Game 49 AfterThoughts: Good Hockey Team Beats Dallas, Again

Tampa Bay is good, even without a couple of key players

SotG

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Glen Gulutzan was pretty candid after the game today, when the Stars continued their 12-game stretch of malaise with a 4-1 loss to Tampa Bay.

That’s the same Tampa Bay missing Brayden Point and Victor Hedman, and the same Tampa Bay whose 11-game winning streak was just snapped the other night against St. Louis. But if you think those factors meant the Lightning wouldn’t look like their old selves, you would be wrong. Dallas had a chance to grab the game early, but then they didn’t come anywhere near the game in the second half of it, and that was all she wrote.

Dallas has gone 2-6-4 in their last 12 games. That is, without any mitigating factors, very bad.

Gulutzan was asked if he has confidence that the Stars are more like their first-half selves than their current form, and he was honest: They were overachieving earlier in the season.

“I think right now is who you are for the whole season,” Gulutzan said. “Did I ever think at one point that we were a .750 team for the whole season? No, I did not.
And you guys could look at analytics, and they would have told you we are not. We're certainly regressing to the mean. But we're better than what we're playing now. So, we need to get back to that.”

That’s not to say Gulutzan thinks the Stars are a .333 team, either. They’re clearly a good one, but they’re also a flawed and shallow one where the offense looks feckless when the power play isn’t juicing the numbers.

Rasmus Andersson won’t be walking through that door any time soon, either. Vegas traded potentially two first-rounders and two players to rent Calgary’s defenseman for a couple of months, which means any remaining blueline help on the market is only going to be that much more contested among teams looking to improve.

When you’ve only won two games in your last twelve tries and scored just one goal for three straight games, you have to be honest. And the honest truth right now is the Stars look outmatched more often than not, and it’s hard to see a clear path for changing that. Even in games like Utah or the first half of this one, the best effort Dallas can bring hasn’t been enough for more than a goal. Then they’ve gotten burned on more of their mistakes than they’re capitalizing on themselves. No scoring means no margin for error, and they’re paying for it.

This game was evidence of that, too. Gulutzan said the first period was pretty even, and he wasn’t wrong. Really, the Stars probably ought to have scored more than one goal in the first period, but as the game went on, it was the scoring forwards’ lack of offense (Jason Robertson ought to have had at least one goal if not two) and mistakes defensively that led to goals against.

“Second period, I thought for the first 10 minutes was a pretty even period,” Gulutzan said. “I think it’s just a story of, you know, they’re 11-0-1, now 12-0-1 in their last [13 games], and they just stayed with their game longer than we did. They won more battles. Quite frankly, the second and third goal was mistakes by our guys in our top two lines that are just pressing.”

On the second goal, Sam Steel nearly scored at one end, and nearly intercepted a pass at the other. He was then nailed with a hard shot that brought him to the ice to watch helplessly as what would normally be a hard-nosed shot block turned into disaster, as Oettinger was caught on top of his crease while an easy pass went past a prone Steel down low to Hagel, who was able to force a puck past a desperate Lindell on the empty goal line.

The Bolts’ third goal was the killer, though. For the second straight game, the Stars surrendered a rough goal at the end of a period, as Wyatt Johnston capped an otherwise decent shift with Rantanen and Robertson by turning over a puck right before the offensive blue line, leading to a Lightning 3-on-2 rush where even a great Oettinger first stop was rendered moot by an undefended rebound chance that Guentzel didn’t miss.

“The last one there, the third goal,” Gulutzan said, “Was certainly a turnover at the blue line that ended up in the back of your net. That’s a minute shift coming to the end, and that’s squeezing and not staying with your game, not trusting the next line up is going to go out there and get an opportunity. You know, you’re down 2-1, and we press.”

And from there, Tampa Bay did what they’ve been doing all year. Dallas didn’t get a sniff of the game in the third period as the Lightning showed every bit of the stingy defensive hockey that led them to back-to-back Cups a few years back.

Wyatt Johnston isn’t a player you usually see make mistakes like he did tonight. But as Miro Heiskanen said after the game, the Stars are at the point where they’re trying to do too much at times, and that is a pretty bad problem to have anywhere—and especially the top of the lineup.

“We’re at that stage right now where we’re squeezing,” Gulutzan said, “And the responsibility falls on me to get us into the right mindset to get us to play our game for 60 minutes. There’s been spurts of it in some of the games over the last 10, but not enough.”

Finding that consistency is the secret sauce, though. Under Pete DeBoer, consistency was a hallmark of this team, both in good ways and bad. Hiring Glen Gulutzan was always a bit of “Higher ceiling, lower floor” sort of move, and we’ve seen both of those extremes through the first 49 games this year.

“I think all night, they won more battles, especially in the second half,” Gulutzan said. They stayed with their game longer than we did.”

When asked whether Gulutzan may start looking to load up the top line with Robertson and Rantanen together like he did at the end of the second period, Gulutzan’s response was pretty candid.

“Yeah,” Gulutzan agreed, “But I’ve been doing it all year. It was something when you’re not generating a lot and you’re down a goal, you try to put three of your top offensive guys together. And I’ve done those things all year, but I think they ended up getting scored on [tonight]. It never always works out the same way.”

With that said, the Stars’ having scored three goals in three games (and in three regulation losses) still makes you think they’re going to have to squeeze some more juice from the orange. Whatever that looks like in terms of personnel, the feeling around the team is clear: Things have to get better, right now.

“We do have to find a way,” Gulutzan said. “I think there’s some guys that are really battling, and some guys’ games gotta get better. And it’s up for me to find the right combinations to do that.”

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Tampa Bay is an elite NHL team, and they showed it with good pressure on a couple of good shifts early. But Dallas’s depth struck first when Mavrik Bourque found Lundkvist on the far side, and the puck dribbled through Vasilevskiy before Oskar Bäck poked it home:

That might have led you to believe that the Stars weren’t facing the version of Vasilevskiy that has stymied them for so many years, but boy, did I have bad news for all of our past selves watching this game.

The fourth line followed that effort by drawing a penalty, but the Stars’ power play didn’t do much of consequence. And that stung when Tampa Bay tied things back up on a post-penalty rush from Guentzel, Kucherov, and…Dominic James, who beat Oettinger short-side on a shot that the Stars probably didn’t love to see go in.

Obviously that’s a nice saucer pass from Guentzel, and with Kucherov driving on the far side, I can imagine there’s a lot in Oettinger’s mind to keep track of. But unless that puck deflects severely off Lindell’s stick in a way I can’t catch, that puck cannot go in.

A puck that certainly could go in was two chances for Hryckowian after Max Crozier blew a tier and served up a pizza. Hryckowian was standing still, unfortunately, so all he could do was shoot or pull to the backhand to create a better angle, and he tried both, with Mr. Gato Grande stopping both efforts.

For his troubles, Hryckowian got into it with Declan Carlile after the whistle, leading to a scrum that a fairly quiet crowd very much enjoyed. Matching minors ensued, and the 1-1 game went on at 4-on-4.

Nikita Kucherov was Very Involved for the final two minutes of the period. First, Kucherov deflected a Harley shot that Vasilevskiy just barely got a piece of, averting a goal. Then, Robertson made a great defensive zone read by picking off a Kucherov drop pass in the defensive zone, going for a breakaway from center ice onward. But again, Vasilevskiy kept the five-hole closed, and the period would end 1-1.

Kucherov continued his involvement in the 2nd, when he nailed the crossbar behind Oettinger off a nice bit of O-zone work from Tampa. It was a good reminder that despite how much better Dallas looked in the opening frame than they have at times lately, the game was still a shot away from tilting in Tampa Bay’s favor.

Penalties can swing momentum in a heartbeat. So when Kyle Capobianco’s face got opened up on a play that was immediately blown down for a double-minor, it looked like Dallas had a great chance to take control. But after the mandatory review, it was revealed that Radek Faksa’s stick had wounded his own teammate, and the call was rescinded.

Jason Robertson was the Stars’ most dangerous player for the game up to that point, and he showed it with another great D-zone read to create a 2-on-1 with Matt Duchene. But after Robertson lost his man on a fake shot and cut inside, he tried to feed Duchene for the back-door dunk, only to miss the connection and see the chance go for naught. To add insult to injury (if a missed chance can be called that), Robertson got a piece of Hagel’s hands with his stick late in the shift, and the Stars had a penalty to kill—which, mercifully, they would, despite Guentzel clanging a rebound into the outside of the post with some net open.

The most back-and-forth sequence happened later in the second, when Oettinger robbed Cirelli on a Grade-A+ chance, then Vasilevskiy stopped Sam Steel on a dangerous setup from Rantanen, only for Brandon Hagel to finally capitalize after the Lightning had numbers. A goal came from a fortunate bounce off a Sam Steel block after Oettinger had come out to challenge the shot, leading to Lindell not quite holding the goal line on Hagel behind his goalie, making it 2-1.

Dallas got a chance to equalize shortly after that, when Rantanen drew an interference call on Cernak (after Cernak had gotten a pretty good shot from Benn in front of the net that could’ve been called, too).

The top power play unit stayed out for 1:55 of the two minutes, and Vasilevskiy had to make a big save on Hintz from below the hashmarks as well as a heavy one-timer from Rantanen. But the big push didn’t find twine, and the 2-1 Tampa lead stayed intact.

Robertson came out for a shift with Johnston and Rantanen, and they created some good pressure. But Johnston lost the puck along the boards, the Lightning got a look off the rush back the other way, and Dallas couldn’t sort it out.

Oettinger actually made a great stop off the initial shot, but nobody arrived to help with the rebound before Guentzel found it, and the third Tampa goal felt like one Dallas might not be able to come back from.

Kyle Capobianco probably needs to anticipate a rebound there rather than skating with James, but it was just that sort of game today: Dallas getting close time and again, but Tampa capitalizing more often. (In other words, exactly the way Dallas won a lot of games earlier in the season.)

The third period was a massive one for Dallas, but trying to solve Tampa Bay in the third period with a two-goal deficit is an experience that anyone who watched the 2020 Cup Final would probably rather not relive.

Unfortunately, Dallas had no choice in the matter, and it was every bit as unpleasant as you’d expect. The real bummer of the first 10 minutes came when Colin Blackwell got called for interference in the offensive zone after a solid O-zone shift from the third line. Gulutzan has talked about “stacking” good shifts on good shifts, but this game was a lot of one good, one bad from Dallas, and they paid for the bad more than they profited from the good.

Dallas killed the penalty, and they even mustered one of their two shots of the period to that point off a shorthanded rush. But time kept ticking away with Tampa leaning on Dallas at the wrong end of the ice, and we got to just 7:03 remaining without any serious scoring chances having been created by the trailing team.

Gulutzan pulled Oettinger with under four minutes to go on an O-zone draw, and Rantanen immediately bulled his way to the crease with the puck. But nobody else could find the handle, and the Stars ended up defending more shots at the empty net than they were able to generate at the other end.

Pontus Holmberg finally got the empty-netter to make it 4-1, and Dallas lost their third straight game in regulation for the second time this season.

Lineups

Dallas did this:

Steel-Johnston-Rantanen
Robertson-Hintz-Duchene
Bäck-Hryckowian-Bourque
Benn-Faksa-Blackwell

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Capobianco-Lyubushkin

Oettinger

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Tampa Bay did thus:

Guentzel-Cirelli-Kucherov
Hagel-Paul-Goncalves
Girgensons-Gourde-Holmberg
Bjorkstrand-Finley-James

Moser-Raddysh
D'Astous-Cernak
Carlile-Crozier

Vasilevskiy

After-AfterThoughts

• Today was Kids Day at American Airlines Center, and it featured a whole lot of fun stuff from younger Stars fans. My favorite of those things, however, remains the one from last year: Using drawings by kids as the player pictures on the hanging video board:

  

  It’s the spitting image, no?

• Thomas Harley got doubly unlucky on this chance late in the first, when Kucherov deflected his shot right on net, only for Vasilevskiy’s stick to miraculously catch the puck at the last moment:

• It was tough to see details precisely, but Mikko Rantanen threw something into the crowd after the net-front scrum following the whistle with 9:40 left in the second period. My initial guess was that it was a Lightning player’s mouthguard, but that is only a guess.

• Jake Oettinger made a huge save on Anthony Cirelli that ought to have led to better things in the second, but it was unfortunately overshadowed by the Lightning’s second goal not too longer afterward. Heiskanen uncharacteristically overskated a puck behind the net, and Kucherov found Cirelli wide-open in front, only for Oettinger to come up with a huge save:

• Finally, I wanted to end with a bit of an apology. I had a line in Saturday’s story that might have come across as derive or mocking about “fans screaming online” about Steel playing on the top line. That was intended as a bit of jovial pushback against the hordes of angsty Tweets I get when sending out lineup rushes where Steel is next to Johnston and Rantanen, but after a couple of readers’ feedback, I think it was a poor choice of words by me that sounded a lot like I was being scornful of y’all. That wasn’t a good choice for a fanbase feeling pretty bummed out right now, and I’m sorry for that. Please continue to voice criticisms and share your feedback with me, as always. This is a pretty cool place, I think, and I want to foster more healthy discussion and critical feedback, not less of it.

  • Obviously the Stars need a better top-six than they have right now, and Sam Steel can’t be the Game 1 of the Playoffs linemate of Mikko Rantanen if they want to win a Stanley Cup. I think that’s pretty clear. But just because I think I can understand the coaching staff’s rationale for doing so for some of the regular season right now, doesn’t mean that I need to be dismissive of other opinions in the way my comment was.

  • Also, if you play wing, please send your CV to the Dallas Stars ASAP.