Game 57 AfterThoughts: Jason Robertson, Naturally, and Lian Bichsel, Unfortunately

A Jason Robertson natural hat trick may not even have been the biggest story of the night, as Lian Bichsel didn't finish the game

Lian Bichsel has really grown into his role as a tough, nasty, large defenseman. In his most recent recall, and particularly in the last two games coming back from the break, Bichsel has been dealing out huge hits and playing important minutes for Dallas.

As a 20-year-old rookie, that tends to earn you a bit of a target on your back. We saw a bit of that in New Jersey, though Bichsel got the better of the Devils' multiple times. And we started to see the same again on Long Island, with Bichsel dishing out a big check to Kyle Palmieri early on. I even saw Brent Severyn during intermission point out one Isles player pulling out of a zone entry with Bichsel approaching. The fear factor was real.

So when Casey Cizikas went into the end boards to win the puck, Bichsel probably could have expected something to come his way. I don’t think anyone would or should expect that “something” to be a pretty intentional shoulder to the head, though.

After reviewing the call, the officials confirmed it to be a match penalty. In case you didn’t know, that’s worse than just a regular five-minute major penalty (as we saw with Tyler Bertuzzi earlier this year):

A match penalty shall be imposed on any player who deliberately attempts to injure or who deliberately injures an opponent in any manner.

The “deliberate” part of that definition is a big deal there. It’s fairly rare to see a match penalty, as intent can be very hard to decipher. But with Cizikas, I think it’s pretty clear that he is staring at Bichsel the entire time, and he drives his shoulder up and into the side of Bichsel’s face.

Watch the video if you need to see the entire thing, but that’s the essential point here: Cizikas is responsible not to hit another player in the head, and while Bichsel probably should protect himself a bit more in this situation (and surely will in the future), such a result is the primary responsibly of the hitter, not the recipient. Even though Cizikas is eight inches shorter than Bichsel, you just can’t do that.

We’ll hope for the best for Bichsel, who was shown greeting teammates and getting a hug from Colin Blackwell after the game. I don’t like to bring up Stephen Johns every time a player gets hit in the head, but it’s worth remembering that just because a player can walk around, they aren’t necessarily read for NHL game action.

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When moments like that one happen, though, you have a choice. For Matt Dumba’s part, it wasn’t a choice at all. He immediately went after Cizikas, dropping his gloves and taking a few punches for his troubles as he stood up for his defense partner. Dumba couldn’t have done this before the break when he was still wearing full-face protection, as you can’t fight while wearing a full face-shield, lest you get an automatic game misconduct for removing it to do so. Good on Dumba for sticking up for his teammate.

The game changed completely after that play, as you’d expect. Dumba got assessed (properly) two minutes for instigating a fight, and that carries a ten-minute misconduct penalty as well. With the five minutes for fighting, that meant Dumba would be gone until over halfway through the third period. In fact, he would only return in time to play two shifts. That meant that with Bichsel out and unable to return, Dallas was down to just two defense pairs for most of the second half of the game.

Ilya Lyubushkin had also left the bench in the first period after a hit along the low boards by the bench, so you’d imagine there was a lot of concern from Alain Nasreddine about how the four blueliners would hold up. But man, you can’t give enough attaboys to Lyubushkin, Thomas Harley, Esa Lindell, and Cody Ceci for gutting it out in the second night of a back-to-back against a fresh opponent. If you’ve ever had to play a game with an obvious disadvantage like this one, every victory, every good shift feels like a monumental accomplishment, and the sense of camaraderie gets more intense as the game goes on. You could see it in this one, but you could also see the exhaustion setting in late, too.

Here are the final minutes totals for three defensemen who played the entire game:

Thomas Harley - 27:54
Esa Lindell - 25:21
Cody Ceci - 22:59

That’s craziness in any second night of a back-to-back, let alone after Lindell just got done logging 28 minutes for Finland every night. But check out the shift chart from this game, and pay special attention to the bottom-right of the graph, where the third defense pairing (on the very bottom) suddenly disappears:

When you’re going over the boards that often, every sprint up or down the ice feels like you’re using one of your three mushrooms in a MarioKart Time Trial. The piper must be paid, and you’ll inevitably find yourself getting ragged before the end of the game when you’re caught out against fresh troops. You end up tapping your goalie on the pads a lot, (as the Stars did tonight for Oettinger, who was very good after letting in a goal he’d probably want back on Engvall). Every decent shift feels like you’ve survived a run up a hill in enemy territory.

So for those four defensemen to just alternate like that in a third period where you knew the Isles were going to come fast and hard against a depleted and tired Stars team, well, that’s heroic. It didn’t always look pretty, but the result has to feel incredible in the aftermath. All four of those defensemen left everything on the ice tonight and then some. It was a noble story when Lindell and Heiskanen were logging 28-30 minutes during the flu epidemic earlier in the year, but this was an emergency that required exceptional work, and they all banded together to make it out with the two points. You can imagine this one feels good, because it so easily could have gone much worse.

That’s why Jason Robertson’s excellence was so incredibly important in this one. You felt like the Stars absolutely had to cash in on the three minutes of major power play time they got after Bichsel got knocked out of the game, and for Robertson to get not just one, but two goals during the sequence was clutch, enormous, huge, etc. etc. etc. Some goals are fun in the moment, but other goals feel like the just reward of suffering and dedication. Robertson’s game-winning goal on a rebound from Wyatt Johnston felt like such a one. They all did, really.

With his natural hat trick in the second period (which also bettered his brother’s measly two goals for Toronto tonight), Robertson is now tied with Matt Duchene for the team-lead in goals, with 23, and just a few points behind him for the points lead as well. The top line wasn’t always dangerous last night in Jersey, but it won the game for Dallas on the Island without a doubt. Hits aren’t the only thing that can drive energy and belief into a bench.

I say the top line as a whole, because as much as Robertson deserves praise for the goals, Roope Hintz was also excellent, too, with a couple of very smart assists that led directly to tallies. It is nice to have all the fuss about the 4 Nations Face-Off in the rear-view mirror, because there may well be a lot more fuss to be made over the Stars’ scorers in the final third of the season.

Mavrik Bourque, by the way, acquitted himself well back on the top line, too. He is now on a five-game point streak, believe it or not. It’s great to see him continue with his second-half momentum, as the Stars will certainly need it. If DeBoer continues with his playoff plan to run Hintz, Duchene, and Johnston as his top three centers, there will be spots on the right wing available, and Bourque certainly looks like as good an option as any in that spot right now.

The second line was quieter in this one, and that’s okay. They were the more dangerous line last night, so holding serve is perfectly fine. Also, just for the record, the Duchene line was actually the more-deployed line tonight, so I guess it was technically the top line? Ranking lines is silly, especially when you have forwards as deep as Dallas does.

Getting another fourth-line goal was also massive tonight. Sam Steel came into the game on a 24-game goalless streak with only one assist in his last dozen games, which may have played into his being scratched right before the 4 Nations break. Colin Blackwell rang a crossbar and nearly scored on another shot. On the one hand, fourth-line forwards aren’t expected to finish all such chances, otherwise they wouldn’t be fourth-line forwards. But on the other hand, it’s great to see Steel and Blackwell chipping in. That’s what you need from that line, and Steel ended up being the second-most-important goal-scorer for Dallas tonight, technically.

Wyatt Johnston, by the way, had a few moments where he looked like the one player who had something left in the tank, and he used it when they needed it. Being 21 has its advantages in these sorts of games, I think. This is my regular reminder for all of us that Wyatt Johnston is just 21 years old.

Dallas heads to Columbus now, and one has to think Brendan Smith is likely to draw in, whether for Bichsel or just to add a fresh body. But with the trade deadline less than two weeks away now, what do you do, if you’re Jim Nill? You hope Miro Heiskanen is back by the time the playoffs are here, but man, this blue line can thin out in a hurry when things break bad. Do you trust in Kyle Capobianco and Alex Petrovic to bridge the gap between now and then, should the need arise?

Or do you buy even more insurance, with whatever you can afford to spend? One suspects this question has come up before, but nights like tonight remind you that there’s a very good reason for that.

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The Stars began the game with this lineup:

Robertson - Hintz - Bourque
Marchment - Duchene - Granlund
Benn - Johnston - Dadonov
Bäck - Steel - Blackwell

Harley - Ceci
Lindell - Lyubushkin
Bichsel - Dumba

Oettinger

Logan Stankoven was a healthy scratch for what I believe is the first time in his NHL career, but that’s going off memory, so fair warning. It was a surprising choice at first, but given the logjam the Stars have up front, it’s more an indication of a good problem than any especially deep concern about Stankoven.

If there is anything to worry about with about Stankoven, it’s that he’s just not finishing enough of his chances so far this year. His play everywhere else has been solid all year long, but in Pete DeBoer’s system, every forward needs to be chipping in on offense, and that starts with finishing.

The Lindell-Lyubushkin pairing spent most of the night in New Jersey in their own zone, with Lyubushkin taking a couple of penalties as well, so to stick with it was an interesting choice. Of course, given how this game went, the top four defensemen were basically just surviving in the second half of the game, so pairings weren’t really the biggest issue there.

With that said, the Lindell-Ceci pairing from before the break isn’t a particularly offensive one either, so it could be that the coaching staff considers Lyubushkin a slightly more reliable partner for Lindell, whereas Ceci can be the defensive anchor on the Harley pairing rather than trying to be overly involved in the transition game.

Ceci doesn’t have a problem going deep into the offensive zone (and he did so tonight at least once), but if I had my druthers, Harley would always be the only defenseman on his pairing who gets to do such things. But opportunity knocks sometimes, so you can’t blame Ceci for answering.

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I wondered if Steel was one candidate to be scratched for Colin Blackwell in the second game of a back to back, and foolishly tweeted that thought (Lesson: never tweet). But it turns out Steel doesn’t want to be scratched again, which he demonstrated by scoring the game’s opening goal after a Cody Ceci point shot nailed Oskar Bäck. The puck bounced off the rookie, but lay perfectly for Steel, who scooped it up and broke his drought with a minimum of fuss.

Colin Blackwell began the sequence by winning the faceoff back to Ceci, though he didn’t get a point on the play.

During the intermission, Brien Rea and Brent Severyn pointed out that this goal was the twin of Evgenii Dadonov’s goal last night, and yeah, pretty much:

Kyle Palmieri (who is no longer on the Devils) got in behind Thomas Harley seven minutes in after a far too simple play where he just came streaking down the weak side during a breakout, but Jake Oettinger bailed out his team with a nice stick save. Goaltending is so often the difference in this league.

Palmieri also received a pretty hefty Lian Bichsel check later in the period, adding a bit of discomfort to the disappointment, too.

Mason Marchment had a great chance on the doorstep that Ilya Sorokin stopped, and he led another dangerous rush later in the period. Marchment wasn’t a fan of the officiating early on (including a couple of no-calls that he protested pretty visibly), but that may have led to Jason Robertson drawing a fairly mild call on an Anthony Duclair stick check that got called for tripping, to put Dallas on the power play. It is good to have Mason Marchment back in the lineup.

Perhaps the ice gremlins didn’t approve of the call, because Dallas looked for all the world like they were going to score, but Ryan Pulock picked the puck just off the goal line before Wyatt Johnston could sweep it in, and that was the best chance Dallas would have.

Things got worrisome right after the power play ended, when Ilya Lyubushkin took a heavy hit from Brock Nelson into his left side around 14 minutes into the opening period. Lyubushkin left the ice pretty gingerly before heading down the tunnel, but he would return before the end of the period.

It was the sort of hit that made me worry about Lyubushkin’s left ribcase and shoulder area, just because of how they got torqued over the bench against his momentum going up the ice.

Matt Duchene turned Adam Pelech around with a move where he deked inside to get Pelech shifting towards the middle of the ice, then dragged the puck through his legs and beat Pelech on the outisde to get a chance on Sorokin himself. But Duchene’s shot didn’t quite match the quality of the move, and things stayed 1-0 through the end of the first.

Dallas outchanced New York pretty heavily through 20 minutes, but they only had one goal rather than the two they got to start in New Jersey. Would the slimmer margin end up altering the course of the game?

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The answer was pretty immediately looking like “yes,” when the Islanders’ Pierre Engvall somehow poked a puck through Jake Oettinger to cap off one of those “save at one end, goal at the other” sequences. Colin Blackwell tested Sorokin from the doorstep, but the Isles’ goalie made a pad save that sent New York the other way with all three Stars’ forwards caught low.

A couple of things could’ve gone better on this goal. The most obvious one would be the save, as Engvall got a pass from Kyle MacLean that was a bit behind him, and all he could really do was reach back and drag the puck with his backhand before poking it through Oettinger’s five hole.

The other thing that could've gone better would have been Lindell or Lyubushkin preventing a pass, as each of them ended up leaning toward the puck carrier but getting beaten by a pass. In Lindell’s case, the pass made a 3-on-2 a 2-on-1. In Lyubushkin’s case, the pass made a 2-on-1 into a breakaway, and Oettinger couldn’t prevent the goal.

Ah well. Nice passing from New York, you’d certainly say.

Colin Blackwell nearly made it a third goal for the teams’ combined fourth lines shortly afterward when he rang the crossbar after Blackwell flipped a backhand that bounced off a glove for Blackwell to grab in stride and take into the zone with room. These second nights of back-to-backs can be weird.

The top six groups for each team finally decided to come back from the break, however, and in short succession. First, Jason Robertson punished New York for failing to get clear the zone after a Roope Hintz chance that nearly went in prior, taking a Hintz cross-ice feed and burying it low at the near post:

Then Palmieri got sprung for another breakaway in behind Bichsel right off the ensuing faceoff, making a kind of incredible play to catch the puck, get back off a knee, and roof the puck over Oettinger.

It was a crazy sequence, and the Isles nearly scored again on a mid-air baseball swing that Oettinger somehow kept out right after that. He followed it with a beautiful stop on a deflection from Duclair on his front porch to announce that the freeway was no longer open for traffic. Those stops after a stunning couple of Isles goals seems crucial at the time.

Things heated up further when Casey Cizikas popped Bichsel in the head with his shoulder on a Islanders’ dump-in. Matt Dumba immediately dropped the gloves (in his second game without a full cage, allowing him to do so). Dumba caught a punch or two from Cizikas in standing up for his defense partner, who had to be helped down the tunnel after the hit to the head. Bichsel would not return to the game.

The officials immediately called a major for the hit, allowing them to review it. The result of the review was a match penalty—which means the officials saw Cizikias’ hit as having “intent to injure” in it—resulting in a five-minute major and a game misconduct for Cizikas, who will get to speak with the NHL after the game. Dumba got an instigator penalty for standing up for Bichsel, and the result of all of the calls was two minutes of 4-on-4 followed by the remaining three minutes of the major penalty for Dallas’s power play.

After some initial shakiness in the wake of a pretty crazy few minutes, the power play immediately punished New York, with a gorgeous tic-tac-toe play from Duchene to Hintz to Robertson, who easily stuffed the chance past a bewildered Sorokin with 2:30 still left on the major penalty.

Here’s how Sorokin looked on that save attempt, if you can call it such:

Jason Robertson wasn’t done, however, scoring a second goal on the major after finding a Johnston rebound and putting it around Sorokin’s right pad.

Any time you can score multiple goals on a major penalty—let alone part of one—it feels like justice, and you could see the emotion in Robertson and his teammates in their subsequent goal celebrations.

A great sequence at the end of the major penalty turned into a bad one when Cody Ceci hopped on the ice too early, resulting in a Too Many Men on the Ice penalty. He did so because Wyatt Johnston had broken his stick while holding a puck along the wall, and credit to Robertson for immediately recognizing it and darting right over to keep the play alive for Dallas. But the problem came when Johnston went to the nearby bench but just grabbed a stick and stayed out, because Ceci had assumed that Johnston would come off for a defenseman as the power play was about to end which would normally be a safe assumption.

That’s a play where I think Johnston probably got a bit caught up in the moment after the two quick goals, and he lost track of time a bit, particularly with the weird three-minute major penalty situation. I’m not here to assess blame to either him or Ceci without knowing what communication was happening on the bench, but it would be interesting to have been on the bench during that sequence, just to know where the breakdown happened.

Oettinger then made a glorious save on Pageau on the Isles’ power play to get the 4-2 lead into the second intermission in a game that had suddenly become much more emotional than it had been in the first.

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Dallas killed off the remainder of the penalty to start the third, and Blackwell pulled another nice move on Pulock, followed by a shot that just barely missed the far corner.

Roope Hintz continued his solid game when he got a shot from the home plate area that Sorokin just did get with the blocker (or perhaps the arm just behind the blocker), and Dallas continued to push early in the third.

Jason Robertson took an opportunity to lay a hit on Scott Perunovich on a waived-off icing call in the third, and I had to laugh a bit at what Perunovich must have been thinking afterward. Robertson is one of the Stars’ bigger forwards, but he doesn’t usually throw many hits. So when he does, he puts some oomph into it.

The Islanders would draw within one when Anthony Duclair got to a rebound with three players blocking Oettinger’s vision, and the puck went in before Oettinger had any chance of seeing it.

With the Stars having to alternate just two defense pairs for 17 minutes, you could see some players starting to tire. Because of the 10-minute misconduct that goes along with the two-minute instigator penalty (let alone the five minutes for fighting), Dumba wasn’t eligible to return until midway through the third period, though he had to wait for a whistle to do so. That whistle ended up coming a couple of minutes after his penalties ended, and those minutes were tense, with the Islanders applying pressure and being given space by tired players until a Jake Oettinger glove save finally gave everyone a break.

The Team USA goaltender had more work to do, with the Stars’ top defensemen all a bit more tired than usual, and some back-and-forth action resulted in a failed zone exit that turned into a one-timer sailing past Oettinger—with Pierre Engvall pushing Matt Dumba into his own goaltender.

The referees immediately waved off the goal for interference, and Patrick Roy took one look at the wet napkin he calls a penalty kill and opted not to risk a Dallas power play by challenging.

Nonetheless, it was hatches-battening time for the Stars, and they ended up taking a slashing penalty out of desperation that nearly got converted on the delayed call, with Ilya Lyubushkin getting his stick removed to make things even more exciting. But an Oettinger save gave the penalty kill a chance to take a breath and get to work, and that’s what happened.

New York pulled Sorokin as the power play got going to go up 6-4 in manpower, but Lyubushkin and the rest of the group killed off the penalty, with an especially impressive battle along the boards being won by Dallas despite being down two men. The word “galvanizing” came to mind more than once.

Dallas would get a couple of cracks at the empty net as time ticked down, but a Duchene backhand from short of center ice resulted in an icing, and in Simon Holmstrom getting this look in the final second of the game:

But he missed what little net (if any) there was to shoot at, and the Stars got out of Long Island with a full two points, albeit with some cost.