Game 65 AfterThoughts: Outmanned, Outgunned

Be glad this one happened in March rather than May

I cannot be everywhere at once, people
I’m in dire need of assistance…

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Unfortunately, we have a perfect reference point for this 4-1 loss in Winnipeg, which is the Stars’ other 4-1 loss in Winnipeg this year.¹

“We made it too easy on their goaltender,” said DeBoer after the game. “We didn’t pay enough of a price to get inside and make it difficult for them.”

That’s a good place to start, because when you go down 4-0 late in the game, I really don’t have time for folks carping about the goaltending unless there were truly howlers being let in. And make no mistake: this game was not a game of howlers being let in.

DeBoer said, “We didn’t do nearly enough to create offense out there.” He pointed out that the Stars were turning the puck over out of stubbornness, trying to make plays the Stars shouldn’t have been trying to make—the first goal comes to mind—and that, in the end, was that. Dallas gave perhaps the most lethal top line in the NHL a couple of great kicks at the can, and Winnipeg kicked the can right through the crossbar.

Here’s a graphic from the intermission on Victory+ that I think sums up why those handful of loose plays were so deadly for Dallas:

Graphic from Victory+

That’s just some absurd level of sustained production all year by a team that’s channeling the 2022 Stars in a lot of ways, not least of which is the Jets’ having a fearsome top line scoring 42% of their team’s goals and a fantastic goaltender cleaning up after them.

That’s exactly how it went tonight, too, except Dallas also didn’t even ask Hellebuyck to be exceptional. In fact, the Stars had at least three prime, Grade-A chances (Granlund, Dadonov, and Robertson) just bounce off their tape with impending looks all alone on Hellebuuck. If even one of those chances gets put on net, you never know what would happen.

Or maybe you do know, this year. Hellebuyck has practically locked up another Vezina Trophy already. The Jets have allowed just one goal in six of their last ten games now. And while the Jets’ defensive game has been robust, nobody has any illusions about what has made them so impenetrable this year:

That sort of absurd goaltending—saving nearly 20% more goals than the average NHL netminder would on the same chances—can cover a multitude of sins. And when you have a top line that’s vibing with the vibiest of vibes this year, the mystery of the Jets’ sustained dominance is not a difficult one to solve.

Naturally, as we talked about earlier this week, these games against big opponents on Friday or Saturday nights tend to mean a bit more to the viewer. You want assurance that the Stars’ regular season success will translate to the big stage of the postseason, and with Winnipeg likely to be the second-round opponent for whoever comes out of the Dallas/Colorado bloodbath of the first round, this game was something of a proof of concept for the Dallas viewer. If the Stars could go up 2-1 in the season series, that tells you the Stars are For Real. If they get thumped again like they did early in the year, then all your worst fears come right back to the surface, just like they did in Edmonton last weekend.

That’s where we have to remember that Dallas was playing this game without Roope Hintz, Miro Heiskanen, Lian Bichsel, Tyler Seguin, and Nils Lundkvist. That means they were going with sub-optimal choices for their best defenseman, a staple of their second defense pairing, their top center, a top-six winger, and their biggest, most physical defenseman.

If you need reasons not to worry about the outcome (and the process) for Dallas in this game, there are five pretty decent ones, all of whom would likely be starting in this game, were they healthy. But alas, they were not, so they did not, and Dallas did naught.

The start of this game was a little too similar to the beginning of the Edmonton game last weekend. Dallas looked far too susceptible to the counterattack of a top-tier opponent, giving up premium looks in their own end while struggling to generate as many for themselves. Here’s what it looked like after 20 minutes, just for reference.

When you look at those five misses (grey circles) for Winnipeg in tight, you realize just how much worse it could have been after only 20 minutes. But alas, it never got better, unless you count a garbage time Marchment goal as “better,” though I prefer to count it as “revenge for getting hit in the face last time Marchment was in Winnipeg.”

Sam Steel was on the ice for three goals against, while his fellow fourth-liners were both -2 on the evening. That second Jets goal (the Connor one-timer) came with the Jets’ F-22 out against the Stars’ F-15, and even with the Stars’ depth, that’s a mismatch that was bound to end the way that it did. Road games are rough for a reason, you know.

By the way, Esa Lindell and Cody Ceci were actually both a +1 in this game. So if you’re still a little uneasy (as I am) about that pairing come playoff time, tonight showed that, if nothing else, they can at play big minutes without causing problems. That’s a virtue on any night, and especially this one.

Trivia: tonight had to be the first night in years where Esa Lindell played the whole game, the Stars took a penalty, but Lindell did not play any shorthanded ice time. I am not looking this up, but I believe this to be a True Fact (#truefacts).

As for the offense, tonight was a night where you also really would’ve liked to see more from the winger Dallas just signed up for eight years and $12 million, as well as *checks notes* every other member of the top six. But as Deboer said, Dallas just didn’t make life difficult enough on Winnipeg. What Deboer didn’t say was the fear that lurks within all of y’all’s hearts: what if Dallas couldn’t make life difficult for Winnipeg?

That’s the quiet-part-loud. If the Jets are just superior to Dallas outright, this game was all the proof you need to believe that. I’m not here to lie to you: the Jets are really stinkin’ good this year, defying all of our (my) expectations that they would cool off eventually, even if the goaltending continued to soar. But the power play hasn’t cooled off—though credit to Dallas, I suppose, for doing what DeBoer said they had to do by giving up barely any power play time at all—and the points keep piling up. Winnipeg is up to 96 points with 15 games to play, meaning they are likely going to hit over 115 points when all is said and done if they go “just” .667 down the stretch.

But stop worrying about Winnipeg for now, because the Stars are still 3rd in the entire NHL. It turns out—once again, as DeBoer said before the game—that the Stanley Cup was not being awarded to the winner of Friday night’s contest, so the Stars get to continue piling up points (they have 86) in their final 17 games. Most likely, they will do just that. And if we get to worry about the Stars beating Winnipeg in the playoffs, well, that means at least one very good thing will have happened already.

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Finally, let’s talk about Jake Oettinger. Even though I think it’s absurd to blame the goalie for a game where the Stars’ offense outright disappeared and the Jets got a bushel of Grade-A chances in the first two periods, people react in a lot of different ways when they’re let down by their team.

Ultimately, I think the online goalie rage (OGR) is just hurt feelings. I really do. That’s not a dig at anyone, because all it means is that people care deeply about how the Stars do, and when they don’t do well, it hurts them. Hurt people want to assign blame. That’s very normal, and it’s how most athletes (and coaches and GMs) feel, too! Losing stinks, every time. Losing to rivals on big stages hurts even more. You want to make sense of that pain, and pinpointing a culprit is the first instinct. And what better culprit than the guy whose job it is to be the last line of defense?

But while I think Oettinger is far from the primary reason Dallas lost this game, now is as good a time as any to acknowledge that the Stars’ starting goaltender hasn’t been his best self in the last few weeks. Through his first 40 games (October through the beginning of the Four Nations break), Oettinger had the 10th-best save percentage in the NHL with a solid .911.

However, in his seven games since returning from said break, Oettinger has dropped to 20th, with an .888 save percentage across those seven games. So, is it time to panic? I’ll defer to my favorite expert here:

In those seven games, Oettinger’s save percentages have been up and down:

.919 - Win vs. Islanders
.821 - Loss vs. Blue Jackets
.935 - Win vs. Kings
.929 - Win vs. Blues
.929 - Win vs. Flames
.815 - Loss vs. Oilers
.818 - Loss vs. Jets

Really, what you’re talking about is three eggs laid against the Blue Jackets, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. Not great—decidedly un-fun, even—but hardly a complete meltdown.

In baseball, there’s a principle about not being fooled by a starting pitcher’s ERA spiking in a few games. Unless you see something concerning about mechanics, health, or mindset, you are more often going to be proven right by trusting the player to revert to who they’ve been in large chunks of time across their career, rather than knee-jerking over a small sample size just because you’re feeling disappointed at recent outcomes.

With the Texas Rangers, I think back to Cliff Lee, one of the most utterly dominant starters they ever had (for a brief while). Lee was a special pitcher acquired in trade in that 2010 season of the Rangers’ first World Series appearance, and Lee was a big part of that journey. But he was also mortal, and sometimes he didn’t have his best stuff. In fact, in his 15 starts before the playoffs that year, Lee went 4-6 with a 3.98 ERA. It wasn’t the Lee all the highlights promised they would be getting, but to the Rangers’ credit, nobody went banana sandwich when that happened, because he ultimately had shown who he was, and he was allowed time to sort of small things to get back into form.

Lee went 2-0 in the ALDS, then he promptly came into the ALCS and struck out 13 in Game 3. Lee wasn’t perfect in the playoffs, but he was much closer to the absolute ace Texas had traded for than he was in some of his regular season starts down the stretch.

Oettinger is not Cliff Lee, because very few goaltenders have earned that reputation, and Oettinge is only 26 years old. But last season, Oettinger put up a .905 save percentage in the regular season (while recovering from 2023 summer surgery), only to go into the playoffs and put up a .913 save percentage that would have gotten them to the Stanley Cup Final, had the offense, cumulative injuries, and power play not sunk them against Edmonton. Stuart Skinner was better, but Oettinger was far from the one thing holding them back in that series.

In his short playoff career—47 playoff games—Oettinger has been a .915 goaltender in the postseason, which is a tick above his career save percentage in the regular season, of .912. That’s not a bad candle to light if you’re feeling down about the team right now. (And keep that candle ready for Sunday, too, if Hintz and Bichsel aren’t back in the lineup.)

I’m not saying you have to be happy about Oettinger getting outplayed by Connor Hellebuyck, but I am saying that pulling the fire alarm right now is much more likely to make you look foolish than prescient. Though if your dream is to be the next Cassandra, I guess you can keep prophesying doom and yanking fire alarms until you’re eventually proven right.

Then again, any Stars fan who lived through 2014-17 can hardly be blamed for having a trauma response when talking about goaltending. We’re all in this together, my friends.

As for me, I’m going to look at Oettinger’s history, and fall back on this: Dallas’s playoff fortunes are far less likely to be submarined by their franchise goaltender than they are by injuries to their best skaters. How’s that for some cheery optimism?

The Stars are in third place in the NHL, still.

Lineup

With Lian Bichsel still unwell and Roope Hintz not yet back to game-readiness, the Stars began with this lineup:

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

Harley-Lyubushkin
Lindell-Ceci
Smith-Dumba

Oettinger

The Stars called up Kyle Capobianco for this game probably just to ensure they had an extra body in case of an emergency, or perhaps just to show them around Winnipeg during their down time. Either way, one would expect him to travel with them to Denver as well unless Bichsel is available by Sunday, which seems unlikely.

Game Beats

Brandon Tanev got the Jets’ first Grade-A chance after Mikko Rantanen couldn’t hang onto a loose puck at center ice. Tanev scooped up the puck and went north, splitting the third defense pair for a breakaway. But Tanev is on the fourth line for a reason, and he put his backhand bid over the net.

The Jets would get a puck on net (and into it) after a turnover in the offensive zone, when Evgenii Dadonov (far left) tried a too-cute backhand pass to Mason Marchment, only for Dylan DeMelo to jump the route, poking the puck off Marchment’s stick and sending the Jets rushing on the counterattack.

But after the Stars appeared to have gotten numbers back, the final Jets player to make it into the zone, Dylan Samberg, too a nice pass from Mark Scheifele in the high slot, and he fired it into the corner of Oettinger’s blocker side.

It’s not clear whether the puck deflected on its way in or not, but regardless, it was a pretty open look for Samberg, and he stepped up and took it.

One thing Brent Severyn pointed out in the intermission was how Mason Marchment got caught watching the puck a bit too much here, leaving Samberg acres of space as he joined the play.

As you can see, Marchment doesn’t close on Samberg until he’s near the hash marks, and Marchment gives an awkward blocking effort that I think obscures Oettinger’s view of the puck a bit more than usual without actually stopping the puck.

It’s a small thing most of the time, but that extra half-second for Samberg to come down low with the puck before being forced to shoot means Oettinger has that much less time to pick up the puck, and sometimes that’s the difference.

Speaking of open looks, the Jets got a few more in the first period, including a nice criss-cross by the Jets’ elite top line that gave Scheifele a chance to make a backhand move, which he put off the post and back into Oettinger, miraculously failing to score.

The incredible top line of Winnipeg wouldn’t relent, though, and they outworked Dallas down low late in the first period to create another goal.

Here, you can see Gabriel Vilardi pinned along the boards, so Oskar Bäck leaves the middle of the ice to help Thomas Harley win the puck, with Kyle Connor close behind him.

He’s not able to win the puck away from the determined Vilardi, however, and it squirts down low, where Scheifele beats Bäck and Ilya Lyubushkin to it.

And as you can see, Bäck is hoping to win the puck, while Connor drifts back into the circle. He does not win the puck, and Scheifele finds Connor a moment later, now wide open for a one-timer, which Connor rips short side with a knee on the ice for his 34th goal of the season.

Of all the goals, that’s probably the main one Oettinger would say he should stop. But again, it’s a one timer that he’s likely expecting to go far side, given where the feed’s coming from. Great shot by a great shooter, and it was two-love.

Esa Lindell got a look with 45 seconds left after a defensive lapse from the same top line for Winnipeg (did they ever leave the ice?). But Lindell did not hit a corner like Winnipeg, and Connor Hellebuyck shrugged it away:

In the second period, you expected the Stars to change their approach, that manifested in a swap on the right side of the defense, moving Matt Dumba up to Harley’s pair and Lyubushkin down to the third pairing with Brendan Smith for half a period before reverting back to the starting pairings later in the second.

That change didn’t help much anyhow, as Dallas continued only to manage shots from distance with a little traffic, while Winnipeg generated more dangerous looks with superior effort, particularly from their top line. The officials knew this was a big tilt, as evidenced by the way they largely “let ‘em play,” which is one way to describe not calling two pretty clear stick fouls by Dallas and one by Winnipeg in the first period and change.

But officiating was not remotely to blame (or credit) for the result of this game, as the Jets’ top line just continued to punish Dallas whenever they put even a toe out of line anywhere on the ice.

For example, Mikael Granlund got what looked like a breakaway pass from Jason Robertson, but the long saucer feed bounced harshly off his stick blade, and Hellebuyck was able to sweep it away before it turned into anything.

Or at least, anything for Dallas. Instead, the Jets immediately turned play the other way, and Dallas found themselves somehow defending an odd-man rush a heartbeat after a breakaway for themselves. How?

Well, Duchene got trapped after following Granlund into the Winnipeg zone, while Harley had been pushing up the left side and pinning a man along the boards. But the Jets were able to get the puck around that logjam with speed, and while Robertson was able to curl back down to help Dumba, they were the only two back, while Winnipeg was able to bring three.

The third man down the ice for Winnipeg was Josh Morrissey, who was able to beat three Stars caught up the ice back down the ice in time for a give-and-go with a player the Stars did not draft in 2015.

Thus, Kyle Connor scored his 35th goal of the season.

Dallas finally summoned some desperation late in the second, when Mikko Rantanen occupied two Jets, allowing Jamie Benn to get this no-look shot, which he very nearly put past Hellebuyck’s left skate (but did not):

After that, Dallas was permitted to spend a full two minutes in the Jets’ zone on a power play thanks to old friend Colin Miller, who did his buddies a solid by interfering with Sam Steel.

But the thing is, the Stars spent all two minutes in the Jets’ zone because they did not end the power play prematurely by scoring. They also did not get a single puck on Hellebuyck. They did do some very nice passing though, so I wanted to give them credit for that nice passing. Great passing by them.

In fact, the Stars got better looks from Brendan Smith and Matt Duchene after the power play had expired, as Smith whipped a quick shot from up and wide that slipped by Hellebuyck’s left pad, narrowly missing the far post. This felt like a game you’d almost expect a goal like that to happen in, but Smith continued to go without a biscuit so far this year.

But the best look for Dallas was Duchene’s in the final seconds, after Robertson denied two Jets breakouts before creating this look for his center, with Hellebuyck guessing pass all the way:

I personally quite enjoyed the reflexive duck from Hellebuyck, who realizes too late that the puck is going to be fired at his head rather than dished across the crease. But alas, it hit the near post and stayed out to preserve the 3-0 lead after 40 minutes.

The third period ensured the same patterns would hold true, as a couple of Stars’ chances bounced off sticks, after which Winnipeg got a goal from distance that made it through a maze of players because Winnipeg.

Here are two instances of a Stars forward getting a feed on the far side of the net all alone, only for the puck to suddenly become covered in Flubber. These are not the same play:

If either of those pucks for Dadonov or Robertson turns into what they so often have for Dallas this year, you’re looking at a 3-1 deficit and a third period that means something. But instead, both of those chances did what Granlund’s breakaway feed did earlier in the game and exploded off the tape.

And because it’s a game in Winnipeg, the Jets’ DeMelo promptly fired a puck into a mass of bodies between Oettinger and himself, and it went in.

According to the Laws of Big Games This Year, that puck is required to go in, and it did. Brandon Tanev got a piece of the puck, but I believe he tipped it into fourth-line center Morgan Barron—congratulations to all the Morgan Barron fans out there—after which it sailed by a helpless (and unhelped) Oettinger for a 4-0 bummer of a lead. Nothing like a double-deflection goal by a fourth line to really salt the wound.

Speaking of saltiness, Dallas would ensure they weren’t shut out, as Dadonov made a nice couple of plays to set up Marchment, who finally fired a puck at the space around Hellebuyck (novel idea, that) to ensure the goaltender wouldn’t get to hang a horse collar on Dallas.

It was a beautiful couple of moves from Dadonov, who showed that being 36 years old doesn’t mean he’s tired at the end of a rough game, unlike those of us who are 38 years old and felt exhausted after watching the first period.

Lyubushkin was given a perfunctory penalty for interferenace with 80 seconds to play, ensuring the Stars wouldn’t be tempted to pull Oettinger in an optimistic bid to erase a three-goal deficit against the best goaltender in the galaxy. Nothing came of it, however, and the Stars put up their second 4-1 loss in Winnipeg of the season.

They now travel to Denver on Sunday, and we’ll await word about the status of Hintz and Bichsel. Frankly, you’d probably consider anyone lucky to have missed this one, though.

1. Aside: I really do love that the old Wordpress site has rolled up fairly seamlessly into my Substack archives. All of the posts from the old site are unlocked for everyone, by the way. It’s nice to know that the last 11 months of Stars Thoughts are all safe and sound.