. Dallas was always going to get the best that Colorado had to offer, and they responded with their worst game of the series.

DeBoer answered a question about the Stars’ being on their heels bluntly: "There’s a million things that go into that. We didn’t do any of them.”

I’m not going to review every playoff stomping in Stars history—I imagine your appetite for such information isn’t there right now either—but this felt as decisive as any of them. And it felt that way because it was basically shooting practice for Colorado, who spent nearly the entire game generating chances in the highest-danger areas. It is nothing short of a goaltending miracle that the Stars only surrendered two even-strength goals in this game, and none below the top of the circles.

If anyone tries to blame Jake Oettinger for this loss, you have my permission to go full Ratatouille on them.

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Dallas’s forecheck just wasn’t effective for too much/all of/somehow more than 60 minutes of this game, and it led to the Avalanche spending far too much time in Dallas’s zone, which clearly started to exhaust some of the Stars’ defensemen.

Take the Avs’ third goal, for example.

The Stars have just changed, but they have their 1-2-2 ready to deploy, albeit a bit higher than usual. But here is Johnston, getting bypassed by Brock “I am definitely in my thirties” Nelson, who has built up some speed.

Benn, as part of the second layer, is also about to get bypassed as well, as will Dadonov, who has just come over the board in the bottom right of that picture.

(Are we sure they didn’t lace the Stars’ water bottles with Nyquil?)

Now Nelson has Landeskog in the middle of the ice with the defense pair trying to gap up in a hurry, and there’s just too much ice for them to do it after all three forwards were left in the dust.

Landeskog gets the puck in a good spot, and he gets off a great shot into the top corner. Great goal, terrible forechecking.

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Speaking of great comeback stories, Tyler Seguin only had three shifts in the third period, as I presume DeBoer didn’t want to overtax him in a game that the Stars went on to verify was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Thomas Harley likewise saw his ice time managed with some eye to inevitability, ending under the 24-minute mark.

If there was ever a game worth punting on, this was it. Does this count as a good thing? I don’t think I would go that far. Until the Stars win again, it will be hard to feel good about anything.

Thankfully, this loss only counts as one. I think. If you want to pretend that this was actually Game 3 while the Seguin overtime goal came in Game 4 to dramatically tie the series, you also have my permission to do that. I am being very permissive tonight. It is the weekend.

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Really though, This game was bad. This is the sort of thing you expected to see in Game 1, after the Stars’ repeated issues down the home stretch of the regular season. Instead, they grabbed a 2-1 lead in three really competitive games before dropping back to level in a fourth set of 60 minutes that felt like a huge, concentrated punishment for the franchise’s decision to sign Sean Avery or something.

The Stars have home-ice advantage, and they’ll have Monday night to show why it matters more this year than it did last year. They’ll have to start by looking more like last year’s team than last month’s team if they want to do it, though.

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Special teams killed Dallas early, which is something they’ll have to change. (This is called Hockey Insight.) The shorthanded goal was a result of a slightly hesitant read by Thomas Harley combined with forcing a move at the blue line when he would have been better off just sending the puck back in deep and living to fight another day. But Thomas Harley didn’t cancel his trip to Cabo just to be scared off the puck by Logan O’Connor, and I’m told fortune is supposed to favor the bold. Stupid fortune.

The second goal happened as a result of the Mason Marchment Experience: He lost his man in the defensive zone in one end, then came back down the ice to fire a hot shot on goal at the other end, and he capped it all off by catching Cale Makar with I think the butt end of his stick in his glove, only to have it called elbowing (?) to put Colorado on the power play after Makar’s bombastic reaction.

Marchment was incredulous—he knows a thing or two about bombastic reactions himself—but with Makar flailing in pain on his knees and Marchment doing something suspicious, the Stars forward was going to get a penalty there even if he had been up in the Ratatouille freezer the entire time. He’s got a rep, and I’m told someone named Taylor Swift wrote a whole album about reputations. I’m going to listen to it right now.

*listens to Amy Grant ten more times instead*

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Side note: I am still amazed at how vociferously the Colorado fans boo Mikko Rantanen. By all accounts from both team and player alike, Rantanen wanted to stay in Colorado, was shocked by the trade, and would probably have taken something close to what he took in Dallas to stay there.

Chris McFarland and Joe Sakic wanted to trade him away, and they did. The fact that an entire fanbase has been convinced to hate Rantanen for not signing a below-market deal in January is absolutely wild to me. Great PR work by Colorado, however. If you're able to win the battle of perception, it’s only going to be good for business.

Lineup

The Stars began the game with this lineup:

Granlund-Hintz-Rantanen
Marchment-Duchene-Seguin
Benn-Johnston-Dadonov
Bourque-Steel-Blackwell

Harley-Lyubushkin
Lindell-Ceci
Bichsel-Petrovic

Oettinger

Oskar Bäck skated this morning, but was held out after DeBer said he suffered an oblique injury in Game 3 and had to have his oblique “frozen,” which I assume is not nearly as sci-fi a thing as it sounds.

Mavrik Bourque drew into the lineup for Bäck, skating on his off-wing next to Steel, rather than displacing the Stars’ fourth-line center.

The Avalanche moved Gabriel Landeskog up to the second line, both because of how well he played in Game 3 and because (I presume) of how ineffective the Avs’ second line had been in the series to that point.

Game Beats

The Avalanche began the game by turning the puck over a few times and icing it two minutes in, as the Stars continued their Game 3 plan of forechecking the business out of Colorado.

Mikko Rantanen got a glorious scoring chance off the icing, as the Avs tried for a quick change shortly afterwards and the Stars’ top line found space, but Rantanen’s one-timer went square into Mackenzie Blackwood’s mask rather than finding space at the near post.

The Avs got two scoring chances of their own after that, when an icing that had appeared to be waved off wasn’t, and Colorado got going. Cale Makar also picked a puck off Jamie Benn’s stick in the offensive zone and led another good charge into the Dallas zone, and the game’s back-and-forth was well and truly on.

After another sweet move from Makar around Harley created a chance for Colorado, the Stars punched back, with chances from the fourth line and Jamie Benn testing Blackwood pretty severely.

Mikko Rantanen led another push at the crease, but he got Logan O’Connor’s stick blade right in the kisser, and the Stars went to the power play.

The first good chance had some zig-zag passing with a tip on net from Hintz, but Blackwood didn’t give up a rebound (for once). Hintz and Jack Drury would get into a stick-whacking match that ended with two-minute timeouts for both, but the power play was unaffected.

Dallas would get another few looks, and the low guy (Duchene, Benn, etc.) who received the puck started just taking it to the crease, with Colorado’s net-front defenseman backing off to protect the back door pass, leaving acres of room in the crease for all who dared to take it. But Dallas wasn’t quite assertive enough to do so, and the power play ended without conversion, albeit with a nice Jamie Benn reversal on Josh Manson as a consolation prize.

After some good defensive work by Dallas, Lian Bichsel took a hit in the hip area from Parker Kelly that appeared to cause him some distress, apparently hitting him near the hip flexor (as Daryl Reaugh said on the broadcast) that got nailed by a puck the other night.

Devon Toews decided to give Bichsel a break by tossing the puck out of play from his own end, putting Dallas back on the power play in a chance that felt kind of important for Dallas, who had been more or less holding serve 12 minutes into the game. It would be important, but moreso for Colorado.

Thomas Harley pinched down the wall to get a puck that was slowly traveling his way, but he attempted to make a play at the blue line and got pretty solidly beaten by Logan O’Connor, who raced down the ice and fired a snap shot past Jake Oettinger’s blocker before Matt Duchene could close him down.

1-0, Colorado, who had once again grabbed the game’s first goal.

As you’d expect, the remainder of the power play had a bit of a sag to it, with a more aggressive Colorado penalty kill locking down the boards before Dallas could get the puck to space.

The shorthanded goal seemed to dampen Dallas’s enthusiasm in the remainder of the first period, and the Stars spent a bit more time than they had been defending in their zone, with Val Nichushkin and Sam Girard both getting decent enough (call them Grade B) chances from the middle of the ice.

Mason Marchment got a chance of his own with a distant wrister (after losing his man in the defensive zone earlier in the shift), but it was what happened after his shot that caused issues, as he appeared to give Cale Makar a bit of a bonk in the nose here.

It might have been a bit of an “accidentally on purpose” conk to Makar’s face after a block attempt on Marchment, but Makar threw his stick up and grabbed his face, and the officials called Marchment for elbowing, which Marchment vociferously protested, on account of his elbows are not in his gloves. Would you believe the officials did not heed his protests?

Martin Nečas got two very good chances on the ensuing power play, including a bit of a Finnish Cut breakaway, but neither of them found paydirt. It would, of course, be Nathan MacKinnon, who benefited from a backhand pass from Jonathan Drouin that I think deflected off a skate and straight back to the point for Toews, who immediately sent over for MacKinnon, who one-timed it through a moving-over Oettinger at the near post to make it 2-0 with mere seconds to go in the period.

Second Period

The Stars needed to get the next goal to keep things in check, but Artturi Lehkonen got a good look from the slot early, and MacKinnon got a shot from the low circle, both of which I assume were supposed to be a fun fake-out of sorts. How much fun they actually were is up to you, the viewer, to decide.

Colin Blackwell did his best to drive some energy into his teammates with a big hit on Makar, which served as some catharsis for Stars fans, if nothing else.

Cale Makar nearly made it 3-0 five minutes in, when he faked out Granlund at the point and got down low for a shot that Granlund might have gotten a bit of a stick on. It set up an extended shift in Dallas’s zone by MacKinnon and company, with Oettinger making a fabulous stop on Cale Makar alone in the center of the low slot, then another couple of glorious saves on Brock Nelson shortly after that.

(It’s blurry, but then, it was all a blur, so this feels right.)

It was, by far, the most unhinged few minutes of the game to that point, with Colorado somehow not extending the lead at the end of it. To that point in the game, Dallas had been solidly outplayed by Colorado, deserving every bit of the 2-0 deficit they had, regardless of how you felt about the way it got established.

Val Nichushkin got himself a backhand chance ten minutes in, and Sam Malinksi sent another couple of pucks toward Oettinger that required a prostrate goaltending position to keep above the goal line.

It was, in other words, a pretty lopsided game halfway through. Seems like it would have been good for the Stars to score on one of those early power plays, when you really think about it. Also, to not give up a shorthanded goal. These are things that are easy to say after the fact, I know, but it’s not like that sort of wisdom is contextual or anything.

Overall, Dallas just looked perpetually tired, with the fourth line and third pairing only just surviving a shift, after which the Colorado captain came down and got a wide-open shot from (guess where) the middle of the ice. And Gabriel Landeskog scored his first goal in three years to send Ball Arena into hysterics.

It was undeniably a cool moment.

It was also probably a deserved one for both him and the Stars, given the run of play at that point.

What wasn’t deserved for either Marchment or MacKinnon was this collision behind the net, where both players knocked helmets together at nearly full speed after MacKinnon came around and ran into Marchment, who only had time to turn his shoulder before the collision, which sent a woozy MacKinnon to the bench.

Neither player missed a shift, though I was honestly a bit surprised that the concussion spotter didn’t pull MacKinnon, given the unsteadiness he exhibited after the collision with head contact.

The Stars got their first chance it what seemed like the entire period when Rantanen found Granlund off the rush, and Granlund dipped a shoulder and got a shot off with Blackwood not having sorted out his near post.

But the puck was blocked away, and the Stars took a 3-0 deficit into the second intermission that was, somehow, still better than they deserved, as you can see here:

Buzz, your defense. Woof.

Third Period

In what was surely a reward for the Stars’ best player of the game, Jake Oettinger was allowed to rest in the third period, and Casey DeSmith drew into the game.

It was a sobering moment for the team, with the move feeling equal parts preservation for a goaltender getting zero help and A Message to said zero-help-ers.

Dallas got its chance to change the shape of the game early in the third, when the Duchene line drew a power play by outworking the Avs’ third defense pair. But would you believe the power play did not look particularly deadly? I suspect you would, and it did. Or did not, I mean, aside from a nice Seguin feed to a cutting Mikael Granlund, who couldn’t quite manage to put a backhand through Blackwood.

I seem to recall talking about how it is good to score on the power play earlier. That point remains true.

Alex Petrovic had a rough game in this one, and he looked exhausted on a couple of shifts, including one midway through the third where he tried to protect the puck behind the net, eventually giving it away after falling down and gloving it away in desperation. This purpose of this paragraph is not to denigrate Petrovic unnecessarily, but rather to point out that even steady veterans who usually play simple, defensive games were struggling to make that work in this one.

Casey DeSmith looked his typically sharp self, to his credit. Despite coming in cold, he made some great stops on Cale Makar and company, doing whatever he could to keep an out-of-hand game at least in reach, should another team magically show up to replace the version of the Dallas Stars that had spent the prior 40 minutes getting waxed.

No such thing happened, however, and the 42nd Colorado shot finally got though the Stars’ new goaltender, as Bichsel and Landeskog were wrestling in front, and the Avalanche got a favorable but well-earned bounce to make it 4-0 with nine minutes to go.

DeSmith promptly followed that up with a glove robbery on Lehkonen, just to remind everyone that he is quite excellent, when he doesn’t have to use x-ray vision through two enormous humans a foot in front of him.

There is a world in which Dallas makes a big push late, but that world was in a nonparallel universe to this one, where the Stars never really got a single thing going. Colorado got everything they wanted, and if there’s one positive thing I can tell you about the rest of the game, where a late power play was canceled out by a Wyatt Johnston penalty, it’s that the Avalanche’s most dominant game resulted in the same number of goals as Dallas scored in Game 2.

The Stars have an even series. This was always destined to go at least six games, and now we know it will. If nothing else, this series is shaping up to be every bit as memorable as the other Avs/Stars series in these franchises’ histories. It only remains to be seen whether you’ll want to repress the memories associated with this year’s.