Game 58 AfterThoughts: Like They Never Left

Wyatt Johnston scored more goals, again

Song of the Game

Your heart is a river
That flows from your chest through every organ

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Matt Duchene and Glen Gulutzan have both said repeatedly over the last few days that the teams who find their games quickly will be the ones to come out of the break strong.

Tonight, the Stars survived some early hiccups before piling up a 4-0 lead halfway through. It was clear they had found their game, even if they had to do it with some new faces. Without Radek Faksa, Roope Hintz, or Mikko Rantanen, this wasn’t the same group that had won six straight going into the break, but they still managed the same result, and with big contributions from up and down the lineup.

Wyatt Johnston scored two goals, and Matt Duchene and Sam Steel also added tallies in a game that the Stars put to bed early, and kept from getting interesting late. Which is about as good a performance as you could have hoped for, coming out of a long layoff.

“I thought we were pretty good coming out of the break,” Gulutzan said. “I thought there was good emotion in the game. I thought we picked up where we left off, almost. Which is nice to see.”

Arttu Hyry played his first game of the season out of sheer necessity, while Lian Bichsel got back into the lineup after nearly three months on the shelf. Colin Blackwell absorbed a huge hit and a rough high stick, and Casey DeSmith had a whole bunch of scrambling to do after long spells of boredom, while Dallas kept the puck at the Seattle end.

All of those elements could have meant a very different game than the 4-1 win Dallas got tonight, but that’s where the Stars shone. Miro Heiskanen looked every bit like the best defenseman on the team in 25 minutes of ice time, Duchene continued to look like his old (recent) self, and Wyatt Johnston passed Mike Modano in power play goals for a single season.

Gulutzan said Johnston and Robertson were two of many players who looked fresh and played well tonight, and his players agreed with him.

“Unbelieveable,” Bichsel said of his teammate, Johnston. “Just really proud of him. He’s showing up when it’s important. On the power play, last year in the playoffs. He’s always showing up on the right time. He’s just an unbelievable person. I’m good friends with him off the ice, too. Yeah, really enjoy spending time together, and he’s for sure a huge player in this franchise.”

As for Bichsel himself, he said he felt good from the first shift—and little wonder, given the extra few weeks he’s had to prepare for his return to the lineup. The Stars protected the interior of the ice for the majority of the game, and almost entirely while the result was still in doubt, which is to say the first 25 minutes of the contest.

“I mean, we didn’t give up barely anything until the third a little bit there,” Matt Duchene said afterward. “And they got a little momentum off some shifts where we were in their end the whole time, and they just kind of came down the other way, which happens. So I think it was a really good effort, top to bottom.”

After that, they locked down a big lead, and weathered some nonsense in the process, as Seattle began to try breaking down the Stars’ defense from the top player on down.

That’s where the rest of the lineup came into play.

“We talk about sticking up for each other,” Matt Duchene said, “One kid was kind of taking some liberties with Miro out there. And Ern [Adam Erne] stepped up, and then Ritzy [Hryckowian] gets in there. We got a little more of that this year, and it’s something we’ve talked about. It was really good by those guys.”

The second half of this game was more about principles than anything else. Some penalty calls put the Stars on the kill when they felt like they were commanding the game, and as Seattle started looking for ways to break the Stars’ structure, the game got chippier.

But that’s where having a lethal scoring threat like Wyatt Johnston means so much. His tip-in on a shot going well wide of the net was a deft, Pavelski-like goal that ensured the Stars wouldn’t have to play catch-up at any point, and his second goal (on a fortunate bounce from a Heiskanen point shot) ensured the game was all but over well before the clock said so.

With 30+ minutes in which to hunt for a hat trick, you could see the Stars get a little cuter with their passes, and in a different game, you could fault them for that. But their defensive details were strong enough to weather a bit less straight-line approach in their offense, and it was clear everyone felt very good about how they got back into action.

Even if Johnston hit two posts with a hat trick begging to be collected down the stretch.

“I think whenever you have a chance to score, and it doesn’t go in,” Johnston said, “You always kind of want to get it back. Especially some of the chances I had in the third, you’re kicking yourself a little bit. Obviously, you get a couple, you feel good, and you feel like everything’s gonna go in and go your way.”

In other words: Goal scorers always want to score on the next shot, no matter how many they have in the bank. There’s a reason Johnston is already at 31 goals on the season.

So after a strong performance like this one, the Stars have two days in which to rest and prepare for Saturday’s game against Nashville. It might not feel like it, but they’re technically on a seven-game winning streak. So whether they get Faksa and Hintz back by then or not, they should still have a lot of good things to draw upon. I hear positive reinforcement is the most effective kind.

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Colin Blackwell started the game off with a big hit on Jamie Oleksiak. He bounced right off him, but hey, delivering a hit is still impressive when you're giving up nearly a foot and 50 lbs. The more painful hit came a couple minutes later, when Ryan Lindgren lined up Blackwell and laid him out with a painful hit that sent both players down their respective tunnels afterward.

Blackwell would return just a couple minutes later, but Lindgren would be done for the night.

After a Nate Bastian tripping penalty was rescinded upon further discussion (on account of Vince Dunn just flat-out toe-picked), Thomas Harley would put the Kraken on the power play with an Interference penalty. But the Seattle power play couldn’t quite finish a couple of looks, and the Stars survived.

It was an uneven game to start, as you kind of expected would be the case. Jaden Schwartz nearly tucked a puck in behind DeSmith after a bit of a broken play, but he caught a piece of the post, and it allowed Bichsel to grab the puck and clear it before disaster struck.

Both goalies had to be sharp, as is the case in scrambly games like this. Mavrik Bourque tested Daccord’s pad with a shot off of the rush, and DeSmith had a couple of point-blank chances he had to snag, and did.

Jamie Benn would put the Stars back on the kill with about 4:30 left in the first with a Holding the Stick penalty, but once again, they dispatched it with efficiency. And this time, a counterpunch would come.

Specifically, an Esa Lindell to Wyatt Johnston counterpunch, as the Stars’ center scored his 30th of the season on a beautiful tip, drawing the puck back into the net as it was going wide:

The Stars would take that 1-0 lead into the intermission, but not without two more near-misses of glorious opportunities by Hryckowian and Robertson from broken plays. Only time would tell if those missed chances would come back to bite them.

Something that nearly bit them early in the second was Miro Heiskanen’s skate blade, which was jettisoned in the defensive zone after blocking a shot.

Heiskanen successfully hopped to the bench on one leg, however, and a key block prevented Seattle from taking advantage of the short 5-on-4 opportunity.

Matt Duchene then doubled the Stars’ lead by emulating Wyatt Johnston from like three grafs up, tipping a puck (just below the crossbar, which the officials checked for) and behind Daccord on a shot from Thomas Harley to make it 2-0 early in the middle frame:

Colin Blackwell’s face would give the Stars another opportunity to add to their lead when it absorbed Freddy Gaudreau’s stick, putting Dallas on the power play. But a unit without Roope Hintz or Mikko Rantanen is far less dangerous, even with Benn and Duchene there to fill in, and nothing came of it.

Right after the power play ended, Sam Steel poked a puck through Daccord’s pads after a Bourque shot off a rush. And it looked to be 3-0, until Seattle challenged for goaltender interference.

But after review, the officials apparently determined that the puck was still showing when Steel knifed his stickblade into Daccord’s pads, and the goal stood—with Seattle also being penalized for the unsuccessful challenge.

That would prove to be the power play Dallas could score on, though it happened in similarly unfortunate fashion, for the Kraken. A Heiskanen point shot through traffic went off Daccord’s blocker and the shaft of his goalstick, only to bounce off Johnston and into the net for a 4-0 lead—and Johnston’s 19th power play goal of the season, which is a new Dallas record.

After that, Seattle sagged even further, and the chances started flowing for Dallas. Alex Petrovic even got in on a 1-on-1 rush chance that forced a nice glove stop from Daccord, and the Kraken struggled to break out repeatedly as the game progressed into its second half.

And with shots on goal at 22-6 for Dallas, it was pretty plain to see that one team had found a way to push through the post-break malaise, while the other one was trending in the other direction.

When Jacob Melanson finally did manage to get some netfront presence on DeSmith, Lian Bichsel made sure he paid for it. The big defenseman was all smiles (or maybe smirks) as he ushered the 6-foot-0 Melanson away from the crease, much to the crowd’s delight.

A 4-0 score midway through a hockey game is going to change the tone at any point, and especially in one where you have a bit of an odd lineup. Sure enough, the Stars started getting a little cuter with their plays, and while they continued to get chances, you could see them looking for the highlight plays, as NHLers are wont to do when the score gets out of hand.

A slashing penalty to Jared McCann with four minutes to go gave the Stars a chance to get Johnston a hat trick while up a man. But after some early hiccups, Gulutzan sent the second unit out for the bulk of the power play in a pretty clear admission that the Stars weren’t looking to run up the score.

That, plus a couple of great DeSmith stops on McCann, would ensure the Stars took their 4-0 lead into the second intermission.

With 20 minutes to go, the Stars simply had to get the horse into the barn. That proved tougher than they would have liked after a Jason Robertson interference penalty put Seattle on the power play, and while Dallas would kill it, the Kraken would take advantage of a turnover to make it 4-1.

After that, things got chippy. Erne and Melanson got into it along the boards, and Blackwell and Hryckowian weren’t going to stand idly by while a fracas was brewing. Everyone paired off, and when the dust settled, the four original dance partners were all in the box, with Erne getting an additional minor for cross checking.

However, Seattle couldn’t do anything with that chance. Meanwhile, Wyatt Johnston nicked two posts in the final 10 minutes of the game as he looked for a hat trick. It was a game that devolved into end-to-end rushes and scuffles aplenty, and Nate Bastian had a glorious look in front that he will be annoyed about for 24 hours, surely. But in the end, it eventually wound down to its inevitable conclusion (recent Vancouver calamities notwithstanding), and the Stars got themselves back into action on the right foot with a 4-1 victory.

Lineups

Dallas cobbled together this group:

Robertson-Johnston-Bourque
Steel-Duchene-Benn
Erne-Hryckowian-Blackwell
Bäck-Hyry-Bastian

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Petrovic

DeSmith

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Seattle brought this heat:

McCann-Beniers-Eberle
Catton-Stephenson-Tolvanen
Schwartz-Wright-Gaudreau
Winterton-Meyers-Melanson

Dunn-Larsson
Oleksiak-Montour
Lindgren-Evans

Daccord

After-AfterThoughts

• I talked to Philipp Grubauer for a bit yesterday after the Kraken practiced, and it was fascinating to hear his perspective on a few things. The 34-year-old is, practically speaking, the elder statesman of German goaltending, and he was the only NHL goaltender on their Olympic roster, going 2-2 in four games for Team Germany in Milano-Cortina.
  
  Below, I’ve included a few quotes from our conversation, which touched on Stars draft pick Arno Tiefensee, the German team, and Grubauer’s plans to help ensure hockey and goaltending in Germany continue to improve in the long run.

  • On Team Germany: “You know, we don’t have 20 superstars, like other countries, for us. Everybody, every single line matters. So it’s always been tough games for us. We’re not gonna go out there and score goals and win the game 8-1. So it’s been the same approach.”

  • On Texas Stars goaltender Arno Tiefensee: “He’s a really talented goalie. He’s gonna make his way to the national team, and hopefully up here [to the NHL], too, at some point. So, at this point, you’re just trying to soak it in and play as much as possible, no matter where you are: East Coast, AHL, or if you get a shot at the men’s national team, you gotta take that shot.”

  • On the development of hockey in Germany: “It’s definitely going the right way. “We just gotta make sure we keep growing and developing and not taking a step back and getting too comfortable from a development standpoint, in youth hockey. Obviously the game changed since I first played over 10 years ago to now: faster, way [more] skill, less physical at some points. You gotta make sure, from a federation standpoint, you’re not taking two or three steps back, or our nations are passing us.”

  • On whether he’s part of the conversation around developing goaltending in Germany: “Yes and no. I think over the next couple years, for sure I will have some input on goalie development, because that’s what we need more of in Germany. I don’t think we have enough good goalies. How can we get more kids into the sport? How can we develop more goalies?”

  • “We already had a couple conversations, but, like, with the schedule here and then you’re coming over to a short tournament, that’s not the priority. So that’s more like a summer conversation we always have. But, for sure, it’s gonna be more intense over the next couple years, and once I’m retired, I will help them, for sure.”

• One other note on Tiefensee: He’s having a strong season as an AHL rookie in Texas, currently 8-5-0 with a .914 save percentage. At 23 years old, he’s got a bright future, and there’s every chance we see him on the roster of the German National Team before too much more time passes.

• Thomas Harley had a 23-hour travel day earlier this week when he came back from Italy. To even be playing a hockey game a day after that, let alone one where he played as well as he did tonight? That’s an accomplishment. And to play as well as he did? That’s an achievement. I am just assuming you can infer some distinction between those two words, whether or not it actually exists.

• Arttu Hyry got a bit of time on the penalty kill, and he also came out strong on the faceoff dot, going 6-for-8 while playing 10:25. That’s a perfectly cromulent season debut, all things considered.

• Heiskanen and Lindell played solidly tonight, as the other non-Harley Olympians to be participating. I’m sure they didn’t mind getting a nice lead early, but the game still had its rough points. Heiskanen endured a bit of targeted contact from Seattle’s bottom six, at times, and I still don’t know how Colin Blackwell came back after that hit from Lindgren (that ended up knocking Lindgren himself out of the game).

• Speaking of Blackwell, let’s end with Gulutzan’s comments on number 15 in green when asked if he was surprised to see him return from the Lindgren hit: “Blackie’s a tough nut to crack. I wasn’t surprised. He’s a tough guy.”

  • (One might even say he’s one degree tougher than the average person. I might, at least.)