Game 6 AfterThoughts: Edmonton Again, but Different Ending
On paper, this was a game that was likely to be won by whichever team’s special teams showed up. That sounds like a smart, sportsy thing to say until you realize that’s true, like, 80% of the time, since “showing up” means “scoring or preventing the other guys from scoring.” It’s basically just saying, “The team that scores more goals during the highest-leverage times probably will win.” Scoring goals will do that, yes.
But this time, it was like, really true. The Oilers came into Dallas for an afternoon game sporting the 4th-worst power play in the NHL, while the Stars were stuck as the 3rd-worst, with just a single Mason Marchment goal on opening night to show for their efforts. But the kicker was that the Stars’ penalty kill unit was 1st in the NHL, while the Oilers’ was not first, not second, and not even 31st in the NHL. So, it seemed like the time was ripe for Dallas to do something to break out of their funk, and they did, for most of the game just barely enough to make that happen. It took their goaltender, some gutsy plays, and their goaltender, and a key pass, as well as some great goaltending, but the Stars managed to prove that Edmonton doesn’t quite have their number anymore, so long as by “number” you don’t mean “number of times the Oilers nearly scored,” which was not a small number.
The Oilers have been derided for some time as a “top-heavy” team, which was a fair criticism right up until their top players dragged them within one win of a Stanley Cup. And in this game, it could easily have been the same story, as the Stars faced five Edmonton players who more or less rag-dolled them for the first half of the game, and another 13 skaters who were strong, but not inordinately so.
These Oilers have long struggled to get two good forward lines going consistently, as the temptation to put Draisaitl with McDavid (and Zach Hyman, who is quite good) is hard for even the most strong-willed coach to resist. And when you can make a line tilt the entire game in their favor like a toddler playing with a toy dump truck, why wouldn’t you go back to that well?
The only problem for Edmonton’s strategy wasn’t Edmonton’s problem at all: it was Jake Oettinger. Nineteen of the 31 Oilers’ shots on goal came from those five players up there (the two defensemen being Mattias Ekholm and Evan Bouchard), and Oettinger stopped all of them until Edmonton spoiled the shutout by pulling the goaltender with a three-goal deficit like it was a playoff game or something. Dallas got caught on an icing after an optimistic Evgenii Dadonov shot missed the empty cage, and Dallas couldn’t cover everyone before Draisaitl got a slick feed from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins that left a helpless Oettinger at his mercy.
As much as we talked the other day about how the Stars’ record might belie the flaws in some of their processes, this game was an even better representation of that phenomenon. Peter DeBoer said after the game that he had expected some hiccups after the quick trip to Washington, but that he didn’t like their first period (which was a nice way of saying, I think, that the team came out flat and Jake Oettinger saved their bacon). In fact, Deboer had no trouble saying that Oettinger “was our best player” in a 4-1 victory, which speaks to how much I think the team is aware of what still needs to be tightened up.
DeBoer’s response to their rough start was to rotate the right wings. He said the idea was to “find a spark within the group, and I thought we did.” And, after the power play woke up to take the lead at the end of the second period, a spark came in the third period—and it was named Colin Blackwell.
After the game, Matt Duchene said that he and Marchment didn’t have a good game against Washington, and that for the first 35 minutes of this game, every Stars player outside Jake Oettinger was “garbage,” and that it should have been four-nothing after the first period if not for their goaltender. It was a blunt assessment that players would happily say to each other, but one they are sometimes reticent to say to the media, lest we twist it out of context and try to create drama that isn’t there. Hopefully, that isn’t the case this time, because when it comes to Duchene’s assessment, the numbers don’t really disagree with it, either. Edmonton jumped out to an 8-1 lead in shots on goal, and regardless of how you track dangerous scoring chances, Edmonton really did have the bulk of them until the Stars finally found their legs. But Duchene and Marchment were really quite good in this game, and you could feel them testing the Edmonton defense more and more pointedly until they finally broke through. I’m sure Duchene would have loved to cap off his day with a hat trick, but two goals is probably perfectly acceptable when it means beating the Oilers.
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I’m sure some fans would like for the goaltender to always have an easy night because the entire team plays well with consistency, but hockey is all about figuring out which empty space you are responsible for. Jake Oettinger has decided to be responsible for everything, so far, and he’s led the Stars to a 5-1-0 start. You can’t really ask for much more from someone in their first game after signing a long-term contract extension. If he keeps that effort up for another eight years, the Stars will have a massive bargain on their hands. Oettinger is now one point ahead of Connor Hellebuyck for the NHL lead in save percentage (minimum three games played) with a .953 Sv%.
Oettinger’s performance is even more impressive when you look at goals saved above average (GSAA) per Natural Stat Trick, where Oettinger also ranks 1st in the league with 7.39 goals saved above the average a goalie facing the same chances would allow. Check out a List of Numbers and Names, included here for your convenience!
Having an elite goalie helps a team’s chances of winning in the playoffs, I once heard.
One final note on Oettinger: I asked him after the game if anything felt different about this year (health, team defense, etc.), and he volunteered something interesting about how he’s been playing:
“I think I’m just more confident that – I think as a goalie you want to be aggressive but, when you’re 6’6″ you can be deeper and it helps you get to plays easier. Especially when they can snap it around like them. If you’re six inches outside the crease they’re going to make you look pretty silly, so just the confidence and the reads that I’ve worked on. I can make a lot of saves from the goal line, so if I can just be patient and stay back a little bit more, it kind of slows things down for me.”
-Jake Oettinger, after Beating Edmonton 4-1 on October 19, 2024
Henrik Lundqvist was another goalie who made a pretty good career out of playing a bit deeper in his net, so it’s been done. And given how technically smooth Oettinger has been this year, you can’t fault his approach. In fact, you can probably praise it. Certainly his teammates and coach did tonight, and justifiably so.
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On the other side, I think Stuart Skinner would probably say he should have this shot, but you have to give credit to Duchene for stepping into the empty slot after a faceoff win by Hintz and putting enough mustard on this one for the bit of Skinner’s glove the puck did touch not to matter:
Matt Duchene is fired up. pic.twitter.com/wlWSiSj82c
— Victory+ (@victoryplustv) October 19, 2024
Edmonton goaltending has been bad to start the year despite really strong possession numbers, so in some ways, their team have been the inverse of the Stars (except with similar struggles on their power play, which is surprising). The Oilers are now 2-4-0 through six games, and the winless San Jose Sharks could actually tie them in points when they play their sixth game of the year tomorrow. I think the Stars will take great goaltending while they figure out the mechanics of their team rather than owning the metrics and losing the goaltending battle. I think every team in history would take that choice, actually.
One thing Edmonton appeared to be doing that not many of the Stars’ opponents have been was aggressive, strong-side pressure by all three forwards in the Edmonton defensive zone. It really felt like they were daring the Stars to make a great series of passes, which then risks turning the puck over (and giving up an odd-man rush if the turnover happens high in the zone). Dallas couldn’t really solve it, but they also didn’t give up too many dangerous rushes the other way, so perhaps they’ll take that.
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DeBoer said this about Matěj Blümel before the game: “I think we were hoping that in camp, we would have seen a little bit more [from Blümel]. But he went down, and he handled it the right way. And when you talk to the coaches down there, they said through a couple of games down there, he’s been really good.”
Blümel does have a goal in a couple games in the AHL, and I thought he looked fine in this one, all things considered. It was his first NHL game (aside from the preseason) in two seasons, and he did have one shot in the third period that also caught a piece of Skinner’s glove, nearly beating him. I think Blümel may end up falling into that Joel Hanley category of player who can absolutely play in the NHL if they are given the chance to do so, but they will have to find a team who sees them as the best option for those bottom-six minutes despite other younger, more highly touted prospects they want to try out.
It’s not a fair world, the NHL. But if Blümel can find a way to get a little better each game, there’s no reason he can’t end up like Colin Blackwell, who didn’t really stick in the NHL until he was 26 years old. Timing is everything. Also luck. And hard work, and probably who you know, and stuff. But timing, mostly.
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Let’s wrap up with a few specific players We wanted to mention in our traditional section entitled
Players We Wanted To Mention
Mason Marchment has also found a way to continue stepping up in the absence of Tyler Seguin. DeBoer alluded to changing up the power play unit in his postgame press conference, and that resulted in a top unit of Miro Heiskanen, Wyatt Johnston, Roope Hintz, with Mason Marchment and Matt Duchene in place of Jason Robertson and Jamie Benn. Marchment wasn’t directly involved in the goal, but he certainly was in others, so it wasn’t surprising that he was someone DeBoer looked to in order to juice the 5-on-4 play.
Marchment’s second-nicest play of the game (after his beautiful puck-protection and primary assist to Duchene featured above) may have been his goal-saving play in the second period, when a deflected puck floated dangerous up and over Oettinger, only for Marchment (who does not want for reach) to swat the puck away just in the nick of time. They call it goaltending in the NBA, but it is a much better sort of goaltending in the NHL. Seeing a player like Marchment engaged in a tight game and making a big difference in ways that don’t involve the referees reminds you why the Stars were so keen to sign him. If he and Duchene keep things going this well by the time Seguin returns, the Stars will be in good shape.
Jamie Benn also had a good game Saturday, I thought. DeBoer made sure to mention Benn’s hit(s) on Leon Draisaitl in the second period (which came after a decent hit by Brendan Smith, too), and Benn also had a good block late in the first against the top Oiler forwards. Benn was the only forward to win more than half of his faceoffs, too. Leadership isn’t always loud (unless you’re on the receiving end of it).
Mavrik Bourque got shuffled around a bit, playing right wing on a couple of different lines after DeBoer starting shuffling him and Dadonov, then Blackwell in an effort to find a trio who could make a difference. I really don’t think Bourque is going badly at all, but coming in late is tough on a young player, and even moreso when you have to center a line. Maybe it was just the nature of a slow start against an opponent who brought some demons for the Stars to vanquish, or maybe it’s a sign of a shift in how they use Bourque. If it’s any consolation, Oskar Bäck was back at center in this game, so perhaps Bourque’s cameo on the right wing was merely that. But it will be something to watch.
Logan Stankoven and Jason Robertson, on the other hand, had solid games that looked better as the night wore on. Stankoven in particular looks like he’s always causing issues for the other team, but Robertson also had some Nearly Theres to go with his typically sapient play. Those two combined on a nice feed to Roope Hintz for the third goal, which you can watch here.
Stankoven really does feel like an inevitability when it comes to that top spot, but you would like to see that trio show just a bit more dominance for a bit more of the game to go with the late-game scoring. But we are quibbling now, what with being spoiled by how good Hintz and Robertson have been in past years with a certain other player. Robertson also got rewarded for some of his diligent play (including drawing the Stars’ only power play of the game) by wafting his way past Edmonton’s layers of defense to restore the three-goal lead with an empty-netter, after which Edmonton humbly chose to keep Skinner in net the rest of the way.
Finally, Miro Heiskanen was really fantastic in this one, in some big and small ways. He had one play I failed to mark with a timestamp where a forward attempted to do what Jamie Benn did the other day and tie up his stick, taking him to the net to clear space for the forward with the puck. But Heiskanen fought it off and managed to get his stick free in time, making a critical shot block in the slot.
Another Heiskanen moment came after the Stars had been hemmed in their zone for a while (I believe in the third). Heiskanen finally collected the puck, and I think Dadonov was in the neutral zone making his stick available. But Heiskanen judged that it was too risky a pass, so he took a deep breath at the end of a long, long, shift, and lugged the puck up the red line himself, dumping it in and getting five fresh skaters out. That is leadership that deserve an “A” on your chest every bit as much as a big hit or a power play goal, I think.
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The Stars welcomed Brenden Morrow and Jim Lites for the opening puck drop in this game, and it is always a treat to see Morrow. Anyone who saw him play in the WHL in Portland or in the NHL in Dallas could tell you the same thing: nothing was going to stand in his way except time itself. The captaincy has been Jamie Benn’s for longer than anyone else’s, but he himself acknowledged to Taylor Baird that Morrow’s leadership was similar to his, in the lead-by-example style, and the carefully chosen words at the right time. It’s a lovely piece, so check it out.