Game 68 AfterThoughts: Nearly Enough, but Nowhere Near Good Enough

The Stars were probably fortunate to get a point tonight

Special teams and goaltending are the keys to victory, most nights. If you don’t have them, you can lose a lot of games you otherwise shouldn’t. Of course, if special teams and goaltending are all that you have, you may lose games you absolutely should lose, and the Stars did just that on Thursday night against Tampa Bay.

Early in the season, the Stars weren’t getting key power play goals, and they were losing a few too many winnable games thanks to key mistakes that negated large swaths of good play.

Tonight, Casey DeSmith held Tampa Bay to two goals despite facing 38 pucks. The Stars also scored a gritty power play goal with their second unit, and killed the only Tampa power play they faced.

Unfortunately, the Stars were decidedly second-best at even-strength, and that meant that even having DeSmith going full Matrix Mode could only get them a single point. The Stars’ only even-strength goal was by their fourth line, who DeBoer said were just about the only good thing for the Stars.

“When you’re talking about the fourth line and the youngest defenseman on the team being the bright spots, this time of year, that’s not good enough,” said DeBoer.

When DeBoer says “this time of year,” he’s referring to the final 15 games before the playoffs. The Stars came out of the Four Nations break winning six of seven games against a fairly middling mix of teams where only New Jersey and Los Angeles are clearly in the playoff picture. After the caliber of competition ramped up in Edmonton, the Stars struggled, losing four of six games, with the only regulation victory being against a simlarly at-sea Vancouver team.

"I'm just really disappointed with our effort,” said DeBoer. “They were harder, hungrier, heavier than us, which is inexcusable this time of year. We've been leaking a little bit over the last couple weeks, and tonight was probably about as bad as it's been."

DeBoer is generally pretty positive or at least sanguine in postgame press conferences. He’s well-aware of the danger of being too negative, too demanding, while also being very obsessive about the details of the game. He wants perfection from his players, as all coaches do, but he’s careful not to explode any time they don’t deliver on that. Perspective is a healthy thing.

But tonight, I think DeBoer’s expressions of displeasure—he walked out brusquely 90 seconds after entering the press conference—was a calculated one. Now is the time to start getting serious about fixing things. Yes, the fatigue is real, and the team might be running low on gas, as he’s said throughout a compressed season. But time growing short.

Losing this game, in this way, after the Winnipeg humiliation and the Edmonton loss, felt like a bridge too far even for the world’s most patient coach. You don’t have to win every game, but you can’t play two weeks of hockey without looking even close to good enough to hang with the better teams in the league. That’s not acceptable, and clearly DeBoer has decided not to accept it.

We’ll see if the message gets through. The Stars do still have some leeway in the standings, and two games in hand mean they aren’t nearly as close to falling back into the mushy middle as it might look at first blush.

Still, better to start fixing things a little early than a little late. This is true with hockey, and with cars.¹

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The most notable difference tonight was that the Stars had a few lines that had moments of good work, but no real sustained chains of shifts at any point in the game. Meanwhile, the Hagel-Cirelli-Kucherov line was by far the most dangerous one for either team. Hagel and Cirelli were also dangerous while shorthanded, and that trio racked up 15 of Tampa Bay’s 38 shots on goal all by themselves.

Just compare the shots charts at even-strength, and you can see how much work Casey DeSmith had to do just to get Dallas to overtime.

Dallas generated nothing in the high slot whatsoever, and had an uncharacteristic amount of their shots coming from the circles. Vasilevskiy wasn’t tested much beyond a few scrambles here and there, and he looked every bit as intimidating as he did back in the 2020 Cup Final in the Edmonton bubble.

Tampa Bay both got to good areas between the circles and created those shots with good players present for rebounds (as Cirelli got on his rush-chance goal, cleaning up Hagel’s breakaway effort)

It was little wonder that DeBoer changed up the lines going into the third period, searching for something, anything that could make Dallas look more like a Cup contender than a team looking to be opportunistic against a superior opponent.

Right now, it feels like the Stars are in a rut, which is weird to say given their place in the standings. But DeBoer seems to be sounding some alarm bells now—when the Stars have also gotten four points in their last three games, thanks to making it to overtime in all three—rather than wait for the smoke to turn into real fire.

It’s important not to overreact to small stretches of games when your team has shown they can do a lot of good things, and are sitting in a top-three position in the NHL standings. Saying the Stars are phonies who can’t win make me think of early 2020, when the Stars were on a bad losing streak right before the world stopped. But when things got back up and running, the Dallas Stars were able to turn it on in the playoffs.

But it’s equally important, as a coach, to react appropriately, to stamp out brushfires before they spread. Tonight, for instance, the Stars’ breakouts were getting nixed by Tampa Bay repeatedly, especially in the first period. Without a transition game, the Stars looked toothless, and it was only thanks to a fourth-line goal from a player who doesn’t score much that they got some momentum that another goal on the power play was able to squeeze into a tie score before Tampa took control.

It was only thanks to Casey DeSmith that their power play was able to tie things up shortly after that, because DeSmith had to face a genuinely dangerous shorthanded rush on both of the Stars’ power plays in this game. He made more than a couple of outstanding saves, but none typified this game more than this one, when he swept his left skate to sabotage a Tampa 2-on-0 that never should have happened.

DeSmith was fantastic tonight, and no matter how you feel about the Stars, it’s worth appreciating this performance.

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I’m tired, already, of hearing people want to blame the best players any time the team loses.

Mikko Rantanen made a diving play at the offensive blue line in this game to nearly create a chance for Hintz. It was a play that combined effort, vision, and skill, and it reminds you just how much players like Rantanen care.

Of course, Rantanen was also the player who created the Tampa 2-on-0 earlier with a bad decision in the neutral zone (though he hadn’t been put in the best spot, either).

Wyatt Johnston has shown some signs of fatigue lately after a brilliant first two-thirds of the season. And hey, it’s late March. Most players are dealing with something or other at this point.

Roope Hintz deferred once or twice more than you’d like to see him do tonight. When the pass connects for a great shot, it’s a brilliant decision. But when the chips are down, fans look for a savior, for a player to step up, grab the game by the horns, and steer it in a better direction. And the goalie can only help on one end of the ice.

Yes, you need to expect more from your top players. That’s why they make more money, that’s why they get more ice time, and so forth. Thomas Harley should get the most ice time on the blue line because he’s the best one they have (and one of the best there is, this year). Even after playing well over 26 minutes in regulation, he played every other shift in overtime, ending with over 31 minutes. And he was still taking some smart and aggressive routes in overtime that really could have been the latest chapter in his extra-time heroics, but it wasn’t to be, tonight.

Just because your top players don’t perform, doesn’t mean you need to build a team of effort-based fourth-liners. That’s been an approach Minnesota has tried (in the middle of the roster, at least) in recent years, and it’s given them middling results. A Cup team needs players to be playing on a line below where they’d be on a mediocre team, not to throw more medium-grade players up toward the top of the lineup.

Dallas has its roster, with two question marks looming over the postseason. But even Miro Heiskanen can’t be the difference between a competitive game and an embarrassing one. You need a strong enough foundation that a star player like Heiskanen takes you from very good to great, not from disaster to miracle. It’s hard to make that leap when you're stuck in the mud.

Tyler Seguin is practicing now, and Miro Heiskanen is working out off the ice every day. There’s a month until the playoffs begin, but the games do still count in the meantime. Right now, I wouldn’t count on the Stars looking like the team they need to be in the playoffs, because they don’t have to be. You can blunt an edge by oversharpening it. But you also need to make sure you don’t forget what a sword is actually for.

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Lineup

The Stars began the game with this lineup:

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

Lindell - Ceci
Harley - Lyubushkin
Bichsel - Dumba

DeSmith

At the start of the third period, the forward lines changed to these:

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

Tyler Seguin joined the team for morning skate today, and while Pete DeBoer said that Seguin was still a ways away from playing, just his presence out on the ice was a welcome sight. He participated in all of the drills and was one of the last players off the ice, so it wasn’t a perfunctory appearance by any means. (Not that Seguin does anything perfunctorily.)

The Lightning went with Andrei Vasilevskiy in net, much to the dismay of Dallas fans with 2020 PTSD.

Game Beats

Jason Robertson got a one-timer setup from Roope Hintz on the Stars’ first chance of the game, but it was an unscreened shot from high in the zone, and Andrei Vasilevskiy took care of it without much trouble.

The Lightning got a much more dangerous look three minutes in, when Nick Paul took the puck to the net, but the rebounds were kept out.

That would not be the case when the Stars’ top line turned a puck over int he offensive zone, allowing Tampa Bay to rush back up the ice 4-on-2. Matt Dumba and Lian Bichsel weren’t able to cover all of the (many) passing lanes available, and Brandon Hagel eventually got a dunk on the back door that DeSmith never had a chance on to make it 1-0.

Cody Ceci created a dangerous chance by making a move and going down low, but Rantanen was denied on the doorstep. Vasilevskiy similarly denied Rantanen & Company nine minutes in after Sam Steel had come on for Hintz. Robertson and Rantanen stayed out for two minutes with some sustained offensive-zone pressure, and Robertson eventually fed Steel for this shot that Vasilevskiy would reach out with the blocker to smother.

On the shots he had a chance with, DeSmith was good early, finding rebounds and maintaining his angles despite the Lightning putting nine shots on goal in the first 10 minutes of the game. He also took a Jake Guentzel shot right off the mask after a minute of zone time for Tampa Bay, but he shook it off without issue.

Roope Hintz and Lian Bichsel laid a couple of big hits on Tampa players at both ends of the ice, and that looked as likely as anything to shake the Stars out of a malaise that had led to a couple of prolonged shifts in their own end.

Bichsel also laid a hit on Zemgus Girgensons, and the two would come together again late in the period, getting matching minors after some post-whistle pushing that Bichsel, if we’re awarding winners for pushing, won. The teams played 4-on-4 without much action, and Bichsel came out of the box and gave Girgensons guff once again as the period ended. Bichsel had four hits in the first period alone.

Dallas really struggled to exit their zone cleanly in the first, as the Lightning looked for all the world like a team anticipating every zone exit route the Stars wanted. Shots on goal ended up 14-8 in Tampa’s favor after 20 minutes, but they don’t award the Stanley Cup for the team who leads in shots after 20 minutes, last time I checked. I should check that again, though. You never do know.

Second Period

After a series of DeSmith saves to keep things in hand, the Lightning got a power play after Ceci got embroiled in something that was eventually called holding, and it probably was. DeSmith had to make a couple of sharp saves, including a nice pad stop on a deflected puck, but the Stars made it through without any damage.

This was the point of the game where I started reflecting on the 8-1 Dallas win over Tampa last season that Jon Cooper referenced this morning during his media availability. That game had everything going right for Dallas, whereas this contest, in 2025, was a bit too similar to some 1-0 starts Tampa had on Dallas back in the 2020 Stanley Cup Final.

The Stars were going offside, missing on passes, and failing to break out of their zone cleanly as the game neared the halfway mark. Last year, the Stars won 8-1. What does it all mean, really? What does hockey even mean, come to that? If you can have hard-fought games between teams with a lot of the same players that go so drastically different, are we all just rolling dice each time the puck drops? Is this game just going to echo the universal contemplation that befalls all of us when life’s incessant ebb seems to exceed our ability to comprehend it?

That is when Brandon Hagel skated around Esa Lindell to get to a loose puck, making a breakaway for himself.

DeSmith made the save on Hagel, but the puck laid perfectly for Anthony Cirelli, who flipped in the rebound despite some desperate contortion from DeSmith.

But that second goal seemed to wake up Dallas up for real life, as they finally leaned on Tampa and got a result. DeBoer put the fourth line out for the ensuing faceoff, and after circling the zone, Colin Blackwell threw a fadeaway shot from the point that Oskar Bäck tipped through a crowd, including Vasilevskiy, to get Dallas on the board.

Victor Hedman took an interference penalty right after that, giving the Stars a great chance to even the score in short order. Colin Blackwell got into it with Oliver Bjorkstrand after the delayed penalty was whistled down, but if you can figure out what he was angry about, please let us all know.

After a dangerous shorthanded rush by Hagel—he is fast—was defended just sufficiently by Harley (the only Stars defenseman who can do so in open ice), the Stars got back into their zone, and kept the puck there thanks to a very important keep from Matt Dumba, who slapped a backhand on a puck up high to keep Dallas’s attack going.

They would cash in with one second left on the power play when Granlund fed Duchene, who sent a puck on net with Benn in front. The puck ticked off Benn, but Marchment would poke it over the line just ahead of Benn to tie the game at two goals apiece.

Sure, it tied the score, but also, it meant Benn had to wait longer to get his 400th career goal. If you would like to file a complaint with Marchment, you are welcome to do so. (I do not recommend this.)

Ceci then atoned for his earlier penalty by courageously taking a stick to the mouth from Jake Guentzel, putting Dallas back on the power play. But despite another shorthanded rush by Hagel (who got a very good shot off a 2-on-1 with Cirelli that DeSmith stopped), the Stars managed to make it through the power play without disaster, which felt like the best outcome they could reasonably ask for, all things considered.

There was a fun little moment at the end of the power play when DeSmith made another save from a low-quality angle on Guentzel. On the replay, you could see DeSmith holding the puck on the top of his blocker, then calmly flipping it into his glove before the whistle had even gone. Ice water in the ol’ veins, that goalie.

Third Period

Casey DeSmith had to be sharp on wide-open Cirelli one-timer from the slot, but he was in position to take care of a yet another chance from one of the Lightning’s most insistent players in the game thus far.

Benn laid a big hit on Girgensons that sent the forward off the ice in some pretty clear pain. Girgensons would head down the tunnel shortly thereafter, but he would return late in the third. Hintz also took a high stick early in the third that sent him down the tunnel for repairs, but he returned as well, after a few minutes.

Benn finished the shift (now playing with Rantanen and Hintz) with the line, during which Rantanen nearly tucked the puck around Vasilevskiy. However, Rantanen also made a rough play above his own blue line to surrender a 2-on-0 that looked certain to be the go-ahead goal.

That’s when Casey DeSmith flipped the switch on his goaltending CPU from “solid” to “unstoppable,” somehow denying Guentzel’s alley-oop to Gourdge with a beautiful, old-school stop with his left skate.

From there, DeSmith was under siege, but he spit pucks back and tracked difficult shots with a laser-like focus, earning a serenade from the crowd (CA-SEY, CAS-SEY) that was fully deserved.

Shots were 31-21 with eleven minutes to play in the third, and the tension only increased with Kucherov got a turnover in the Dallas zone with numbers. But again, the chance just did fizzle, as a cross to the weak side bounced too much to be dangerous. Third period ice can be a good thing.

The Stars were tempting fate as Tampa’s shots crept up to 35, and that doesn’t include the moment where Bjorkstrand casually whipped a puck off the crossbar from the circle with seven minutes to play.

Both teams got a little cagier in the final minutes of regulation, which you’d expect from a cross-conference game in March, all things being equal. The Stars got a final chance on an offensive-zone faceoff after an icing, and things were not equal for Ryan McDonagh, who took a deflected puck to the head in the final seconds of the period.

For the third straight game, Dallas would head to overtime.

Overtime

This may have been the first full overtime in which I didn’t see a single odd-man rush. DeBoer did go with an all-Finnish line for the second set in overtime, pairing Hintz and Rantanen in front of Esa Lindell.

Hagel with the obvious pick play that Granlund punished him for, flattening him.

Shootout

Here’s how the shootout went:

Robertson: Goal, five-hole

Guentzel: Goal, glove side

Duchene: Goal, five-hole

Point: Left pad save

Johnston: Glove save

Kucherov: Goal, over the blocker

Rantanen: Right pad save

Goncalves: Goal, blocker side

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And that’s how Tampa Bay won the game 3-2: by winning the shootout 3-2.

The Stars next play at 1:00pm on Saturday for Kids Day, against the Philadelphia Flyers. Early arrivers will get a Thomas Harley kids t-shirt designed to look like a jersey. Late arrivers will get to watch hopefully a better performance than this one was.

1. By the way, does anyone know what a P0171 engine code means when you keep replacing your spark plugs and mass airflow sensor but the ding-danged code won’t go away, just curious. I have watched all the YouTube videos and read all the forum posts, but I’d really like not to keep having to address this. Thankfully, Sam Nestler is kind enough to make sure I don’t have to sleep at the AAC.