Game 40 AfterThoughts: It’s Always Money in Philadelphia

The Flyers are not a good team this year. They haven’t been for a while. But as these Stars have taught us through 40 games, the opponent doesn’t guarantee anything when it comes to points. Even with a stellar record of something like 8-2 against Philly in recent memory, you could easily see a path for Dallas to underperform in this one, because they have worn that path well earlier in the season.

This team isn’t looking like that early one in recent weeks, though. The 5-on-5 scoring is continuing its top-ten performance, and the Stars’ penalty kill and goaltending have given them every chance to win. And lately, the Stars’ offense has only needed a chance to convert the points, as the Stars’ winning streak reached six games.

Logan Stankoven and Matvei Michkov both came into this contest with just two points in their last ten games, which has cooled and/or doused the Calder Trophy talk for both rookies. But Stankoven did get an assist on Mavrik Bourque’s early goal, so I guess we can give this round to the Stars’ rookie, for whatever that’s worth.

The more noteworthy Stars rookie was Bourque, who has had two very good games in a row now. You could see Bourque skating with confidence off the drop in this one, and he led the Stars with four shots on goal in this one. The Stars needed a third line to join the top six during this points streak, and they’ve gotten it lately. Sam Steel and Colin Blackwell are the only non-rookies in the bottom six forward group, which makes it all the more impressive what the Stars have been doing lately. If Bourque keeps up this level of play, the Stars are going to look every bit like the deep team they profiled as in October.

Bourque told Josh and Razor after the game that he really needed that goal, and that the guys in the room had all been telling him he had to score one before the game back home in Quebec this weekend. I’m sure he’s glad to have that box checked, given how excited he must be to play in Montreal as an NHL player.

That’s because the Stars’ presumptive top forward trio of Wyatt Johnston, Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz are scoring now. Matt Duchene and Jamie Benn are also continuing to drive the offense, even on nights like this one where Duchene doesn’t record a point. It really has made things so much easier to be getting contributions from multiple lines, which, duh. The Stars are on an eight-game points streak, and they’ve scored three or more goals in seven of them, all wins. The one game they scored fewer than three goals in was the agonizing loss to Minnesota, when they scored two. It’s not complicated, folks.

The defense and goaltending are holding teams to 2.5 goals per night, so when the Stars get to three, they’re getting rewarded. Lately, they’ve been getting their reward in full.

Casey DeSmith got his second start in four games, and he collaborated with his posts to put up a very sound goaltending performance. That’s what you want from a backup goaltender, especially on the road in a first period where you trade a few more chances than you’d like. DeSmith’s sliding soccer save on Owen Tippett in the third period was a great example of that Wedgewoodian quality of embracing chaos that DeSmith can employ, but which he’s only needed to use sparingly.

Matt Dumba also got back in the lineup, and he fed Bourque with a smart and persistent rush early on. Dumba also took two penalties, which isn’t going to help his efforts to get back into the lineup on a regular basis. But still, he doubled his point total tonight, and that’s a start. He also played over 16 minutes, and that was a big part of keeping things more balanced, which was crucial after Miro Heiskanen’s heavy workload on Tuesday.

Ilya Lyubushkin also played like he had never left the game in New York, including two minutes on the penalty kill. These two games were probably the two games the Stars would have said they “should” win on this road trip, but that doesn’t really mean anything until you do it. And for Dallas to overcome a 3-0 deficit in New York before solidly thumping Philadelphia has to be a great comfort to a team that wasn’t putting opponents away like a Cup contender really should early in the season.

Now the Stars have a day to enjoy Canada before playing three in four nights. A lot of things can still happen on this road trip, but with all of the positive signs the Stars are showing throughout the lineup right now, there probably isn’t any better time to go into Toronot and Montreal than this one.

***

Brent Severyn would point out during the first intermission that the Flyers were aggressively sending a player down the weak side, attempting to exploit the same potential weak point of Dallas’s defense that we saw teams target in the playoffs last year. For instance, here’s the first Philly chance of the game on a pass that didn’t quite make it to the back door:

The Stars could have gotten victimized a couple of times this period, but they seemed to get wise to Philly’s plan, with a bit of luck to boot in keeping things from working out for the Flyers.

Mavrik Bourque got the Stars on the board first after a fantastic sequence where he prevented an A+ scoring chance in his own end before joining Matt Dumba and Sam Steel on the rush and putting in Dumba’s feed over Sam Ersson’s right pad.

I would be willing to bet you a decent amount of money that after this game, if asked about Bourque, DeBoer will call out this part of the play first. Coaches love to see centers taking care of the dangerous areas—in both directions.

The Flyers clearly took their coach’s comments to heart this morning, as Tyson Foerster nearly scored on a 4-on-2 rush (from that same back door), but he ended up putting his chance wide, much to his chagrin:

That would bite the Flyers later in the first when Roope Hintz led his linemates into ample space across the blue line before dropping the puck for Evgenii Dadonov and busting to the back post, where Dadonov found him summarily. Here’s how much space they had, thanks to some sloppy Philadelphia forechecking and neutral zone work to surrender basically a 3-on-2 from the center line on in:

Hintz would get a perfect pass from Dadonov on the back post, only for Ersson to save the initial shot. But Hintz had enough time and space to stuff home the rebound, and the Stars were well on their way to one of those first periods where the worse team deserves every bit of the deficit they wind up with.

The Flyers had nearly the same number of looks as the Stars, but too often, they failed to generate serious tests for Casey DeSmith, the best example of which was a feckless late power play after a penalty on Matt Dumba. Sam Steel had as good a look as anyone in the two minutes, and thus, the first period ended with the local faithful embodying some of the milder Philadelphia stereotypes by booing their team off the ice.

The second period didn’t start much better for the Flyers, as Rasmus Ristolainen and Egor Zamula got caught out for, and I am not making this up, four minutes on an extended offensive zone sequence for Dallas that culminated in a golden rebound opportunity that just bounced poorly for Colin Blackwell, who otherwise would have had a dunk:

It felt like a huge missed opportunity for Dallas, as the Flyers also had to deal with a broken stick for the final minute of the sequence, but Dallas ended up with nothing to show for it despite being caught out for so long that that every Stars’ defense pair got a shift in. Dumba and Harley even got back out for a second shift before the Flyers pair was able to take a breather.

Wyatt Johnston ensured that wouldn’t end up being a talking point, however, by converting a cross-ice pass from Jamie Benn with his latest top-shelf snipe off the rush. But the sequence all started with an ill-advised cross from Michkov that Nils Lundkvist jumped with full confidence, and that turned into a 3-on-1 for Dallas that Johnston was never going to miss. I wonder if John Tortorella likes passes like these or not:

The shot by Johnston should really be watched in full-motion video, so I won’t bother with a screencap for that.

Philadelphia had a couple of chances off the rush, including a shot from Travis Konecny that rang the iron. But the more concerning chance was an exchange where Miro Heiskanen got walked a bit by Ryan Poehling, who caught Heiskanen coming over to the right side to help and used his momentum against him. Thankfully, the chance ended up smothered by DeSmith, but it was not the only time in this game that Heiskanen looked a tad less dominant than his usual self, which is hardly unsurprising given the heavy load he’s been shouldering lately, including 30:43 on Tuesday in New York.

The Stars didn’t escape the period without paying a small price, however, as Logan Stankoven got knocked to the ice by Nick Seeler on a hit where he probably ought to be have been expecting one, given who Seeler is:

Nick Seeler buries Logan Stankoven.

— DavidCastilloAC (@davidcastillo.bsky.social) 2025-01-10T01:46:23.181Z

Thankfully, it was a clean hit that Stankoven bounced back from, and the Stars took a 3-0 lead to the third period.

The Stars got their first power play 19 seconds into the final frame, when Logan Stankoven was brought down by Owen Tippett. But the only real danger came in the final ten seconds, when Evgenii Dadonov took a slick Bourque cross and rang a shot off the crossbar just before Tippett came out of the box and got the puck to lead a 2-on-1 rush where he hit the post himself.

It was a really similar chance to the one that went in over Oettinger’s shoulder the other night, but sometimes you’re just a tad lucky, and that’s the difference. All told, it was only so much thunder, and things went on with the same scoreline.

It would be a far less dangerous-looking chance that broke the shutout for DeSmith, as a long wrister glanced off Matt Duchene and Morgan Frost in front, but bounced off the boards right into the wheelhouse of Morgan Frost, who banked the puck off DeSmith and in before the goalie could get to his post.

That made the game a little more interesting, and you could see the Flyers’ Belief Meter fill up a bit right afterwards. That also led to another Dumba penalty, and the Flyers’ power play had a chance to really make a game of it with ten minutes to go. But the Stars’ penalty kill is extremely good, you may have heard, and nothing came of it.

Matt Duchene got a 2-on-1 with Jamie Benn where he tried to force a pass and ended up turning it over for a Flyers’ counterattack, and DeSmith ended up needing to make a circus save on Owen Tippett, successfully getting the puck right as Tippett tried to drag it between his legs, but DeSmith was way ahead of him, and the chance was snuffed out.

Tortorella pulled the goalie with well over four minutes to go, and you couldn’t really blame him. If this game was going to have any kind of miracles in it for the local faithful, you might as well start pulling the slot machine lever as soon as you can. But Esa Lindell was able to shut things down along the boards, and the Stars got the puck to a wide-open Heiskanen, who teed off from the hashmarks and hit the gaping net to give the Stars the 5-2 finale.

This was a rare thing for Dallas, though a less-rare one in recent weeks: a win over an inferior opponent that was never really in doubt. That’s the sort of thing that really builds confidence throughout the lineup, and with the Stars about to start the second half of the season this weekend, they could hardly have picked a better time to get hot. Dallas has six wins in a row, and an eight-game points streak.

Right now, we’re all sitting inside with messy sleet and ice slowing things down in Dallas. Maybe the Stars knew what they were doing by getting out of town when they did.