Game 4 WCSF AfterThoughts: Doing and Dying
Do you think that you could stay for a while?
To see me face my fears
When I go and stand trial
For covering up my scars
By forging a smile
But you know me
I always go the extra mile
***
Before the game started, it might have been over. Not that a 3-1 series lead is church against Colorado, anymore than a 3-0 lead was in Game 1. But when it was announced shortly before the game that Val Nichushkin was being put in Phase 3 of the NHL Player Assistance Program and would be suspended for six months, you had trouble envisioning a way for the Avalanche to cope.
#Avs Jack Johnson on Val Nichushkin:
“He made his decisions. That’s all I’m going to say on that. He made his decisions.”
Nichushkin’s nameplate has already been replaced in the Avs locker room.— Corey Masisak (@cmasisak22) May 14, 2024
Look, let’s get one thing clear here: this program is primarily intended to help players suffering from drug and alcohol addiction, in addition to other diseases like clinical depression. Nichushkin has a lot of sordid rumors swirling around him right now, not least of all from his mysterious incident in Seattle last year during a similarly ill-fated Colorado playoff run. But the bottom line here is that he is hurting, and his actions have hurt himself and his team, and possibly others. It seems clear that his team is viewing Nichushkin’s latest misstep as a selfish decision, which is enough to render you a pariah at best in hockey circles, and persona non grata at worst. One suspects Nichushkin is done as a Colorado Avalanche player, and perhaps in the NHL. But it’s all speculation at this point. Here’s hoping Nichushkin, whose life has not been an easy one in many regards (despite the apparent wealth and fame and talent), gets the help he needs.
It was also announced that Devon Toews was out with an illness, which felt darkly comical, much like that afternoon game against Boston when Dallas had to call up half a defense corps just to be able to ice a full squad. Of course, that was back in the days when Dallas used six defensemen. Imagine how much less difficult that would be nowadays!
So the Avalanche gamely took the ice, and Jonathan Drouin and Caleb Jones drew in. We only had to see whether they would be able to stun Dallas to even the series despite the bleak circumstances. They did not stun Dallas to even the series, except in a strictly physical sense, by which I mean hurting them.
First Period
This game had a cagey start, perhaps because Colorado was finding its sea legs after the roster turbulence, and perhaps because Dallas didn’t want to make a bad mistake against a team with an inferior lineup. Wyatt Johnston had a couple of shots, but nothing quite as deadly as you’d hope, though of course we now know that was simply presaging later dominance.
The first big moment came after a hit on Stankoven by Josh Manson that was followed by bigger chance for Robertson, coming off a turnover in the Avs’ zone. Robertson almost had too much time all by himself, and Alexander Georgiev wasn’t troubled by the shot, itself a preview of many more Dallas chances that really ought to have made life more difficult for Georgiev that they ended up doing, despite the final score line.
For instance, remember how Mason Marchment got in alone himself, but his five-hole attempt didn’t beat Georgiev? That happened back when this game still seemed tense and nerve-wracking. Because, in case you didn’t realize it, this was the first game Dallas won by more than one goal, excluding empty-netters. We just assume every game is going to involve palpitations and agony, even if the result proves positive. We have been conditioned.
So it had been two golden chances, and no dice. It was a chance for Dallas to grab the game and put the pressure on Colorado right off the hop, but they couldn’t capitalize. It only got starker midway through the period, when Pavelski and Johnston combined to pull Georgiev out of position, only for the puck to bounce agonizingly in front of the net, but without anyone to shovel it home.
However, Dallas’s early pressure would earn them a power play when Caleb Jones got caught reaching. Dallas generated plenty of good looks, but again, not quite the killer pass to pull Georgiev out of position, and he found Seguin and Robertson’s chances while his teammates got to the rebounds created elsewhere. Shots on goal were 9-2 Dallas with five minutes to play, but the lack of conversion by Dallas started to feel ominous when the Stars got called for a penalty when Logan Stankoven hooked Samuel “Sam” Girard. It was a chance for Colorado to make a statement after Dallas’s pressure, to put some doubt into the Stars’ minds. This was when Colorado would punch back, grab their first lead of the series, and force Dallas to depart from their gameplan while Georgiev grew larger. After all the Stars’ success on the penalty kill in the preceding games (which you can read about on this very web site!), this was the chance Jared Bednar’s team needed to prove they could adjust to Deboer’s aggressive penalty kill and make this a series again. This is why you have Rantanen, MacKinnon, and Makar, for moments like these. Power play: Activate!
Then Wyatt Johnston scored a shorthanded goal.
The kid just never gives up. pic.twitter.com/RI0axen1or
— z – Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) May 14, 2024
That’s a sorely inadequate description, though. What really happened is that Wyatt Johnston treated Mr. Norris Trophy himself, Cale Makar, like a kid brother or an elderly relative, ripping the puck away from him and boxing him out with a subtle pick out of Colorado’s own playbook, then getting to the net for two successive chances in order to finally score. It was the sort of play you’d expect from Nate MacKinnon or Jason Robertson, even. But Wyatt Johnston has spent the whole year amassing a case for why he is the Stars’ most valuable player, and this moment might end up being the decisive argument. It was Wyatt Johnston’s night, regardless of whether he dressed it up with an empty-net hat trick or not.
Still, it was only 1-0 after that, and barely. Jake Oettinger’s post made a save on Colorado’s one set of pressure late in the period, but Dallas weathered the storm, and Jamie Benn had a chance for a buzzer-beater on a partial breakaway, only for Manson to get enough of him to stop it. Benn flew over Georgiev’s pads with Manson jumping on top of him, but thankfully Georgiev didn’t get much contact from Benn, and the Stars captain popped up with a completely imperturbable expression as the buzzer sounded and the dogpile began.
Jamie Benn drives the net, trips on the leg of Georgiev and then gets cross checked while down by Josh Manson.
Penalties will be called.— Bruce LeVine (@BruceLeVinePuck) May 14, 2024
It was a statement of a period from Dallas, although it would have been nice for the statement not to have been, “Utter dominance by us means a 1-0 lead.”
It continued in like fashion pic.twitter.com/JKIWap8IP2
— Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath) May 14, 2024
Second Period
Benn apparently got Georgiev to flinch enough that he got called for Goaltender Interference, with the crosschecks by Manson evening things out. Karma, I suppose, though a power play to start the second period would have been more welcome than 4-on-4. The penalty calls in this game somehow ended up even for both sides, despite Dallas utterly dominating Colorado. That’s the playoffs in series like these, though, so what are you gonna do? Start your own league, with your own rules and officials? And get all your friends to come? I’d like to see that!
Craig Smith attempted to join the infirmary after he went into the boards thanks to a rut in the ice. He skated off under his own power, but it was a scary moment nonetheless. Thankfully, Craig Smith is a Fourth-Liner, and that means resilience. It also means you can handle anything the Colorado Avalanche throw at you.
Caleb Jones, filling in for Devon Toews, took his second penalty in as many periods when Stankoven and Robertson got in on the rush, and it probably qualifies as A Good Penalty to Take, given that Harley was lurking dangerously on the back door awaiting a pass.
Or at least, it would’ve been a good penalty, had Dallas not systematically ground the Colorado penalty kill into dust over the entirety of the two-minute minor. With Lehkonen playing stickless, Heiskanen and Robertson showed patience and wisdom and a whole host of other virtues, with Robertson finally sealing the deal with a magnum opus of a shot-pass to Johnston, who put it off Georgiev as he tried in vain to close a gaping net.
KNOCK KNOCK, GUESS WHO, WYATT JOHNSTON'S GOT TWO 2⃣ pic.twitter.com/EZJvjGbPov
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) May 14, 2024
Getting a second goal felt absolutely massive at that point, with Dallas dominating in shots, and I double checked this, by a margin of 22-4 at the first TV timeout of the second period. It was important to have the score begin to reflect the real gap in play between the two teams, lest a bad bounce appear to negate all of Dallas’s great work thus far. But the only bad bounces in this one happened to Dallas’s bodies, not their net.
Roope Hintz was announced as Questionable to Return after this blocked shot/cross check combo, courtesy of Sean Walker:
But if you watch his whole shift, you’ll also see a nice little Nate MacKinnon cross check on Roope’s arm or hand earlier in the shift, as highlighted here:
Roope Hintz did not return after a late first-period injury…here's a look at what happened pic.twitter.com/FNvWZjJWgj
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) May 14, 2024
It was especially rough timing for Hintz after he’d started to come on strong in this series, but Tyler Seguin stepped up onto the top line from that point, with Dallas having little choice. Hintz would not return, and you have to think that cross-check to the back of the ribs in a vulnerable position might have cracked a rib, or at least left a pretty severe bruise. Or the cross check to the arm before that. Or the blocked shot. Basically, whatever is left of Roope Hintz needs all the medical attention it can get, given the abuse he received in just a couple dozen seconds here.
It’s worth noting that Joe Pavelski continued to look uncertain with the puck at times, but that he also absorbed 18 minutes in this game, and did so well. It’s no secret that this isn’t the Pavelski of last year’s run, but getting quality minutes out of a player fighting the puck is still a win at this time of year, especially when you’re short-staffed.
Craig Smith also got a bit more of insult and injury later, when he had an empty net facing him (well, it was full of players, but not well-guarded otherwise), only to put the puck off the pipe and out of play—right before getting scraped with a Sean Walker stick across the face that didn’t result in anything. Tough couple of moments for Craig in this game.
Jason Robertson was battling hard in this game early, and it was his forechecking that ended up putting Dallas up 3-0. Robertson gamely went deep against two Colorado forecheckers, but after enduring a reversal from Makar, Robertson ended up winning a puck that had bounced up high and getting it back to the point, where Miro Heiskanen sent a hopeful wrister that may have glanced off Seguin on its way in, though it was given to Heiskanen in the building.
Pretty good defenseman, Miro Heiskanen, lights the lamp pic.twitter.com/silIMiX6Wz
— z – Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) May 14, 2024
That goal would wake up Colorado a bit though, as Casey Mittelstadt finished some great forechecking by Colorado, for a change. Mittelstadt was allowed to emerge from behind the net (where Tanev probably oughtn’t have been) with the puck, basically creating his own chance ex nihilo to give himself an angle on Oettinger’s glove side while Duchene and Suter failed to cut him off, to make it 3-1.
The building came to life after that, and the chances started flowing both directions quickly. Nobody needs to tell Dallas how quickly a three-goal lead can disappear against this team, and Colorado had a couple of looks to do something with. But Jake Oettinger stepped up in the quietly dominant way he does when he’s at his best, and nothing came of it. After the music stopped, Colorado was facing a 3-1 deficit with 20 minutes left in the game to avoid facing, well, a 3-1 deficit.
Third Period
Colorado came out with exactly the sort of push you’d expect, leaning on Dallas heavily for the first five minutes. But most of the shots came from distance, and the rebounds were relatively harmless thanks to assiduous cleanup efforts by the Dallas Turtle Network (DTN). In fact, you can see from this graph courtesy of HockeyViz that the bulk of the Avs’ shots from in tight were deflection attempts, whereas they got almost no quality wrist/snap shots off from the inner slot.
Roope Hintz’s absence started to loom large as the third period intensified, though. Even when he hasn’t been scoring, Hintz has been a massively helpful defensive presence that nobody else can really fill. You wonder if that’s what led to Dallas being a bit more cautious early in the period, as they didn’t have the same weapons they did early to really assert their will.
The caution almost worked out seven minutes in, when Matt Duchene ripped the puck away from Jonathan Drouin and sent Evgenii Dadonov in alone. Dadonov then chose an unorthodox tactic whereby he stopped at the top of the crease with Georgiev having pushed out, then slowly and deliberately attempted to just reach the puck around the goalie like he was holding a plate of spaghetti above so much dirty laundry. But the recovering Colorado players were able to arrive just in time, and the chance fizzled. I love how Dadonov sees things differently than other players, but man, sometimes you just want to see him rip a puck under the bar, you know? I suppose that is easier said than done. Anyway, that’s what Chris Tanev tried right afterwards on a methodical 4-on-2 by Dallas, but it turns out the shots under the crossbar only work if they go under the crossbar instead of over it, so it remained 3-1 with the halfway point of the third period approaching.
Thomas Harley made a really nice desperation play on Cale Makar at that point, with MacKinnon having fed Makar on the weak side only for Harley’s long reach to send the dangerous chances into the netting. Harley has looked more and more composed as the series has gone on, which is no small feat against the team that scared the daylights out of him in his NHL debut back in the 2020 Edmonton bubble.
That play looked even bigger when Dadonov finally put home a rebound to make it 4-1 after a Dallas shift that just seemed to find Colorado gassed. Seriously, it was weird how much Colorado seemed to just be running on fumes in the third period. Isn’t altitude, like, their superpower or something?
Yesterday may have been Mother's Day, but today's about Daddy
Evgenii Dadonov makes it 4-1 Stars halfway through the 3rd period #TexasHockey
Video via @DallasStars pic.twitter.com/BSSXslbj9r— SportsDay Stars (@dmn_stars) May 14, 2024
Whether from the mental deflation after missing Toews and Nichushkin all game or just the reality of Dallas constantly finding ways to come out on top, the Avalanche really sagged for much of this contest. That was never more apparent than when Chris Tanev got assessed a dubious delay of game penalty for knocking the net off its pegs as he came back to clear the puck, only for Colorado to fail to generate a single shot on goal in the ensuing power play. The fans started to leave the building, and Dallas got profilgate with their chances at that point, with Duchene getting a golden opportunity on a 2-on-1 down low of his very own, only for his cross-ice feed to skip over a stick and negate the…wait, what do you call a goal after a dagger goal? Violent metaphors abound, but I guess I’d go for a flatline goal, or a bodybag goal or something. Open to suggestions here from all the morbid folks out there.
Ross Colton wasn’t done though, as he attempted to send Chris Tanev to join Roope Hintz in the medical room. Tanev didn’t play another shift after that, although in fairness, with a three-goal lead, he didn’t really have to. But it’ll be something to keep an eye on, certainly.
The final moment of note in this game came when Wyatt Johnston deferred to Sam Steel with the empty net, choosing the better scoring chances over a perfunctory hat trick on his last day as a 20-year-old. Maybe Johnston just truly doesn’t care that much, or maybe he’s just messing with all of us, and that was a troll to everyone who wanted yet another glittering statistic to put beside Johnston’s name.
Whatever. We’re only seven wins into this playoff run, and I think it’s high time we started realizing that Johnston knows best. He led the team in ice time in a game where Nate MacKinnon should have been rampaging up and down the rink, terrorizing the young players. Johnston scored a brilliant opening goal to steady the ship, and he scored the key insurance goal on the power play to keep Colorado from nipping at their heels before Dallas established the lead they never gave up. This kid is unreal, which is no longer true, since he’s officially 21 as I publish this. Happy Birthday, Wyatt Johnston.
***
Do the Avalanche have anything left? Can they do what Toronto did against Boston and make a series out of what’s become a nightmare? I don’t see it, personally. Dallas has been the better team so far, and even with some banged-up players, they’ve got the better rosters, too. Nothing is guaranteed, but I have yet to see a 60-minute effort from Colorado that says anything other than this series is the Stars’ to lose. And surely they can’t mess this up, right? Of course not, which is why that sentence definitely didn’t send your face into a spasm while reading it.
Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said he’d have more injury info tomorrow on Roope Hintz, Craig Smith and Chris Tanev
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) May 14, 2024
So we wait to hear about Hintz, and perhaps also about Smith and Tanev. After trailing by two games themselves against Vegas, Dallas can’t get cocky now just because they’re on the other end of things. But this game did prove that Dallas has the lineup to win this matchup. They have the approach to frustrate Colorado (especially on what used to be called their power play). And they have a 3-1 series lead as they head back to Dallas. That’s the best possible outcome of a 1-1 beginning on home ice, you know. Taking it to Colorado in their house and running their own fans out of their building is a really impressive accomplishment, but it will be a lot less fun if you have to go back there in Game 6. If you take care of business quickly, then maybe Johnston isn’t the only one who deserves a piece of cake this week.