Game 48 AfterThoughts: Cruel Bounce, Rough Road
The Stars went 2-3-1 on their six-game trip
SotG
I don’t know that any single game was going to be enough to entirely calm the waters of the Stars fanbase after the last ten games, but losing a 2-1 game off a crazy bounce off the top of Jake Oettinger’s mask is certainly unlikely to do the trick.
But for Glen Gulultzan’s part, he was pretty sanguine.
“Yeah, but that’s just the way it goes right now, you know?” Gulutzan said of the game-winning goal by Utah. “And the only thing you can do is just keep going and keep grinding. The results aren’t there, but the effort’s there, so that’s the good thing. The care, the dig-in, it’s all there. We’ve got to keep doing it.”
There’s not really much else you can say, either. Both teams had good chances, and the Mammoth easily could have scored a couple more if not for Jake Oettinger’s solid work in net. A 2-1 loss on the road isn’t something any team is going to agonize over too much, but the context of this loss made it sting just a bit more, with Dallas hoping to redeem the road trip with a third win in six games.
Instead, the Stars are now 2-5-3 in their last 10 games, and that’s just not good enough. This game saw a much better effort than Dallas mustered in Anaheim, and Matt Duchene himself said he thought Dallas really didn’t make too many mistakes.
“We did a lot of good things this game,” Harley said. “It’s unfortunate we gave up that one at the end of the second. That was kind of a back-breaker.”
Harley’s strong performance was indeed one bright spot from this game, even though he was hard on himself after the game for not doing “a little bit more” with the chance to step up into the top spot on the blue line. This game quite truly could have gone either way, and I don’t think the Stars are wrong to be a bit less hard on themselves after this one than they were after Anaheim’s loss. You have to build on the good things when you’re scuffling, and this game had a lot of those.
Unfortunately, the goaltending of Karel Vejmelka canceled out most of those things, including what looked sure to be the game-tying goal off a deflection from Roope Hintz with the extra attacker on the ice. But sometimes, one team’s mistakes get punished more severely than the others, and you have to set your jaw and move on.
There’s plenty you can gnash your teeth about, if you’re inclined. That first goal at the end of the second period came with the fourth line on the ice and just not quite enough attention to detail. As we’ve seen time and time again this year, not getting that first goal makes life far more difficult in close games, and that hardship was compounded by some tough bounces of the puck both on Dallas sticks and off their own goaltender’s head.
Really, the issues that have been haunting Dallas were less present in this one, and that’s a good thing even if the result isn’t. Once again without Miro Heiskanen, they looked far more combobulated than they did against a worse team in Anaheim, and you don’t get to rake a team over the coals for one game without giving them a modicum of credit for elevating their game in another. Mikko Rantanen was leaving everything out there in this one, and he had a lot of other people following his lead. It was still a herky-jerky performance at times, but Gulutzan has a good feel for this team’s pulse right now, and you could see a few of the improvements on display from the start, even against a fast Utah team.
Dallas was more dynamic in transition. They completed more incisive stretch passes. The penalty kill was its usual, sound self. Jake Oettinger played well, as did Matt Duchene, Thomas Harley, and Roope Hintz. This was one of those fine-margin games that the Stars have lost even in their best stretches, but it hurts when it comes during one of the worst.
Because fair or not, the best teams are judged by their ability to keep winning, like the Stars were doing in the first half. Now that they’re not getting the results anymore, even close losses to good teams get squeezed dry for evidence of wider issues. Winning brings peace, in sports. Anything else wil bring only pain, no matter what the process looks like. And with the process itself not looking great at times in recent games (though tonight was much better), the Stars surely aren’t feeling great right now.
And with the hottest team in the NHL arriving in Dallas on Sunday, that pain could get compounded quickly. Because despite what you saw in this one, you have to make your own breaks in this game more often than not.
Matt Duchene showed some noticeable jump early in his first full game starting on the right wing of Hintz and Robertson this year. In fact, all of the team showed more jump than they did in Anaheim, though that’s not the highest of bars to clear.
Jake Oettinger also flashed some promising signs on an early penalty kill, and you kind of got the feeling that the Stars were out to prove something against a Utah team that I can’t help but describe as “plucky.” They put some good shots on Oettinger in the first period, and it forced a lot of alert plays from Dallas to avoid giving up high-grade chances.
Kyle Capobianco had one of the Stars’ better chances in the first, joining a rush started by Radek Faksa and forcing a stick save out of Vejmelka that was far from a guarantee. Jason Robertson had one of the Stars’ bigger hits in the first, and yes, you read that correctly.
It wasn’t the best of first periods for Dallas, but it also wasn’t anywhere close to what we saw in some of the depths of other games in January, so you take the wins where you can get them.
Rantanen and Dylan Guenther both tested goaltenders early with good chances, but neither Vejmelka nor Oettinger showed signs of giving anything for free. But Utah did give Dallas something for free when they took a Too Many Men on the Ice penalty to give Dallas its first power play.
The top unit couldn’t get a dangerous puck on net, but Mavrik Bourque took a feed from Rantanen in the final seconds and tested Vejmelka from the top of the crease, only to find out why the Utah goaltender has amassed all those wins.
Thomas Harley looked confident as the second period got going, and he tested Vejmelka off a good feed from Rantanen. But Jake Oettinger wasn’t about to be outdone, making an outstanding double save on Guenther and then a full-on breakaway save with his right pad to stop J.J. Peterka on a breakaway during the long change.
That led to a really fun back-and-forth bit of hockey, with the Stars’ fourth line (led by an energized Jamie Benn) getting a trio of looks, then Jason Robertson getting denied by Vejmelka on a half breakaway, followed by Utah turning a 2-on-1/breakaway of their own into a poor dump-in. Hey, anything beats what we saw in Anaheim.
Oettinger had to make another big stop on John Marino after a nice bit of in-zone cycling by Utah, but he was less clean on a snapper by Peterka off the wing, leading to a dangerous rebound that Oettinger managed to survive.
Alex Petrovic and Radek Faksa combined for another good look from the fourth line, and you really got the feeling that the whole Stars lineup was entirely motivated to finish the road trip 3-2-1.
That’s when we got some 4-on-4, after Capobianco and Peterka got into a bit of a tussle. The Stars were cagey about their approach, earning some boos before generating a couple of shots from distance that Vejmelka stopped.
Then Rantanen’s reputation continued to haunt him after he and Mikhail Sergachev tussled for a puck along the boards. Rantanen hooked his arm inside Sergachev’s stick (without actually grabbing it with his hand), and that earned him a shot in the back for his troubles from Sergachev that sent Rantanen to the ice. Then, after the play was blown dead, Sergachev skated over and slashed Rantanen to express his frustration with Rantanen’s antics, and you have to think that slash gets called if it’s anyone other than #96 on Dallas there. But they say you only get one chance to make a first impression, and Rantanen has made his this year.
A bit of misfortune bit Dallas at the end of the period, when a puck that looked like it was getting cleared went off Jamie Benn and stayed in the zone, leading to disaster.
Alex Petrovic found himself on the wrong side of the netfront chance, as he didn’t adjust to the danger of Schmaltz’s near-post net drive in time to prevent a tip from the onrushing Marino in the final 10 seconds of the period.
Misfortune aside, it was a pretty demoralizing goal to give up at the end of a hard-fought 40 minutes from Dallas, and they had to sit on a 1-0 deficit during the second intermission.
Lawson Crouse immediately scored another goal to open the third period, but he did so with a stick well above the crossbar, and the officials immediately denied the goal’s legitimacy. Crouse, to his credit, didn’t even celebrate the tally to begin with.
After Schmaltz got his wedding vegetables tickled off a faceoff by Roope Hintz in the defensive zone, Hintz got a puck at the far blue line in stride, drawing a penalty in full flight with a bit of a Modano hand-shake, after which he put a decent backhand effort on Vejmelka.
Utah was understandably unhappy that the twig-and-berries-tickler from Hintz wasn’t called, only for him to draw a penalty that led to the tying goal. I believe that Hintz’s official response to those complaints was something along the lines of (and I double-checked this) “Neener neener neener.”
The fans’ anxious prayers may have reached the ears of some lesser but still chaotic hockey deity, however. Because a John Marino shot from distance plunked right off Oettinger’s mask a minute later, looping majestically over the Stars’ stunned goalie and rolling just inside the post to make it 2-1 in cruel fashion.
Even more disaster loomed shortly after that, when a Stars’ scoring chance went south on a Duchene rush chance that Sergachev got involved in. And apparently Sergachev’s histrionics with Rantanen earlier weren’t a moral stance against drawing penalties through sketchy means, because Sergachev put his skates together and squeezed Duchene’s stick to draw a tripping call, putting Dallas on a penalty kill they would, mercifully, get through.
The game opened up from there, and scoring chances got exchanged again, with Esa Lindell putting a great chance from the low slot off Vejmelka’s glove arm, and Oettinger giving some thanks for his right post after Guenther shanked a breakaway shot.
With 10 minutes to go in regulation, the game looked unlikely to end with the same 2-1 score we saw at the time. Wyatt Johnston created a beautiful look for Sam Steel by making a slick move and taking a big hit from Sean Durzi, but Steel’s snap shot sizzled into a fancy glove save from Vejmelka.
With 3:22 left, Gulutzan pulled Oettinger on an icing by Utah, and Dallas got a couple of shots from Harley with traffic in front during four more icings from the Mammoth. Dallas called its timeout after another of those, and Harley, Duchene, Rantanen, Robertson, Johnston, and Hintz would stay out for the entirety of the 6-on-5 set.
The best chance Dallas got during was from a high Rantanen one-timer that Hintz tipped perfectly.
But style points were in short supply in this one, and the ugliest goal proved to be the winning one, as Dallas fell 2-1 to cap a road trip they couldn’t be happier to start forgetting.
Lineups
Dallas did this:
Robertson-Hintz-Duchene
Steel-Johnston-Rantanen
Bäck-Hryckowian-Bourque
Benn-Faksa-Erne
Lindell-Lundkvist
Harley-Petrovic
Capobianco-Lyubushkin
Oettinger in goal
Utah used these:
Keller-Schmaltz-Crouse
Peterka-Hayton-But
Carcone-McBain-Guenther
Tanev-Stenlund-O’Brien
Sergachev-Durzi
Schmidt-Marino
Cole-DeSimone
Vejmelka
After-AfterThoughts
In case you missed it: Jim Nill confirmed on the Ticket during the Pregame show that Miro Heiskanen is expected to be back in the lineup for Sunday’s game against Tampa.
Nill also said Lian Bichsel is still on track to start skating next week as originally planned. When asked, Nill said that it’s at least possible that bichsel could play a couple of games before the break, but that it will depend on how his rehab goes.
My sense, for the record, is that they won’t rush Bichsel’s return. If he’s not absolutely 100%, there is zero reason not to give him a couple more weeks to ramp up over the break.
Two things jumped out about the lines tonight:
First, that Gulutzan stuck with the mid-game adjustment from Anaheim of putting Duchene on the right wing of Hintz and Robertson. Duchene played some right wing in Nashville in some very productive stretches for him, so it’s not irrational to try something similar right now. Duchene needs a bit of a jump-start, as I’m writing for D Magazine tomorrow, and this could be that.
Second, that the QueBäck line was reunited. That is as good a third line as it seems like Dallas has these days, and I think it makes a lot of sense to give them some more runway. If Duchene can get going, his ceiling is higher than Bourque’s right now, so it makes sense to give him a shot at doing that before you look at trade deadline options.
I can’t prove this, but I am willing to bet a small amount of money that Esa Lindell passed this puck into Lundkvist’s skates because he is so accustomed to playing with a left-shot defense partner in Miro Heiskanen:
I am the last person to offer any fashion commentary, but I think Neil Graham’s sweater vests and Glen Gulutzan’s black dress shirts deserve some kind of celebrity nickname.
Victory+ (No, I do not have any suggestions at this time. Thank you for your attention to this matter.)
Ilya Lyubushkin blocked a painful one-timer in what looked like his abdomen, or perhaps the top of his hip bone. I don’t think I would handle such an event with just a mild wince and a slow skate back to the bench.
Mikko Rantanen is a very committed player, and it’s a joy to watch, even when he’s using tactics from other sports to try to deny a zone exit.
I asked Gulutzan about the Stars’ lack of penalty calls last week, and he was pretty blunt in saying, essentially, that the Stars felt like more often than not, opposing benches that were calling for penalties a little more vociferously were getting rewarded, while the Stars were not getting the benefit of the doubt.
It’s hard to argue with him, given recent trends. But the solution isn’t a clear one at this point. You have to be careful not to get labeled as a whiny team, lest you get even fewer calls as a result. A pickle, to be sure, but Dallas is going to have to play its way out of it before anything is likely to change.
In the third period down a goal, Gulutzan and Alain Nasreddine put Lundkvist back with Harley, presumably in pursuit of some more offense. Without Heiskanen, one must make do.
Rantanen and Sergachev had something of a battle going all night long, and it was fun to watch. It still doesn’t quite feel like a division game, but you could see a playoff series against the Mammoth being highly entertaining, much like the Seattle set a few years ago.
The linesmen in this game were certainly, ah, attentive to details tonight. I’m not sure I’ve seen that many warnings issued in an NHL game this season, but I guess it’s good to know someone is looking out for the rulebook.
Thomas Harley played 30:16 in this game. I suspect he’ll be glad to have Miro Heiskanen back on Sunday.
Shiny Happy Rambles (mostly) – Mammoth Game for the Stars
1. Nils Lundkvist coughed up the puck right in front of the stars net less than 30 seconds into the game and nothing came of it. Then the Mammoth carried play with pace and purpose for the next four minutes but Oettinger was equal to the task and kept the game knotted at zero. That’s good, right? Or…Oettinger bailed the slow-starting, Stars skaters out early in the game. Both work.
2. The Columbus Blue Jackets hired Rick Bowness as their new head coach on Tuesday and their fans and players seem to be pretty excited about winning their first game under him. They are also amped over his view of how he wants the team to play, including, “When you can play fast, you’re putting pressure on the opposition. I hate playing slow.”
Ummm, wait, what? What did you do with the real Rick?
Then I read more, and Bowness said, “In our league, you don’t score your way into the playoffs. This isn’t the ’80s, man. You defend your way into the playoffs, and you get your offense by playing solid team defense.”
There he is!
The Athletic - “He said he was looking forward to practice Wednesday, when the Blue Jackets will likely get their first full exposure to the system Bowness wants them to play.”
Those poor Columbusonians and the players have no idea what they just signed up for.
3. I really have to start rethinking titling these Rambles under a theme before the game starts because that was not a shiny happy first period.
Smart Side of Brain: “Don’t look at the possession share from that period.”
Less Smart Side of Brain: *looks…regrets doing so immediately.
4. The stars came out in the second period quite unlike the team from the first. They stood up strong at the defensive blue line we're able to make clean breakouts and when they were able to hold on to it in the offensive zone they were able to hold on to it for long stretches. It was refreshing. Then Oettinger made two blue ribbon saves off of Dylan Guenther before having to stop J.J. Peterka in all alone. Then the Benn Faksa-Erne line started mashing pucks at the Mammoth net from all over and almost came away with something good before Vamelka stopped Robertson breaking in all alone.
Repeated push back. Nice to see.
Both teams playing fast, great goaltending, and counter-punches all over. 0-0 but this is fun!
5. Neither team stopped pushing all period as proven by a Mammoth goal with less than seven seconds left after Harley made a nice play at his blue line (I know, right!) to strip the puck from Guenther but Benn just barely missed it with a clearing attempt and the Mammoth scored on a driving tip very few humans on earth could defend.
The Stars trailing 1-0 after two is the same score as it was against the Ducks two nights ago. The weather of the two games may be the same but the climate is vastly different.
6. The Mammoth rank 4th in expected goals for (5v5), and the Stars 22
1st, so this game was going to be an interesting one way or another.
7. The second best power play in the league proves why they are the best power play in the league to make it 1-1 early in the third. If this game is not fun, at least it’s shiny. Nah, it’s fun too.
8. A short time later, Utah takes a usually innocuous shot from the point that Oettinger is partially screened on, he gets a shoulder on it, but the puck Klinko’s 10 feet over his head and into the net. Give the puck some credit, it tried to skitter along the goal line for three feet in an attempt to deny the goal. The post stood firm, denied it's escape, and rejected it back into the net . Weird.
Hockey, y’all.
9. Ten minutes left…2-1 Mammoth…
Utah color commentator: “have we seen a better game all year”
Play by play announcer: “I don't think so.”
Hard to argue. It felt like the playoffs.
10. I have no words for the last 10 minutes of that game. Actually, too many of them.
Both teams played extremely well. Maybe the Mammoth a little better but the Stars never looked out-matched like has been too often the case lately. They put in a full 60 minutes and ran up a team that did likewise.
If the Stars keep doing what they did in this game, good things will follow come playoff time.
I’ve been meaning to write this for about a week. Each time, I talked myself out of it with the same refrain: “Let’s give it one more game—maybe the Stars will invalidate everything I’m about to say.”
Well, it’s been a few games now. While there have been signs of improvement, I still haven’t seen clear evidence that they’re working their way out of this rough patch. So here goes.
This probably isn’t news to anyone, but in short: the Stars have a 5v5 problem. KK and others have pointed to possession metrics and other indicators, and the conclusion is hard to dispute. The new coaching staff seems to have installed more defensive discipline—xGA/60 has improved—but whether you rely on advanced stats or the good old fashioned eye test, it’s tough to argue that the Stars aren’t losing more often than not at 5v5.
Because I apparently enjoy killing brain cells by pondering unanswerable questions, I’ve spent some time thinking about why this might be the case. Hockey is fast and played in a confined 200-foot space. What happens at one end of the ice often directly affects the other, creating a constant chicken-and-egg problem where clean cause and effect is hard to isolate. I don’t have the answer—but I might have a few chickens. Or eggs.
1. Offensive puck retrieval
I wish there were a stat that measured how often a team successfully retrieves the puck and establishes possession in the offensive zone after a dump-in. I’d be very curious to see where the Stars would rank, though my suspicion is they wouldn’t fare well.
Context matters, of course. The Stars are skilled enough to generate offense off the rush, and on some nights that may be sufficient. But we all know that in tightly contested games—especially in the playoffs—you need to be able to put the puck behind the defense and go get it. Whether it’s a lack of speed getting F1 in quickly or simply losing too many board battles, it doesn’t feel like opposing defenses are being forced to work very hard to clear their zone after a dump-in.
2. Offensive possession
Great—we retrieved the puck. Now what? KK, this section is for you. When the Stars do establish possession in the offensive zone, I don’t think they generate enough chaos. And chaos is good. It forces defenders to chase, pulls them out of structure, disrupts assignments, and creates space. Because the roster is loaded with skill (duh), the Stars appear almost pre-programmed to look for the perfect play: the seam pass into the slot, the cross-rink feed to the weak side. When those work, they’re beautiful. The problem is that against a team in a decent defensive posture , those plays are extremely difficult to execute—no matter how skilled your forwards are. Often, you need chaos first to create the opening that skill can then exploit. Right now, the Stars tend to lead with skill. It wouldn’t hurt to balance that with a bit more chaos: pucks to the point, bodies in front, shots through traffic. Wing it at the net. Create a mess. Then grab the rebound, make the deft pass, and elevate to finish. Shoot the puck and get interior, as Razor would say.
3. Neutral zone
I don’t have much to add here beyond one observation from the past few games: the Stars’ gap control looks almost nonexistent. Opponents seem to have far too much space through the neutral zone. Whether it’s forwards not tracking back or defensemen not stepping up aggressively, teams are consistently hitting the blue line with speed—or, at minimum, getting clean dump-ins that go deep. Clogging the neutral zone doesn’t seem to be a thing right now.
4. Defensive zone
To be clear, I do think the defensive coverage system implemented by the new coaching staff has helped. The Stars aren’t chasing nearly as much in their own end, and after some early-season growing pains, major coverage breakdowns have become relatively uncommon.
That said, they still get hemmed in their zone more often than you’d like, and to me that’s largely a personnel issue. Simply put, the current D-corps feels physically outmatched. Against heavy forechecking teams, the Stars struggle—and that will matter even more in playoff hockey.
Miro and Harley can mitigate this with skating and puck movement, and Esa is skilled and strong enough to compete. Beyond that, though, the depth becomes an issue. Capobianco skates and moves the puck well but can struggle defending the interior. Lyubushkin and Petrovic play smaller than their size. Lundkvist, in my view, has had a particularly rough stretch.
I know a top-six winger is at the top of most trade-deadline wish lists, but for my money, adding another legitimate top-four defenseman is the higher priority.
This ended up much longer than I intended. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. It was cathartic to get all of that off my chest. Feel free to comment, disagree, flame, or ignore entirely. I’ll try to keep my mouth shut for the foreseeable future... ;)