Game 61 AfterThoughts: Another Day, Another 6-1 Win

Matt Duchene had four assists as the Stars won their tenth in a row

Song of the Game

I have a band of men and all they do is play for me
They come from miles around to hear them play a melody
Beneath the stars my ten guitars will play a song for you

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When you’re rolling like the Stars are, there’s always a voice in the back of your mind: This can’t go on forever. But ten games into their current franchise-best winning streak, all they’re concerned about it that it is going on, right now.

As superstitious as hockey players are, even they will readily admit that teams are not going to go 82-0 over the course of the season. Waves come and go, and all you can do is try to make the peaks last longer than the valleys. I recall Matt Duchene saying almost that exact thing earlier this year (and he would end up repeating it after the game tonight).

What better player could there be right now than Duchene, to espouse that message? Duchene knows the heights and depths of this Stars season more personally than most, and he is thoroughly enjoying the latter right now, having lit up the Flames with four assists tonight.

Oh, and then Duchene admitted in a postgame interview with Josh and Razor that he was “pretty tired” tonight. Heaven help Calgary if he had been fresh.

“The guys are in a good space right now,” head coach Glen Gulutzan said. “We’ve been playing good hockey for a while. I like the way we’re playing, both ways. That’s the best part of it. These guys are pretty bought in to playing both ways. It’s a great group, fun to be a part of.”

A back-to-back is supposed to make players tired, especially ones that are on the wrong side of thirty. But tonight, the Stars’ oldest line was its best by 1.6 kilometers, as Sam Steel buried two goals to tie his career high (10), and Jamie Benn put a Duchene saucer feed past Dustin Wolf’s blocker hand for a goal of his own.

Duchene’s fourth assist came on the power play, and you don’t need me to tell you that Wyatt Johnston was the one who scored it—he’s one shy of Dino Ciccarelli, now.

I’m not sure what the Stars’ forward lines will look like come Game 1 of their first playoff series, but one thing we can definitively say right now is that the Steel-Duchene-Benn trio is still scorching hot. In their last ten games, all three players are +7 at 5-on-5. Duchene and Benn have been on the ice for 11 goals for and just 4 goals against in that span, and the line is all well over 60% in expected goals, too.

“Yeah, playing some great hockey,” Jamie Benn said of his veteran linemate. “You get in a groove, and you’re feeling good, you’re playing good, you’re getting your points. But the biggest thing is he’s playing some good hockey within this gameplan that we’ve been throwing out. We’ve all been sticking to it, and it’s paid off.”

Lately, that Duchene line has had to be the Stars’ second line, as two thirds of their top six have been on the shelf in Hintz and Rantanen. The Stars have needed the veterans to step up, and Duchene has led the way, with an unbelievable 17 points in his last 10 games. He has put the work in and elevated his game after what he’s called one of the hardest recoveries from any injury in his career, and his resurgence couldn’t have come at a better time.

“It was tough for him, he was out a long time, early,” Gulutzan said of Duchene. “I think just before the break, he started to get his form. And then the break actually, I think helped him. It caught him up with everything. Now you’re seeing him at his full potential.”

Benn pointed out, as a captain should, that they’ve been getting contributions from everyone in the lineup.

“It’s a collective effort. It’s a team effort. I think that’s what we like most about it,” Benn said.

The Captain also admitted that he enjoys playing in these games in Western Canada, where he played a whole lot of junior hockey back in the day. And given that he has something like 48 points in 48 games in Calgary according to a local reporter in tonight’s postgame scrum, I’d say Benn is telling the truth.

Duchene, for his part, said the Stars are heavily focused on the details right now, doing “the little things,” then moving on to the next game and repeating the formula.

“I think that’s why we’re winning game after game right now,” Duchene said. “It’s because we have that attitude.”

And Duchene then proceeded to name nearly half the roster to drive Benn’s point home: it truly has been a group effort.

“We’ve had so many guys just come in and play unbelievable,” Duchene said. “Erne, Bastian, Hryckowian, Bäck. Hyry comes up playing really well. On and on and on. Blackwell, I mean, he’s been a little energizer bunny for us. He’s creating so much for us. Everyone’s playing.”

That includes a couple of third-pairing defenseman who missed some games, too.

“I mean, Bichsel has come back and played unbelievable for us,” Duchene said. “Best hockey I’ve seen him play. Everyone. Lyubushkin, you know, scratched for a few games, comes back in the lineup, playing some of the best hockey I’ve seen him play since he’s been here.”

“Guys are guys are pulling their weight. Guys are feeling confident. Guys are feeling good. You want to keep riding the wave. You know, we will lose a game at some point. Hopefully it’s not until the playoffs, or hopefully not at all. (laughs) But we will, and at that point, it’s about refocusing and staying with it.”

Sam Steel is one of those players who is staying with it. After a stretch on the top line where Steel sometimes struggled to finish good chances, he’s found a perfect role on Duchene’s line, playing well at both ends of the ice.

“Those are two elite players who have been elite for a long time,” Steel said of his linemates. “As I’m playing with them, I’m just picking up little things here and there. You know, how they see the game. We’re finding some chemistry, so it’s been fun.”

One thing Steel added is that the Stars as a team had to go through some valleys in order to get here, though.

“I think we’re just all buying in,” Steel said. “We went through a stretch where it was really hard to find wins. And I think that was good for us. It forced us to key in on the things that are gonna make us successful, and I think we’re doing that right now.”

That success has all kinds of cascading effects, such as keeping top players’ ice time down. For example, Miro Heiskanen’s two lowest totals in time-on-ice this season have both come in the last 48 hours: Heiskanen played 20:17 on Monday and 20:55 in Calgary.

That success has also allowed other players to play more, too. More ice time has led to more confidence, and the whole vibe around the team is about as good as it could be right now.

That can all change on Friday, of course. The best team in the league is rolling into Dallas, and the Stars will still be missing Mikko Rantanen. As much fun as the last ten games have been, they will be facing an opponent on a much different level than any of their recent opponents.

Still, you can only beat the teams you’re playing, and the Stars have beaten a couple of teams lately. Goals won’t come this easily as the games get more important, but there’s nothing wrong with proof of concept when it comes to success. Especially if that success has been earned.

“We’re up. We’re high, but we’re not getting too high,” Duchene said. “We’re keeping it focused. You can be up, and you can be feeling good in this league, as long as you bring the work with you, and the little things. I think we’re doing a good job of that.”

Highlights and Lowlights

Arttu Hyry nearly got the Stars off to a great start, when a Calgary turnover was kept in the zone by Bichsel, allowing Colin Blackwell to set up Hyry for this chance, which he fired just wide:

That’s a shot that can do some damage, if it’s dialed in.

Blake Coleman put the Stars on the power play shortly afterward, when he got an arm around Miro Heiskanen that was probably closer to a one-minute penalty than anything.

Perhaps the officials felt the same way, because Mavrik Bourque bumped into Dustin Wolf (after he was himself steered towards the goaltender) late in the power play, and despite grabbing the crossbar to avoid serious contact, he was still given a penalty of his own, but Calgary was about as dangerous on theirs as Dallas had been before them, which is to say nobody scored.

Sam Steel did score soon after that, and he did so by tipping a Duchene point shot off Yan Kuznetsov and in:

Steel gave one of those looks right after the goal that players give when they kind of think a goal is coming back, but no offside challenge was forthcoming, and Dallas had themselves a lead.

At least, they did for a minute, until Morgan Frost deftly tipped in this puck to tie things up while the Stars were otherwise occupied:

Bichsel had been finishing Klapka along the wall, so probably Johnston ought to have stayed home there and covered Frost in front of the net, but full marks for the artful tip-in by Frost, nonetheless.

Jamie Benn put the Stars ahead after some good old-fashioned hard work from his linemates, as Steel and Duchene combined to win a puck down low and feed the Art Ross Trophy-haver for a shot that beat Dustin Wolf low:

That’s a really good, simple sequence from the three linemates, and all three of them had two points apiece just 12 minutes into the game.

The first period tightened up after that, and the neutral zone was thick with bodies, forcing some dump-ins and board work that Dallas seemed almost eager to do, while Calgary took their share of point shots, rather than trying to force shots from better quality areas:

First Period Shots, Hockeyviz.com

The second period started off with a 2-on-1 that Harley laid down to defend, but this mid-air deflection didn’t happen, and Dallas escaped. Calgary would pay for missing that chance, too.

Wyatt Johnston turned a puck over high in the Calgary zone, and he bumped it over to Robertson, who either flung it on net or called “Bank!” off Bourque, depending on what you choose to believe, making it 3-1:

Wolf had to be sharp on a couple of Colin Blackwell chances shortly after that, as the Stars pushed for a chance to put the game out of reach.

Calgary chose to push back with violence, and Nazem Kadri got into it with Lian Bichsel in front of the Stars’ net, putting both players in the box.

It wouldn’t work, however, as Matt Duchene generated a third goal for his line by discarding MacKenzie Weegar and setting up Steel for a goal that chased Wolf, making it 4-1.

It wouldn’t get any better when Devin Cooley came in, however. After a shift so dominant that Arttu Hyry casually went off to change, Nils Lundkvist sent a one-timer at the net that Nathan Bastian tipped in, making it 5-1, and breaking the spirit of Weegar pretty visibly.

We’ve all had one of those nights, and lately, Dallas has been forcing such nights upon their opponents.

The rest of the second period was filled with more close calls for Dallas, and a couple of penalties, including Adam Erne getting pushed dangerously into Casey DeSmith by Adam Klapka. And as they’d done all night, the Stars would make the Flames pay for their mistake.

That’s because Wyatt Johnston and Matt Duchene had time and space on the power play, with the former scoring his 21st power play goal and the latter racking up his fourth assist in 40 minutes, capitalizing upon a great Miro Heiskanen keep at the blue line to make it 6-1.

After 40 minutes, the only questions left were statistical ones, and not the kind Calgary were terribly interested in hearing about.

The Stars came out of the intermission like nothing had changed, and the bottom six forwards chained two overwhelming shifts together that somehow didn’t result in a goal as Devin Cooley decided that someone had to keep trying. Still, the pressure resulted in something, as Joel Hanley put his second puck over the glass of the night to give Dallas a power play early on.

Devin Cooley spoiled the party a bit by robbing Thomas Harley with a soccer goalie save, and Jason Robertson hit a post of his own as what counts for good Flames luck made a cameo appearance, and 5-on-5 play resumed.

The rest of the final frame was filled with the sorts of things common to 6-1 laughers, as Jamie Benn tried to telepathically command Sam Steel to shoot on a 2-on-1, and the fourth line looked fanatically dedicated to getting Arttu Hyry his first NHL goal, one way or another. (At least, that’s how I would describe a 1:21 shift from Nate Bastian that was spent almost entirely in the offensive zone.)

Perhaps the most representative moment of the third came late, when Adam Erne took a clean hit from the 6-foot-8 Adam Klapka. Mavrik Bourque played the loose puck, then proceeded to lay out Klapka himself surely to the delight of the onlooking bench:

Call it that one percent or standing up for a teammate or just making a statement, if you want. (The referees called it interference.) That moment meant something, especially coming at the end of the team’s record-setting tenth straight win. These Dallas Stars, even missing some players, have officially become Glen Gulutzan’s team.

Lineups

Dallas went with the group that got them here (lately, at least):

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

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Lyubushkin

DeSmith

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Calgary did this:

Zary-Kadri-Farabee
Coleman-Backlund-Coronato
Sharangovich-Frost-Gridin
Lomberg-Beecher-Klapka

Bahl-Weegar
Kuznetsov-Whitecloud
Hanley-Parekh

Wolf

After-AfterThoughts

• Dallas put Roope Hintz on IR today for the illness that’s kept him out of the lineup lately. The IR assignment is retroactive to February 25, so he’s eligible to be activated for Friday’s game, if he’s healthy enough to play by then. Gulutzan said after tonight’s game that Hintz “should be a player Friday,” but added that if not, Hintz will 100% play on Sunday.

  • Hintz has been skating in recent days, so the IR move reads more as a way to give Dallas a bit of roster flexibility as the trade deadline approaches by opening up Hintz’s roster spot for a couple of days. This way, Dallas wouldn’t immediately have to put a player on waivers upon making a trade, should they do so before Friday.

• As for Dallas trades, I still struggle to see easy solutions to acquiring players with term, like Kadri, Coleman, or Ristolainen. Anything is possible, but until I hear otherwise, I’m going to assume Dallas’s name is showing up in those lists more because sellers want to give the illusion of competition in order to drive up the prices, rather than because the Stars are actually serious competitors to make those moves. But hey, I’m just thinking out loud here (by which I mean silently, on a screen).

• The Minnesota Wild made a trade today, acquiring Michael McCarron from the Nashville Predators in exchange for a 2028 second-round draft pick. The price seems quite high for a fourth-line player like McCarron, but perhaps that’s just indicative of how many competing teams were also in on the player. He is very tall, after all, and you know how Bill Guerin feels about grit:

  • Stars fans might also remember McCarron for being the player whose hit injured Jason Robertson’s knee in the final game of the season last year, when he did this:

    

  • Anyway, this move just felt like a warm-up for the deadline. You’d think Minnesota will still try to land Vinny Trocheck or a comparable center, too.

• The Victory+ broadcast showed this graphic, which Razor and Josh mentioned is implicit praise for Casey DeSmith:

  

• Miro Heiskanen faced a 2-on-1 right off the bat on the Stars’ first power play, but I thought he played it really well, attacking the puck when it was drawn back and unable to be really manipulated, neutralizing the chance:

• After going 9-for-15 on faceoffs tonight, Arttu Hyry is up to 26-for-39 on the season, good for 67%. He also played another 1:24 of penalty kill time tonight.

• Speaking of which, Nils Lundkvist played 1:27 of his own PK time tonight, as Gulutzan gave Heiskanen some much-needed rest. Lundkvist ended the night at 20:23—three seconds more than Esa Lindell played.

• Colin Blackwell was Feelin’ It tonight, and this play to nearly set up Lian Bichsel for another pretty goal was pretty impressive, even if it didn’t come off:

• You might remember another blowout in Calgary featuring Jamie Benn and the Stars piling up points: November 14, 2013 when the newly minted Captain Benn put up six points (and five assists) while Tyler Seguin posted four goals.

  • But of course, the night is mostly remembered for this iconic move from Kari Lehtonen, captured on camera in the final minute of the game:

    

Some players in green will absolutely miss the Saddledome.