Game 5 WCQF AfterThoughts: Time for the Big Guys

Big stuff in a big game

I felt the way that you hugged me
When I was broken inside
And that has to mean something

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This series, whether it ends in six or seven games, is one that will make sense post facto, I’m sure. But through five? It’s just wild, with absolutely no ability to predict what’s going to happen, except that it will be different. Unless it’s the same.

Dallas is coming off a home win by four goals right after Colorado did the same. The big names for Dallas finally showed up, with two goals from Wyatt Johnston along with tallies from Mikko Rantanen and Roope Hintz. Nathan MacKinnon scored a superhero goal at the time Colorado looked best poised to rip into Dallas’s comfortable lead, only to have Dallas score a huge power play goal when they needed it most, from two players they’ve needed for a lot of the series.

Matt Duchene’s pass to Johnston for the power play goal that made it 4-2 was the moment, I think. Colorado was pushing, and Dallas was reeling. But unlike Game 4, Colorado was leaving room for Dallas to counterpunch, and they landed more than enough to buckle the Avalanche just in time.

A tying goal for Colorado could have taken all the wind out of their sails, but the power play came up huge. It looked better on all four its chances, too, with Dallas working in spaces of the Colorado penalty kill they weren’t on Saturday night—in particular, down low and in the low slot.

I loved the play to take the puck to the goal to pull the lowest defender away from the slot, then feeding Benn, Johnston, or Hintz for those shots up there between the circles.

Benn was robbed by Blackwood’s glove in the first period, but that was back when Blackwood was a viable goalie, and before he started losing pucks in the rafters or letting in howlers from impossible angles.

Then again, Wyatt Johnston is no stranger to scoring goals from sharp angles in big playoff games. Just ask Seattle two years ago, or Vegas last year. This is what he does.

Every time someone’s asked what’s wrong with Johnston, I’ve had the same answer: just wait. He’s shown us time and time again that he can course-correct better than almost any young player I’ve seen in recent memory, and tonight was his night. He could’ve easily had a hat trick, and I think his long-distance effort at the empty net really would’ve set the building off to a degree we haven’t seen since, well, since Lian Bichsel on the video board a minute later.

Johnston is just too good to be quiet for long. And in this one, he didn’t even wait ten seconds.

By the way, my brother pointed out how much of a story unfolds just by watching MacKinnon on the opening goal, so let’s take a quick look:

Here he is, barely countenancing Johnston’s rush into the corner, looking the other way.

And here he is, recovering in time to cover the ground Johnston got on him. I’m sure he figures he’s safe enough now.

And here he is after the shot, with his arms hanging at his side with a real “Come on, man” vibe.

Doubt Wyatt Johnston’s scoring abilities at your own peril.

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Aside: Colin Blackwell’s overtime goal feels like a lifetime ago. This series has felt so different after each game, but this one at least featured the Stars actually getting and holding a lead, for once.

In fact, I can do the math quite easily: the Stars held a lead for 59:51 in this game. So much for that statistic we’d all memorized by now about how little time Dallas had led in the series. It’s nice when teams just throw a big narrative in the trash like that.

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You can’t say enough about how big Mikko Rantanen’s goal was to make it 3-0. Not only did that end up being the game-winning goal, but it was also off a Colorado breakdown. It was Rantanen punishing Colorado’s lapse by using his speed, and that’s the player Dallas knew they were getting.

Rantanen created a couple more chances by beating his man from a standstill in this game. Really, this felt like one of the best game he’s played as a Stars, and not only because of the high stakes.

Those didn’t hurt, though.

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Lian Bichsel was a menace tonight, and the 14 PIMs seem actually low, in a good way. Bichsel took something like eight hits in the scorebook tonight while only technically dealing out a few, but the additional scuffles he got into with just 11 minutes of ice time have really gotten into some Colorado heads, I think.

I was talking with Joel Kiviranta this morning about his back-and-forth with Bichsel, and while Kiviranta clearly didn’t want to give any bulletin board material, I think he had been enjoying that sort of mismatched battle the two had been engaging in.

I think Logan O’Connor enjoyed it less in this one, suffering a whole lotta business in the final minutes of the game.

But I am certain Bichsel enjoyed it. even cracking a smile when he noticed he was continuing to be shown on the video board while in the box, and motioning to the crowd with his hand to his ear to blow the roof off the building.

The rookie is enjoying his first NHL playoff run.

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Cody Ceci was incredible tonight. The penalty kill as a whole was fantastic, but you can’t say enough about how well Ceci, Lyubushkin, and even Petrovic and Bichsel have played since Heiskanen went down.

The Stars are getting everything those players have to give so far, and it’s been remarkable. If Dallas ends up making it past Colorado, the story of their blue line bearing up in the absence of Miro Heiskanen is one that will be impossible to tell fully unless you watch every game. They’ve been so, so good under immense pressure from Colorado.

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Pete DeBoer called out Jamie Benn specifically after the game as one of the Stars’ best players. This series has seen Jamie Benn give a special sort of blend of physicality and practicality, I think. He’s been both slick with the puck but also not foolish, and he’s managed not to cross the line with penalties or lose his head, even in games like Saturday’s that felt pretty dreary.

Leadership is a lazy narrative when you don’t have real examples to give, but Benn’s entire series has been an example of keeping the team pointed north, and games like this after games like Game 4 are a pretty obvious example of how much belief there is on that bench.

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Still, a 3-2 series lead is not a 4-2 series lead. The Stars, should they manage the trick, could well have a foe who knows all about 3-2 series deficits waiting for them in St. Louis.

I won’t remind you of when St. Louis faced a 3-2 series deficit six years ago, but just know this: a series is not over until it is over. And this one feels like it’s a different one every time it wakes up.

Except for the penalty kill, I mean. It’s been incredible all series, and it earned every bit of the 0-for-3 night Colorado’s power play suffered in this one—despite putting their top unit out for the entire set on their first and third power plays, and leaving MacKinnon out for all of the second set as well.

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On that note, Bednar clearly doesn’t appreciate the dearth of production from his secondary scorers, and I would not be shocked at all to see some wild forward lines for Colorado in Game 6.

Brock Nelson hasn’t brought anything close to what Colorado was hoping he would when they signed him. Val Nichushkin has the one 4-on-4 goal. Jonathan Drouin and Martin Nečas just don’t feel dangerous at all for Colorado, and that’s gotta drive the coach crazy. MacKinnon and Makar simply cannot do it all themselves.

Unless, of course, they do. You would also be a fool to doubt those players with their backs against the wall.

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Jake Oettinger responded to the MacKinnon goal (he didn’t have a chance on the first one) by stopping everything else he saw. He really has instilled more confidence as the series has gone along, and he looked like a goalie without a single bad memory in his life, in this one.

We’ll see if Mackenzie Blackwood can summon similarly supportive amnesia. Even aside from the freak bounce for the second goal (which is still a little on him for not tracking off the blocker or backing up on quickly enough), he really seemed to get shaky from the drop. That first goal is a horrible one to let in, and frankly, I think the Stars ought to have started peppering him more quickly than they did.

But once they did start sending pucks in, it was clear tonight was not Blackwood’s night. We’ll see if he can bounce back when they need him most.

(Scott Wedgewood was great in relief, though. Not a bad Plan B, so I likewise wouldn’t be shocked to see an early goalie change if the Stars leap out to another 2-0 lead on Thursday.)

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It was surprising to see Landeskog get away with both of his shots to Lindell and Harley in the third period, but Pete DeBoer didn’t want to comment on any of the post-whistle stuff after the game, choosing instead to praise each of his six defensemen by name.

In fact, would you believe Jared Bedar objected to, of all things, the elbowing call on Sam Malinski, in this one?

“I just don't love (that call),” Bednar said afterward. “That puck's getting passed to the slot and Sam's in a position where he's got to play the guy and he (Robert’s note: I presume “he” means Steel here) tries to jump by him. It's a tough call when you look at some of the physicality that's going on at and away from the puck on us to get that interference call.”

Personally, I think both sides probably benefited from some things being let go in this one, but your opinion will probably depend on which side you’re rooting for.

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One more thing about penalties: Mason Marchment pointed out something today when I asked him about that elbowing penalty on Cale Makar where the contact was really from his glove.

I asked Marchment if there was a chance the butt end of his stick might have gotten Makar, and he pointed out that the way he holds his stick, the knob is always inside his glove, not extending outside of it. He actually feels like he has more control that way.

Here’s a screenshot from another game where you can see the white-taped knob is well-ensconced within his glove during normal play.

(Here’s what the end of his stick looks like)

Obviously, nobody but Makar and Marchment know exactly what happened, and even more obviously, the penalty was not really the reason Dallas got run into the ground in that one, but I found it interesting.

It’s also possible Makar reacted instinctively in the moment when he felt contact to the face, and that’s why he threw his stick afterward. But I always enjoy it when players are willing to countenance conversations like this, just to help us do our best to logick with ye olde hockeye game(e).

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Elliotte Friedman said something interesting on 32 Thoughts a few days ago: he had heard that the NHL was checking up on teams with players on LTIR for long chunks of the season. Friedman said he was wondering if the league was pushing a bit more to look at medical records and salary cap plans, just to make sure teams weren’t pulling any outright shenanigans in order to activate a ton of players in Game 1 of the playoffs that were medically able to play during in the regular season.

For the Stars, it’s pretty straightforward: they had the cap room to activate Seguin when he was ready by sending down Lian Bichsel, which is what they did in Game 82. And for Miro Heiskanen, it was clear for a while that he was never going to be available in Game 1 of the playoffs (as we’re seeing), so I don’t think they were really a team the NHL was particularly skeptical of. But it is intriguing, nonetheless, that the league has been looking to crack down on the existing loophole as much as they reasonably can.

Of course, as with all NHL initiatives, we’ll see how effective their efforts are come next season.

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A fan behind the Avalanche bench in Dallas dressed up as Jared Bednar for this game.

My big, lingering question: how did he know what suit Bednar was going to wear in this game? Please give me your best theories.

Lineup

The Stars began the game with this lineup:

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

Lindell-Ceci
Harley-Lyubushkin
Bichsel-Petrovic

Oettinger in goal

Colorado went with the same lineup as Game 4.

Game Beats

Nine seconds into the game, Wyatt Johnston took a shot that made me think he had watched some Mackenzie Blackwood film. He took a sharp-angle shot, and it somehow got through Blackwood at the near post.

It was a Jason Robertson sort of goal, which is to say once where a weakness in the goalie’s approach seemed to have been exploited by the shooter. From what I could tell, Blackwood’s glove hand simply hadn’t gotten flush to the near post and his pad and torso, and I have to wonder if that’s a tendency Johnston knew about beforehand.

It was also a statement goal, and one Dallas had desperately needed all series. For the first time in five games, the Stars had opened the scoring in a crucial game five.

Colorado pushed back though, as you’d expect. Oettinger saw one puck deflect off the outside of his near post after (I think) getting a piece of him as well, and Colorado had a couple of heavy shfits that saw Dallas just barely clearing and changing before having to do it again.

After a couple of Colorado icings, the Stars got the first power play of the game when Parker Kelly hooked Mikko Rantanen off a puck in the neutral zone. It was a chance to go up by two early, but two incredible chances were foiled, as Seguin put a rebound back through the open crease from a sharp angle that a left-shot would have been able to bury with ease, and Blackwood made a glorious glove save on Benn from the guts of the slot.

Seguin is a right-shot, unfortunately

Despite some great puck movement from (primarily) the second unit, Dallas came away empty-handed. And a Roope Hintz interference call gave Colorado a chance to take advantage of the missed opportunity right afterward.

Oettinger began the PK set with a glove save through traffic on MacKinnon, and while Ceci and Lindell stayed out for all two minutes of the penalty, so did the entire Avalanche top power play unit. But Dallas’s penalty kill was able to get through it.

The Mason Marchment Experience began shortly after that, with Marchment making a move around Ryan Lindgren in the offensive zone, then taking a heavy hit along the boards from Josh Manson.

Marchment would later wind up in the defensive zone pinning the puck along the wall for a dozen seconds or so with a crowd, and he would end the sequence with a beautiful shot block to give the Stars a whistle.

Blackwood looked shaky in the first, and a couple of shots from distance by Dadonov generated surprisingly decent rebounds to reinforce that fact, with Dadononv whiffing

Oettinger had to face a good shot from Drouin as well, after the Avs’ forward was allowed to curl out from behind the goal, but Oettinger’s large frame was sufficient to the task.

Speaking of the opposite of that, Blackwood had to face a couple of great chances from Dallas, and his frame ended up betraying him on a shot by Harley in the final minute of the period after Drouin turned the puck over a zone exit.

That led to Harley (bottom right in the above) jumping into the play, with both Nelson and Nichushkin caught enormously high above the play (don’t turn over the puck on zone exits, kids).

You will note the puck, traveling straight up off the blocker.

I don’t know how many of you guys are scientists out there, but when a puck goes up in the air, it has a tendency to eventually come down.

Blackwood eventually comes to the same conclusion, but not quickly enough, as you can see here. Blackwood has begun to back into thet net,

The puck obey gravity’s call and doinks in off Blackwood’s back, and it was 2-0.

Dallas scored a goal in the opening and closing minutes of the period, and they had a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes in a period that was otherwise fairly even.

Second Period

Dallas got off to a similarly hot start in the second period, as they caught Colorado pressing a bit too hard, and despite the most blatant hooking on Granlund you’ll ever see to slow him down, Hintz and Rantanen still managed to race ahead with a 2-on-1 against just Sam Girard.

Hintz nutmegged Girard perfectly, and Rantanen got a chance he is never going to miss.

He did not miss, and it was 3-0 Dallas.

It was a massive moment for Rantanen, the home crowd.

Evgenii Dadonov took a penalty that could have swung things back right away with a trip on Manson in the offensive zone, but Dallas’s penalty kill once again came up huge at home, and they made it through with the same three-goal lead they’d entered it with.

Dallas began to feel it, and Mikko Rantanen led another rush into the offensive zone that led to some great looks, and ended with an uncalled retaliatory hit on Rantanen that got the crowd angry, but a slashing call against Tyler Seguin as he took the puck to the net gave Dallas their own power play, but despite some great puck movement, nothing went in.

Roope Hintz got a breakaway after the penalty ended after another bit of overpursuit by Colorado, but Hintz’s effort to continue the cold-players-getting-hot theme was unsuccessful, as Blackwood kept the five-hole sealed.

Colorado kept the pace high, too, and they made Dallas pay when Martin Nečas found Artturi Lehkonen open on the doorstep for an easy tip up past Oettinger to make it 3-1.

The Stars’ goalie would have to make another big save when he gloved down a shot from Makar in the slot with 5:49 to go in the second period, and that one gave everyone a chance to catch their breath.

Unfortunately, that also included Nathan MacKinnon, who followed up with a goal that felt inevitable given the Colorado pressure. The Avalanche’s star peeled away from Duchene at the blue line and walked down the middle of the ice without anyone else helping out, ripping a pretty uncontested shot from between the circles to make it 3-2.

Not a fun feeling

It felt for all the world like Dallas was on their heels again after the lead was cut to one, but Colorado’s pressure ended up causing more issues than it solved. Dallas kept finding time and space, and Dadonov got another chance for Dallas on a 2-on-1 with Benn, and he took the shot, but missed far side and high.

The chance that ended up leading to a goal for Dallas came when Sam Malinski elbowed Sam Steel in the face as tried to receive a pass in the offensive zone (again, with plenty of space), sending Steel to the ice in a daze and giving the Dallas power play a chance to start adding numbers to the other side of the ledger again.

And the Dallas power play would do just that. After Toews was forced to use Joel Kiviranta’s stick after breaking his own, the Stars took advantage. Matt Duchene would patiently spy Johnston across the crease, and he one-timed a pass to Johnston parallel to the goal line. Johnston then put it right back over a desperately crab-walking Blackwood for a huge push-back goal to make it 4-2 on his second goal of the night.

But that would not be all, as the Stars finished the second period with a goal that was initially given to the unlikeliest of goal-scorers: Alex Petrovic, who sent a shot at the net with Mason Marchment battling with Devon Toews in front, and the puck deflected off Toews’s stick and through Blackwood to restore the Stars’ three-goal lead after the Avalanche appeared to have been climbing right back into the game.

Marchment celebrated the goal, however, and it turns out he knew what he was talking about, as the scorers eventually changed the goal and gave it to Marchment.

Tyler Seguin also deserved a good bit of credit for some hard work down low to protect the puck and eventually get it back to Petrovic at the point, and he got an assist for his troubles.

Third Period

Let’s hit the main points here, as the Stars held onto the 5-2 lead the whole period before sealing things with an empty-netter at the end.

Jamie Benn got high-sticked early on in the third behind the play when he basically skated right into the stick of Manson, which was either a very shrewd play or a situation where Benn was looking so far down the ice he didn’t expect a stick to hit him right there. You decide. Either way, a power play for Dallas followed, but they couldn’t capitalize on this one.

Colorado got their best chance to find a way back into the game when Lian Bichsel was tagged for a cross check on Nathan MacKinnon that frankly looked pretty run-of-the-mill for a playoff series, but then again, it was a cross check in his back, and that is against the rules. But the rules are flexible, as illustrated by Gabriel Landeskog punching a restrained Lindell in the face after the play, during which Lindell and Lehkonen got penalized for trading shots. Landeskog would also give Harley a shot after the whistle later in the third, and I think that’s a captain just trying to stir stuff up in a 5-2 game.

What really embodied this game was Cody Ceci, on the penalty kill, making a one-legged block after losing a skate blade on the penalty kill. Oettinger dove out to grab the puck and freeze play, and the crowd couldn’t have been happier to recognize the team’s effort. The Stars’ penalty kill was great all night.

Roope Hintz got yet another breakaway after the kill, though he was clearly at the end of a shift, and Makar caught him just in time to disrupt the shot with a good, clean effort that was correctly not penalized.

But Hintz would get the last laugh when he buried a puck into the empty net after Wedgewood had been pulled (and after both Johnston and Lindell had missed long-distance efforts of their own).

The only other action took place when Bichsel levelled a series of cross checks on Logan O’Connor and company, leading to some rag-dolling by Bichsel and other nonsense by others, and the crowd roared its approval of Bichsel in the final minute of the game, both when he went to the penalty box and when he was shown on the video board, which he recognized in time to ask the crowd to get even louder. And they did.

Bichsel and O’Connor were both given misconducts and sent to the showers, and the final minute of the game was a downright celebratory one. And given how this series has gone, it was exactly what Dallas needed.

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Now the teams have another two days off before returning to Colorado for what will surely be a less-fun Game 6.

Last year, a 3-2 lead and a Game 6 in Colorado worked out pretty well. We shall see what this year’s version of this series has in store.