Game 68 AfterThoughts: Jake Oettinger Enjoys Another Busy Night in Denver

Dallas and Colorado went to a shootout, again

Song of the Game

The tide is high, but I'm holding on
I'm gonna be your number one

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After the Stars outplayed the Avalanche in Dallas the other night and lost, they clearly decided to stick with what worked back in October. And what worked in October, and again tonight, was asking Jake Oettinger to come up huge. He answered the bell and looked the part, maintaining his languidly locked-in focus right up until the final Nathan MacKinnon shot thumped off the end boards to end the game.

That’s not to say the Stars as a whole were bad tonight, but Colorado was very much on the front foot for the majority of regulation, and it was rare that Dallas got sustained pressure. That’s how shot attempts got to 63-32 for the home side in the first place: The Avalanche were just more dangerous, and it forced the Stars to do a lot more defending than attacking.

But peril is not the same thing as calamity, because the Stars’ defense and goaltending this year can hold the fort. Thus, Colorado had to settle for a lot of chances from outside the inner slot, which meant they put a ton of pucks into Stars players in shooting lanes that never even got to Oettinger.

Blocked shots were 20-6, with Dallas doing most of the work. Shots on goal were similarly tilted (in the way they’re calculated now), at 34-18 for the Avalanche. Take a closer look at the Stars’ gameplan, however, and you see something pretty interesting: Most of Colorado’s advantage in numbers came from above the circles:

(Not including blocked shots)

Dallas kept the Avalanche from dominating the inner slot outright, while they preferred to hold onto pucks until they could get them into the slot themselves. It was a playoff game, basically, and Dallas went for quality over quantity.

And that made for a really, really fun game to watch, even if Glen Gulutzan’s acknowledgement after the game was true: Colorado outplayed Dallas, but the Stars ended up with the extra point.

“Our third was better than our first and second,” Gulutzan said. “I thought they were clearly better in the second, and I thought we bounced back in the third.”

The Stars got hemmed in at times in the middle frame, but they found their legs and lungs in the third and overtime, when they very much looked like a team that can hang with the best team in the league, and even come away with two points.

“Almost like two heavyweight fighters that didn’t want to get hit with a punch early,” Gulutzan said of the first part of the game. “I thought it was pretty tentative, both sides. They kind of got going first, carried the momentum. I thought we got it back a little bit in the third, but as a coach, you’re never happy. I think our guys next time, we can be better in this building.”

Jake Oettinger was the difference, as Gulutzan also said. His sleeve save on MacKinnon was the hallmark of this one, but Oettinger’s form all night was composed and confident. Oettinger looked every bit like the goaltender that eliminated this Colorado group in two prior series, and that has to be a really reassuring thing for fans who have been a little concerned about his overall numbers. This is the goalie Oettinger can be, and that goalie can beat anyone.

The Stars’ third defense pairing of Lian Bichsel and Tyler Myers was also enormous, literally and figuratively. In a game like this, you really notice just how much the smallest liability can be exploited, and the Stars’ blue line doesn’t really have any, right now. It’s really cool to see a kid like Bichsel skating confidently with the puck, making touch passes by his own net under pressure, and generally just embracing a big moment. Having two players with size, reach, and mobility makes that third pairing a very good one, and Gulutzan had no compunctions about rolling them over the boards for 14 minutes against the best team in the league.

Miro Heiskanen played 28 minutes, and he nearly won it in overtime early on. Thomas Harley had a game-saving backcheck in overtime himself, and he also created some dangerous looks on his pairing with Nils Lundkvist. Dallas doesn’t have all their weapons right now, including their very best one in Mikko Rantanen, so to take what Colorado was bringing tonight and land a few big counterpunches in terms of scoring chances was something else.

Nate Bastian got a primary assist in this game, which tells you just how much Gulutzan was trusting his depth against the best team in the NHL. The decision to take Arttu Hyry out was an intriguing one, and the Stars did get waxed a bit on faceoffs in the bottom six, with Bäck and Blackwell combining to go just 2-for-11 on the dot. But Bastian also got his first assist of the season when he fired a puck off the post that Robertson put home, so it’s safe to say nobody will be too bent out of shape about faceoff numbers after this one. When you score a 5-on-5 goal and the other guys don’t, you get to sleep soundly, bruises and all.

As far as other standouts, Mavrik Bourque was a ton of fun to watch in this one, and he was throwing his frame around with efficacy. He even got some time in 3-on-3 overtime, as did Justin Hryckowian. Trust means something to young players, and Gulutzan continues to show it.

Nils Lundkvist, similarly, was trusted to face tough competition once again. He and Harley looked like a very functional second pairing with a plan, even when the Avalanche were punching them in the metaphorical face at times with pressure.

While you wouldn’t say Dallas was the better team tonight, their B game was still plenty good enough to frustrate the trophy holders on the other side. You take that, in March, when it comes with two points. You take it all day long.

Wyatt Johnston scored the winner in the shootout, and his line was the Stars’ best in regulation. Johnston was asked to do all the heavy lifting with 10 defensive zone faceoffs, and he did what he did a lot last April, and kept MacKinnon frustrated. Genuinely, you can’t say enough about what this player has done for this team. With Roope Hintz out, he’s been asked to do everything, and the Stars keep benefiting from it. What a player he’s been.

TNT

This game wasn’t perfect at all, but how Dallas got outplayed was more manageable than it might have been, thanks to their defensive structure and goaltending. This game wasn’t a recipe for success over seven games, but it was certainly a lot like one or two games they won in the first round last year. And that’s plenty of food for thought, if you’re Colorado.

Highlights and the Lowdown

We began with a bunch of plays going offside, as each team tried to enter the zone with speed. But Nils Lundkvist would draw the game’s first penalty when Zakhar Bardakov got his stick into Lundkvist’s skates, giving Dallas an early chance to grab the lead.

Dallas lost two faceoffs and went offside once, mustering only one real chance on a Jason Robertson shot that didn’t get through to Wedgewood, and Bardakov escaped without punishment.

At the other end, Val Nichushkin got a break and put his shoulder down as he got in alone, only to get shut down by Jake Oettinger in a huge moment (with Harley perhaps hampering Nichushkin’s effort a tad):

Through ten minutes, Nichushkin had one of two of the game’s only shots on goal. It was a tense, heavy-hitting, defensive affair, and both teams were showing their chops in such an environment, with Dallas spending a bit more time in their own zone than Colorado, but with neither team generating much in the way of dangerous looks.

Jason Robertson put the Stars’ first shot on Wedgewood 16 minutes into the period, and the Johnston line generated another couple of looks shortly after that to put Wedgewood to work. But because of modern NHL shot accounting, most of Wedgewood’s saves were categorized as missed shots.

The Avs got on the board late in the first after Jamie Benn wrapped up Brock Nelson along the boards. The pair then went to the ice, and Benn was shocked to find out that he had been called for holding, mouthing “He was holding ME!” to the official after being summoned from the bench to the box. (Which, in fairness, Nelson was. But Colorado tends to get a lot of calls at home, and it was an opportunity for the officials to even up the calls early, so what are ya gonna do?)

After 80 seconds of constant pressure but no pucks on net, Colorado finally their look, and it was a good one, as Cale Makar came down into the slot and fired one home after a desperate Hryckowian sliding block took him out of the play, only to have the puck bounce off his stick and right to Kadri, who found the open Makar:

After that, Dallas actually got a couple of their best looks on turnovers by Colorado, but Robertson couldn’t beat Wedgewood from the wing on a good look—again, it was called a missed shot—so Dallas had to settle for what would count as a fairly decent road period against any other opponent.

HockeyViz.com - First Period shots

Wyatt Johnston got two more great chances off a great Thomas Harley stretch pass early in the second, but once again, Scott Wedgewood came up big, first on a wrister, then on a subsequent tuck-attempt in front.

Colorado came back down and put Dallas in some trouble, and Oettinger ended up in a scramble behind his net for a moment. But he would end up getting back to the net and flashing his glove to calm things down.

Cale Makar also laid a big hit on Heiskanen in the second period, which is a lot of Norris Trophy votes colliding. But credit to Heiskanen, who got back up and after it.

Things wouldn’t get calm after Sams Steel and Malinski came together, and Steel’s stick opened Malinski’s face on the follow-through (which is why it wasn’t called, I guess):

From there, we got a whole lot of crazy hockey, most of it for Colorado’s offense to play. But Oskar Bäck did nick a post on a great chance all alone in front of Wedgewood before that all kicked off.

But yeah, Heiskanen and Lindell got caught in a frenzy of Avalanche offense for over two minutes straight, eventually getting a short breather after an icing. And yet, after 40 minutes, Jake Oettinger had kept the score at 1-1, with this unbelievable stop on Nate MacKinnon very much reminding Denver of last April.

The puck actually ended up going into Oettinger’s sleeve, of all places, and Colorado had nothing to show for a 15-7 shots on goal advantage in the middle frame.

Oh, also Michael Bunting channeled the spirit of Mason Marchment with 19 seconds to go, as a Cale Makar interference call was quickly adjusted to include an embellishment call that Bunting, ah, took umbrage with.

After two periods, shots on goal were 21-9 for Colorado, with blocked shots 16-2, for Dallas.

Shot attempts at 5-on-5 were 47-24 for Colorado, but high-danger chances were just 9-8, as Dallas attempted to pack the slot and absorb pressure while waiting for their chances. With 20 minutes to play, it only remained to see what those chances would be.

The 4-on-4 resulting from the two penalties was all Dallas, though Mavrik Bourque was the only one to put a puck on Wedgewood, on a shift where he bodied Josh Manson(!) a couple of times. Bourque and Manson continued to spar as the period went on, with Bourque’s helmet getting ripped off after he might have ripped Manson’s stick away. It was an intense, playoff-style game, and Nate Bastian came in to level Manson on a subsequent shift just to drive the point home.

Colorado got their second power play of the game when Parker Kelly and Tyler Myers were battling in front, and Myers’s stick-lift on a rebound was deemed hooking (which it may well have been).

But Oettinger made a couple of big stops, Makar hit some iron, and the Stars survived the two minutes. Not only that, but they would then get their own chance after Colorado got dinged for putting six players out on the ice in a bad change, putting Dallas on the power play.

Johnston got once shot that Wedgewood’s pad stopped, but otherwise Dallas looked every bit like a team missing Roope Hintz and Mikko Rantanen against a great penalty kill, as Colorado got through the two minutes without nearly as much danger as Dallas weathered on the prior penalty kill.

As the final minutes of regulation ticked away, both teams probed, but the third forward was largely kept high for defensive purposes, and so we went to overtime for the third time in three games between these teams.

Heiskanen and Johnston combined to create a chance right off the bat at 3-on-3, but this overtime was all about defensemen. Cale Makar, Miro Heiskanen, and Thomas Harley would all make critical defensive plays on 2-on-1s to prevent the dagger pass from getting across, with this full-sheet backcheck by Thomas Harley chief among those efforts:

But this game was always going to another shootout, because it’s Colorado and Dallas. And that’s what we got.

The shootout went like this:

Robertson: save, backhand
Nichushkin: save, backhand
Duchene: save, five-hole
Nečas: miss, high
Johnston: Goal, glove side

And that would be the only goal of the shootout, because…
MacKinnon: miss, blocker side

And so, for the second time this year, Dallas beat Colorado in a shootout. The Central Division (and Presidents’ Trophy) gap is down to two points, with Colorado having a game in hand.

Lineups

Dallas brought this group to the altitude:

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

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Myers

Oettinger

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Colorado assembled these personages:

After-AfterThoughts

• Vladislav Kolyachonok was hit in the face with a puck in Cedar Park tonight. He skated off under his own power, but here’s hoping for only minor damage.

• Tom Gaglardi’s CRAFT restaurant is coming to Preston, in case you’re looking for a rooftop patio to have drinks on when it’s 97 degrees this weekend.

• College free-agent signing season has begun, as Dallas signed defenseman Jack Anderson today to a two-year, $1.05 million AAV entry-level contract. He’ll join AHL Texas on an amateur tryout deal for the rest of the year.

  • Also, he is very tall, coming around 6-foot-6 and 222-lbs. He’s a left-hand shot who just completed his senior year at Michigan Tech, so we’ll see how he fits in down the stretch. 100 Degree Hockey has more, as always.

    

• Brett Kulak being moved up next to Cale Makar in place of Devon Toews (who went down to the second pairing) was a very interesting move, I thought. Toews had some rough moments in Dallas a couple weeks ago, and this seemed an acknowledgement of that fact.

• Esa Lindell got a puck out of a tough spot in the second period. He’s good at this.

• Wedgewood actually got a paddle on Robertson’s shot on the Stars’ first goal. Not enough of one to keep it out, but can you imagine Robertson’s reaction if he’d stopped this?

• Mavrik Bourque and Martin Nečas got into it after the whistles, and you have to admire Bourque’s pluck, here. Taking absolutely zero guff, that kid.