Game 54 AfterThoughts: Third-Period Leads Are Meant to Be Broken
At least, it seems that way
SotG
The phrase “a taste of your own medicine” is a weird one when you think about it. I guess it presumes that aphorisms are only for doctors or something, or that all these phrases are for children being forced to ingest daily spoonfuls of vile syrups and serums.
Third period leads are not bad things, either by nature or in the experience of them in the moment. But in Vegas, the Stars managed to make another three-goal lead in the third period feel every bit as unpleasant as a dose of castor oil to a five-year-old.
They also won the game, which strikes me as not unimportant to mention. For once, they were the better team in 3-on-3 overtime, with two great scoring chances that Adin Hill had to go back to 2023 to keep out of the net, but it was in the shootout where they would actually put two pucks into the net, and that was enough to get Dallas the two points that had seemed like they should have been a bit easier to grab after 40 minutes.
But not all blown leads are alike, and to Glen Gulutzan’s credit, he recognized as much after the game, even after presumably experiencing the same blood pressure alteration that you all did watching on television.
“Yeah, this was much better [than last game]. We’re playing against a good hockey team here,” Gulutzan said. “We had two solid periods. Even our third wasn’t a bad period. They pushed, they got a late goal. Before that, we had a chance to hit an open net and put the game away. We had a breakaway before that to put the game away. Just one of those games, you’re playing a good team. But I liked our physicality. I liked the way we defended. I thought it was a good hockey game.”
That sort of perspective is refreshing, given that it’s lately felt like the Stars have been looking for new and creative ways to snatch defeat from the gaping jaws of victory. But after the way January started for Dallas, they aren’t going to complain about three straight wins—even ones that require dramatic, last-minute victories.
And the underlying numbers kind of bear out what Gulutzan is talking about, too. Dallas blocked 23 of Vegas’s shot attempts, and they outchanced them at 5-on-5, with Natural Stat Trick having scoring chances 28-20 in Dallas’s favor. Overall, Dallas got interior on Vegas tonight far more than it feels like Vegas often allows, and that led to the four goals Dallas scored through 40 minutes.
Really, if Rantanen scores on that breakaway the way he did in Ottawa a few weeks ago instead of hitting the crossbar, that’s probably what we’re talking about. Instead, a couple of bad mistakes led to just enough offense for Vegas to get to overtime—which they’ve done all year, seemingly. And while I’m sure Gulutzan could have thrown Robertson under the bus for his turnover on the shorthanded goal, or said something about needing a save from Oettinger on the Barbashev goal, he opted to focus on the overall process when the microphones were out, which was made easier by Robertson and Rantanen scoring in the shootout. And that was probably as much of a relief to Gulutzan as anyone.
Another thing helping Gulutzan keep that perspective is the level of effort Dallas showed tonight, which was pretty plainly of a higher degree than it was in the second half of both St. Louis contests. Dallas had 29 hits, and you actually saw them happening in this one, unlike the way hits are sometimes recorded. Dallas also got their fourth goal off a face-off win (just as Vegas did theirs) and Gulutzan said face-offs are something they’ve been emphasizing for the group.
I wonder if that’s not just because faceoffs allow for set plays and strategy, but because they also set the tone of the entire shift. If you have all five guys looking to execute something specific right from the drop of the puck, that might just keep them a little more battle-ready as the shift goes on. But we’re descending into narratives and speculation here, so let’s turn back to what was actually said.
“Good on our guys,” Gulutzan said at the end of his media availability postgame. “We stuck with it. I really liked, actually, our group tonight.”
Again, I can totally understand if a fan watched this game and now feels like Dallas can’t defend leads, like Dallas is going to get punished for these sorts of things in the playoffs, like this validated all their fears about this wacky and very good hockey team. Any time a team blows a pair of three-goal, third-period leads in back-to-back games, they have to answer for that, absolutely.
But to the Stars’ credit, they’ve found ways (and Robertson and Harley in particular) to atone for their sins by scoring big goals. And wouldn’t you rather have a team full of players who can score big goals than ones who just try to sit on a lead? (Maybe don’t answer that until you’ve slept a bit.)
The Steel-Duchene-Benn line was really good in this one, with Duchene scoring one goal, and with Bourque filling in as an honorary Duchene and scoring another. Benn and Steel had two assists apiece, and that line has some of the makings of a playoff-ish third line, especially when Duchene is putting forth the level of effort he did tonight. (If we’re not counting the missed empty-netter for an icing, and the subsequent lost faceoff for Marner’s tying goal, at least.)
You absolutely have to get scoring from third lines like that in the playoffs, and it helps if you don’t have to assemble them on the fly.
Mavrik Bourque is the big story from this game, though. If he’d scored that overtime goal after going between his legs, I think the Stars fans in attendance in Vegas might have knocked over a slot machine out of sheer delight. And Bourque admitted he was feeling pretty juiced when he got an overtime shift, too.
“First-ever shift in overtime,” Bourque said to Razor and Josh Bogorad after the game. “I got excited there, and yeah. I tried to go low-glove like Seggy’s always telling me, and I guess it wasn’t there today.”
(Blaming Tyler Seguin seems like a safe move, given that he’s on the road trip.)
Bourque had never scored two goals in an NHL game before, let alone three. But in this one, he went to scoring areas in two big moments, and he executed both times. And that confidence makes him a more dangerous player, as Vegas learned tonight. The only way to become a better goal-scorer is to keep trying to score more goals, and Bourque showed a very promising sign of how he can do that, tonight.
Last season, Bourque had 11 goals and 25 points. This year, he’s already at 10 goals and 20 points through 54 games. He’s looking more and more like an NHL regular with a good amount of upside, and that can feel like the biggest leap for any promising prospect to make, that move from being a rookie with a few highlights here and there to a reliable, night-in and night-out guy in all three zones.
The first period was just as low-event as you’d expect a more normal VGK/DAL matchup to be, though even it was not entirely devoid of excitement.
After a turnover nearly burned Dallas in their own end, Jamie Benn traversed the top of the crease and just missed scoring a goal after a great behind-the-back feed from Matt Duchene. But not to worry, because Duchene has rediscovered his goal-scoring touch in recent games, so he cleaned up the detritus by then scoring into the gaping net.
Watching Adin Hill in this whole play, it reminds me a lot more of 2024 Hill than the 2023 version that won a Stanley Cup.
Jason Robertson took a tripping penalty shortly after that, and the Golden Knights had a chance to wipe the slate clean. Braeden Bowman got a great chance standing still with the puck, but Oettinger stood tall to stop it, and the power play came to naught.
Thomas Harley got his own chance as a trailer on a rush with the Hintz line, but the 2023 Adin Hill showed up that time, and Harley was denied. And from there, the period began to settle into the familiar low-event Stars/Knights cadence, with icings and dump-ins aplenty.
Jeremy Lauzon tested Oettinger after a failed zone exit by Dallas led to a Mitch Marner Play, but the shot was about as dangerous as you’d expect a Jeremy Lauzon shot to be, so no dice. Esa Lindell got his own chance after Matt Duchene won a puck out of a crowd to set him up in the low slot, but again, the defenseman’s shot was goalie’d by a goalie.
It was a hard-working period for Dallas, exhibiting a lot of the traits Glen Gulutzan had expressed concern about them not showing in the 3rd period against St. Louis. They went over 60% on faceoffs in the opening frame, and the lead they had was a fair reflection of their effort and execution. That’s about as much as you can ask of any team in the first period in that building.
The second period began with a near-miss from Rantanen and Hryckowian, as a nice shoulder-dip from 96 led to a back-post chance that popped off the rookie’s blade and just past the top corner:
Hryckowian will feel like he ought to have done better there, you suspect.
Keegan Kolesar got a similarly great setup a couple minutes later, though this time it wasn’t intentional. A Miro Heiskanen rim-around hit a skate in the corner (not a referee’s, this time) and bounced right out into the slot to Keegan Kolesar, who wasted no time converting the opportunity. 1-1.
A bit of a Pachinko bounce, that one. But Heiskanen took the risk when he tried to thread it through Marner’s skates, and sometimes you get burned in that city for taking risks. Or so I’m told.
But Kolesar’s goal would be given right back on a turnover by someone with the exact same name, who I believe might be the exact same person, too. And after some hard work along the boards by Hintz and Robertson, Mavrik Bourque finished the chance he got to restore the Stars’ one-goal lead.
Dallas got a power play right afterwards when Lauzon tripped Rantanen as he spun off the boards, but the best chances fell to Vegas. First, a 2-on-1 was squandered by Vegas at the Stars’ blue line after Heiskanen shot a puck into the Vegas phalanx at the other end, letting Dallas off the hook. But then, at the end of the power play, Jeremy Lauzon popped out of the box just in time to get a breakaway, and he looked every bit like Jeremy Lauzon on a breakaway at the end of it:
Don’t overlook the Jason Robertson defensive play (while 2:10 into his shift) to come all the way back and protect against the second chance at the back post, either. Dallas was putting in the work, even when mistakes were made.
Speaking of the work, Sam Steel nearly set up a goal for Jamie Benn at the back post off the rush, but Benn’s tip went just wide of the net. But Steel and Benn kept working along the boards, and they forced a turnover that Benn dished over to Bourque (filling in for Duchene, who had just been on the second half of the prior power play).
And Mavrik Bourque buried a one-timer past a stickless Adin Hill to make it 3-1.
When it comes to filling in for Matt Duchene, Bourque had clearly been watching recent tape.
And when it comes to playing after offensive-zone faceoffs, Wyatt Johnston had clearly been watching Jason Robertson, as he made it 4-1 two-and-a-half minutes later off a faceoff play by grabbing his own rebound after Rantanen’s stick gets lifted:
The Stars power play (AKA the two minutes featuring great scoring chances for Vegas) was a clear turning point. After failing to grab the lead, Vegas watched Dallas grab hold of the game after that point with three unanswered goals before the second intermission. As Brien Rea put it during the break: “Vegas let the kids out of the playpen.”
After looks at each end, Jack Eichel put his stick right into Rantanen’s mouth, perhaps hoping another Stars power play would afford Vegas some more scoring chances. And he was right, when a Robertson turnover along the boards and a lack of passing lane defense by Heiskanen led to a shorthanded goal for Reilly “College Boy” Smith to make it 4-2:
A three-goal lead means you don’t have to panic after allowing one, but both the way this goal was allowed and the recent history of Stars third periods meant that you probably stopped enjoying the third period quite as much as you had been.
You probably enjoyed it even less after Rasmus Andersson hit the “Justify the Trade” button with six minutes to go, flying down the right wing and feeding a wide-open Ivan Barbashev in the slot, who made it 4-3:
To be blunt: Jake Oettinger does not look good on this goal. He’s deep in his net and late to pick up the puck.
Heiskanen is also standing still there, likely because he had been anticipating Andersson’s carrying the puck into the corner and behind the net. All up, not a great way to surrender a third-period goal.
Mikko Rantanen nearly restored the lead after picking off a telegraphed Noah Hanifin pass in the neutral zone, but his breakaway ended with a dented crossbar only, and Vegas continued pushing in the final minutes, with a Mitch Marner spin move forcing another save out of Oettinger.
Gulutzan put the fourth line out with under three minutes to go in a one-goal game, and that meant something, I think. They had a great shift, too, keeping the puck down the ice and forcing an icing out of Vegas. It felt like a message from Gulutzan about how hard work was as important as anything, even in that moment.
Matt Duchene nearly scored into the empty net from his own blue line, but it resulted in an icing instead. And then Vegas did what Dallas has done twice in their last two games, and punished Dallas for an icing in the final minutes of a game, with Marner just barely avoiding a high stick before the point shot that sailed just underneath the crossbar.
And so, we went to overtime after Dallas blew its second three-goal lead in as many third periods.
Matt Duchene continued to Be Involved when he closed down a puck along the boards and reached over to poke it to Jason Robertson for a Grade-A+ scoring chance for the Stars’ best goal-scorer, only for Robertson to miss.
Glen Gulutzan said a couple of weeks ago that he had been looking for a chance to get Mavrik Bourque into the 3-on-3 action, and tonight he made good on that. And Bourque nearly rewarded him with a hat-trick goal, after pulling this between-the-legs move that Hill barely saved:
The shootout was kinder to Dallas.
Vegas opted to shoot second, and Jason Robertson punished them for that choice by starting off with a goal, going five-hole before Hill could flinch.
The next three shooters didn’t score. Dorofeyev’s shot got Oettinger’s stick, and Duchene’s backhand attempt got either the glove of Hill or the side of the net.
Jack Eichel then came in and put about six dekes on the puck before Oettinger’s pad met him at the post. Eichel has still not scored a shootout goal this season.
And so Mikko Rantanen took the ice with a chance to end all the late-night foolishness for good, and he did just that, snapping a puck just below Hill’s glove to give the Stars a 5-4 victory that they will hope doesn’t end up factoring into any critical tiebreakers 28 games from now.
Lineups
Dallas started like this:
Hryckowian-Johnston-Rantanen
Robertson-Hintz-Bourque
Steel-Duchene-Benn
Back-Faksa-Erne
Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Capobianco-Petrovic
Oettinger
Vegas threw this out there:
Smith-Eichel-Stone
Dorofeyev-Marner-Bowman
Barbashev-Hertl-Kolesar
Reinhardt-Laczynski-Holtz
Lauzon-Theodore
Hanifin-Andersson
Hutton-Korczak
Hill
After-AfterThoughts
Patrick Kane passed Mike Modano on the U.S.-born points leaderboard earlier Thursday night. However you feel about that, this message from Modano was pretty neat.
Meanwhile, in the Central Division:
Utah blew a 4-2 lead with two minutes to play en route to losing in regulation to Carolina. That’s a level of lead-blowing that Dallas certainly knows nothing about (please do not ask Vancouver about this).
And Colorado gave up 7 goals to Montreal tonight, losing back-to-back games by pretty ugly margins. How are things in Colorado these days? Well, see, they’re like this:
Pavel Dorofeyev and Wyatt Johnston came into the game as the NHL’s two leading power play goal-scorers. But that’s putting it a bit charitably, because Dorofeyev started out as many power play goals behind Johnston’s 17 as Tyler Bertuzzi was behind Dorofeyev’s 13.
Matt Duchene was given three maintenance days over the past week. Seems like they helped. Even outside of the goals, he’s also finding himself making plays (like this one), which involve both good fortune and the willingness to battle. This one didn’t pay off, but the work is always worth putting in, I hear.
Adam Erne drew into the lineup for his 400th game tonight, and it’s been a long time coming. That number is important for pension purposes, though the calculation appears to involve both numbers of seasons and games played now. Still, 400 is a big deal, both for practical purposes and for the accomplishment in its own right.
The Stars didn’t get burned this time, but for the second straight game, a puck was turned over by a referee:
Hintz wasn’t pleased after the play, and you can’t really blame him. But of course, accidents happen, and you know the referee (I didn’t catch whether this was Graham Skilliter or Graedy Hamilton) doesn’t want that to happen, either. All told, you know everyone was glad the scoreline stayed the same after the shift was over.
Mavrik Bourque didn’t have the offensive start to his season (or to his NHL career) that he might have wanted, but his 9th goal of the year tonight elicited a pretty elated reaction that was surely even more jubilant after his 10th.
This might just be my imagination, but after Wyatt Johnston contained Jack Eichel here by (maybe) reaching out a leg to do so, it looked like Eichel almost tried to do the same when Harley took the puck the other way, only to think better of it at the last moment:
10 Things to Ramble About - @ Vegas Golden Knights
1. The Stars beat a good team and got the full two points. That's not nothing at this point.
2. The Stars sorta controlled most of the game. Sorta.
3. After reading Tiffin's article yesterday, I have a sickly feeling Jim Nill is going to make a deal at the deadline to acquire either Luke Schenn or Logan Stanley from the Winnipeg Jets. They are both right-handed defenseman who have a lot of meat on their tall, heavy bones. Just the sort of pick up Jimmy seems to like at the trade deadline.
Please, no. Not sorta no. For real. Please. Just no.
4. .Mavrik Bourque looked like he thought he belonged in the NHL tonight. I hope he keeps thinking that.
5. More Trade Deadline News:
Evander Kane = No! Gawd, no! Please don't. Put the pipe down and just walk away.
6. A lot of people seem to be upset about Jamie Benn being on this team still. I thought I was maybe an out of the loop until I looked at the Stars' points per 60 at 5v5. He is currently third! on the team. He is not the Jamie of old, certainly, but nothing disposable just yet. I say they keep him, for now.
7. The Team USA and Bill Guerin roster-selection bashing trope is getting old.
Having said that, keeping Cole Caufield off the American team with 3-on-3 overtime being a thing at the Olympics, and Jason Robertson off the team with shootouts being a thing at the Olympics is, well...
f#$&ing bonkers.
8. Looking at P/60 for the Stars brought up other questions. Maybe not answers but serious questions. Mikko Rantanen and Jason Robertson are both top 15 in NHL scoring this year. Pretty good, right?
The problem is that, at 5v5, Rantanen is ranked 44th and Jason Robertson is 56th in the league at points per per 60 minutes. That doesn't bode well for the playoffs where penalties are called much less often.
You know the power play has been doing too much heavy lifting for the Stars this season when the Lightning's Anthony Cirelli ranks ahead of Robertson at P/60 when 5v5.
9. I know not everyone loves Mark Stone but he's not getting enough credit for what he's done this year so far. He had an early injury and after 30-plus games games he ranks 4th in points per 60 minutes played. The only ones ahead of him are Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon, and Connor McDavid. Honestly, wow!
10. Letting a three-goal lead slip away is kinda not great. Beating Vegas is kinda great.
Kinda always.
That was an ugly third period. But I'm extremely happy for Borque! I hope he stays with it and continues to show off his skill and scoring ability. I could see a line in the future with Borque and Johnston, or Borque centering his own line. Really awesome to see him get 2 goals.