Game 70 AfterThoughts: Deserved Dejection

The better team won, and Dallas was Not That

Song of the Game

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When Glen Gulutzan was asked whether Vegas earned this win, he didn’t hesitate.

“No question,” Gulutzan said. “I thought they were better for longer. We had some spurts early in the first, some in the third, but they were better for longer.”

Being better for longer is how a team racks up a 33-15 lead in shots on goal. And unlike some other games against Vegas, this one was a very difficult one for the Stars’ goaltender, as the Golden Knights were able to consistently create scoring chances from good areas on the ice:

HockeyViz.com

That’s just not enough offense, no matter how you slice it. Dallas found themselves trading chances early, and then outright ceding chances for much of the second period, as Vegas began to grab control.

So you might be surprised to learn that the Stars had a very good look at this game midway through the third period, when one of the best stops of DeSmith’s Dallas tenure gave his team the jolt they needed. In a 2-2 game, they narrowly pulled off the same trick they’d done so many times in the first half of the year, and even as recently as they did in Denver earlier this week in front of Jake Oettinger. So many times, they’ve found a way to get something out of these games.

But alas, tonight ended differently.

“Casey was great for us,” Matt Duchene said to begin his media availability. “It’s one of those ones you probably don’t deserve to win, and you don’t win.”

It really was that simple. Glen Gulutzan said after the game that he turned to goaltending coach Jeff Reese earlier in the contest, and voiced his concern about what they were seeing from the skaters, as well as his hope in what DeSmith could do in net.

“Sometimes as a coach, you read your team,” Gulutzan said, “And I said to Reeser, ‘He might have to stop 40 tonight, just looking at our guys.’ And [DeSmith] gave us a chance to win. I thought he was fantastic, and he was the reason it was 2-2 for so long.”

Duchene pointed out that both teams were on the second half of a back-to-back, so that was no excuse for them not having their game. He and Gulutzan also pointed out that the Stars had just played three very stingy defensive teams, in Vegas, Minnesota, and Colorado. So, the Stars aren’t exactly pulling the fire alarm yet.

In fact, Vegas allows the fewest shots on goal per game at 5v5 of any team in the NHL. Colorado is a similarly excellent defensive team. So when you step back and look at these last three games, getting three points out of six isn’t quite a calamity.

With that said, the missed opportunities are always concerning, especially for a team that lived for much of the year on quality over quantity. Dallas had the looks they needed to get something out of even a bad game tonight, but for once, they hit posts or missed the net rather than getting “that goal.” The real test for these last dozen games might be primarily about whether they can get themselves back into position to make that one chance not be the difference, as it’s been for two straight games now.

Gulutzan was very blunt about the Stars’ not playing their best tonight, but he was also capable of zooming out a bit and providing some key perspective.

“I actually like where we are,” Gulutzan said. “We’ve dipped a little bit. We’re gonna work our way out of it. But what I do like the most is we’ve survived a heavy stretch of emotional games, and done very well in some. We’re starting to, like I said, dip a little bit, but the way we’ve won those games prior is we’ve worked. And you can still see that in our game, just maybe some of the offense isn’t quite clicking as it has in the past.”

Getting that offense going might be easier against the five Eastern Conference teams the Stars will face beginning on Tuesday. By that time, the Stars might even find out that they’ve clinched their playoff spot, depending on how the Utah/LA game finishes tonight.

Arttu Hyry brought some good things to the fourth line, which was Dallas’s most consistent on the night. That’s not generally a good thing in a game like this, but it was at least good to see Hyry looking effective (albeit not in a faceoff capacity, going just 3-for-9) in his return to the lineup.

Early in the season, it was wise to judge wins in games like this one with care. The process and results don’t always match, and Gulutzan consistently said the process was the more predictive element, which means there can be relatively bad wins and good losses. But sometimes, the twain do meet, and they certainly did tonight when Mitch Marner made an outstanding play to get to the guts of the ice, and got rewarded with a nice bounce to Reilly Smith at the end of it.

Vegas is a good team with goaltending issues. Gulutzan himself pointed to how Vegas has been playing well and still losing, which can build up some frustration. Some of that might have come out against Dallas tonight, and it ended up being enough to grab a win.

It was interesting to hear how this team was handling tonight’s loss. Wyatt Johnston was able to talk about how much it means to finally have the franchise record for power play goals in a season all to himself, and Miro Heiskanen—who had one of his rare off-nights—was also able to laugh a bit when asked about whether this game felt similar to those early-season victories, saying that those games were far too long ago for him to use as a reference point. Miro Heiskanen is not generally one to give fiery speeches in any context, though.

This team isn’t fixated on the past any more than they have to be, right now. These next twelve games will be very important ones, but they’ve done enough good work to where they might not be nearly as important as their first twelve games. They might not want to think about the past, but it’s a testament to what they’ve done so far that the first 70 games have answered so many questions.

I’ll end with some truth though, lest that seem too sunny for the end of a pretty rough outing. Because Duchene wrapped up his media availability much as he began it:

“Like I said, we didn’t deserve to win tonight, and we didn’t.”

Sometimes, getting what you don’t deserve can be a real good thing. We’ll see if the Stars’ getting what they did deserve on Sunday can propel them as far as their adversity in January did.

Screencap from Victory+

Highlights and the Lowdown

Brayden McNabb put the Golden Knights ahead when Lindell and Heiskanen let him walk right through the slot and all the way to the net.

The chances kept coming, too. Johnston hit a post off the rush shortly after the goal, and Vegas then immediately came back down on a 2-on-1, only for DeSmith to rob Barbashev with a big save to keep things close. The Minnesota game, this was not.

After good looks at both ends, Jeremy Lauzon (who had taken a painful hit from Hryckowian early in the game) tripped Jason Robertson to put Dallas on a power play. And this time, Johnston would not hit the post:

As you surely know, that was Johnston’s 23rd power play goal of the season, making him the franchise record-holder for power play goals in a season. That one had been coming for a while.

Vegas also kept coming, and DeSmith had to make a couple more top-shelf saves as the period wore along. He did so, however, giving the Stars time to settle into the game, if they could find a way to do so. Instead, the teams kept trading chances.

Duchene hit the Stars’ second post of the period off a rush chance, and then Marner found Dorofeyev at the back door, only to have Dorofeyev put the puck off the outside of the net. It felt a bit like overtime, where it’s not a question of whether you’ll get a chance, but simply of who will finish one first.

And Justin Hryckowian answered resoundingly that it would be he. Colin Blackwell shot a puck at the net with Hryckowian driving there, and the puck stopped at Hryckowian. That fooled Hill just long enough for Hryckowian to find the puck and put it around Hill to give Dallas the lead.

Vegas put more pucks toward DeSmith in the final minutes of the period, but most of them either missed or didn’t get through, so Dallas took a 2-1 lead into the dressing room with shots on goal 7-6 for Vegas.

The second period began as it had ended, with rush chances in both directions, starting with an uncharacteristic Miro Heiskanen turnover that put DeSmith in a bad spot, but was cleaned up without further incident. Another 2-on-1 for Vegas on the same shift saw the puck tick off the outside of the post, and Heiskanen completed the wildly uncharacteristic sequence by putting a puck over the boards for a delay of game penalty.

But Casey DeSmith looked every bit like his old self, and he came up with stop after stop to keep Dallas in it, including a post-power-play shot from Rasmus Andersson coming down the slot. It felt, five minutes into the second, like Dallas was playing with fire, even with Bourque getting a good chance of his own down at the other end.

DeSmith’s stop on this rush chance was perhaps the most representative of his workload today:

It’s a great stop with outstanding balance and reflexes, but it just shouldn’t happen.

Dallas had another penalty to kill after Vegas tilted the ice a bit more, and Lundkvist got boxed up for slashing Marner. This time, Vegas would capitalize, with Brett Howden working the down-low play to perfection, finding Barbashev with a killer pass even DeSmith wasn’t going to stop:

This goal was also probably a consequence of the fact that you can’t ask Heiskanen and Lindell to kill every minute of every penalty. That’s why Lian Bichsel was out there with Harley, and the young defenseman had to make a perfect play to block the pass, but couldn’t do so. It happens.

Dallas got their second power play of the game when Mavrik Bourque got high-sticked by Eichel in the right spot to draw blood. That gave Dallas a four-minute power play, but they barely mustered anything on it, with nary a shot on goal. And to cap off the dreary four minutes, Dallas took a Too Many Men on the Ice penalty, giving Vegas a chance to grab the lead late in the period.

This penalty kill went well for the home side, and Dallas got through it fairly uneventfully. But with 15 seconds to go in the second period, Jamie Benn would take the Stars’ fourth penalty of the day, getting his stick up high on Marner and being sent to the box for his carelessness. Vegas would carry over most of it to the final period, along with an 18-9 advantage in shots on goal.

Dallas would kill this penalty as well, or at least Casey DeSmith would, as he made multiple big stops to keep Dallas in the game, with this incredible glove save on Rasmus Andersson chief among them:

Dallas got some momentum from that kill, even trapping some tired power play skaters for Vegas back up the ice after the kill. Finally, Dallas was pushing back, and only a last-ditch skate flail by Hill kept a bouncing puck put on net by Steel and company from giving Dallas the lead. Still, the ice was tilting back against the Golden Knights for the first time in a while.

Still, Vegas is a dangerous team, and they showed it after a faceoff down the ice, generating a 2-on-1 almost at will, forcing yet another huge stop by DeSmith (this one on Sissons):

With under 10 minutes to go, Vegas got back on the front foot, and shots on goal ramped up to 30-15 with Dallas repeatedly failing to gain possession. It was fire-and-reload time for the visitors, but DeSmith simply refused to be beaten.

But beaten he would be, when Vegas’s relentless pressure finally found a rebound with 3:38 to go after Mitch Marner carved his way to middle ice, then fired a puck that bounced fortunately off Thomas Harley, and right to Reilly Smith, who buried it past a helpless DeSmith for a late 3-2 lead.

Dallas got DeSmith out for the extra attacker in the final two minutes, but despite some pretty good looks, Vegas would keep most of the pucks from getting to Hill, and the 3-2 score would stand for a win that Vegas had thoroughly earned.

Lineups

Dallas mixed it up with this group:

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

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Lyubushkin

DeSmith

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Vegas rolled these lines:

Barbahsev-Eichel-Stone
R. Smith-Marner-Dorofeyev
Howden-Hertl-Kolesar
C. Smith-Dowd-Sissons

McNabb-Theodore
Hanifin-Korczak
Lauzon-Andersson

Hill

After-AfterThoughts

• Glen Gulutzan began his press availability before the game today by expressing his condolences to the late Jessi Pierce’s family. Mike Russo also wrote a heartfelt expression of the collective grief everyone in Minnesota is feeling after the loss, as well as an in-depth piece today. Some things (and all people) are more important than hockey.

• The 6-foot-6 Jack Anderson made his debut with the Texas Stars last night after signing an ATO with them. Texas beat Henderson 6-3 on Saturday, and they’ll play them again tonight.

• Dylan Hryckowian (who also signed with Dallas this weekend) is expected to make his debut for Texas next week. He actually met the team in Minnesota to sign his contract with them, according to Jim Nill on the radio today. He should play on Wednesday, if 100 Degree Hockey knows what’s up (and they usually do).

• Gulutzan said before the game that bringing Lyubushkin in for Myers was primarily about keeping everyone fresh down the stretch. Whether Myers’s lapse on Minnesota’s goal on Saturday was part of that decision is pure speculation, but certainly with nine defensemen, it makes sense to put at least one fresh body in the lineup on the second half of a back-to-back.

• Jim Nill also said on The Ticket before today’s game that Mikko Rantanen will be traveling on the team's upcoming four-game road trip, and will hopefully be able to play in one of the final two games of it (March 29 or March 31). Rantanen is expected to be a full practice participant going forward.

• Nill also said Roope Hintz and Radek Faksa’s returns will be around the beginning of the playoffs. Hintz is a bit closer, and could return a week before the playoffs, but Gulutzan emphasized that they won’t have a target date until Hintz begins skating, which he still isn’t able to do.

  • Faksa’s lower-body injury remains a trickier one. Nill said that while he couldn’t reveal Faksa’s injury specifics, the team doesn’t really have a clear historical precedent for how long it’ll take for Faksa to get back from such an injury. It could even be after the playoffs begin.

• Seeing Miro Heiskanen drop Jack Eichel was pretty surprising, not least of all to Eichel.

• Gulutzan said one thing the Stars didn’t do well on their four-minute power play was change all five guys from the top unit. He said they “polluted” the second unit by overstaying, and that resulted in too much of a mixed bag to develop any rhythm for the four minutes. And if you’re curious about who overstayed, this graph might give you a clue: #21 perhaps treated this more like a two-minute power play (on which he has license to stay out longer) than a four-minute one.

  

• Glen Gulutzan said before this one that today wasn’t a trap game (when asked)—it was, rather, a “mental toughness game.” He talked about doing the hard things despite the challenges everyone is facing this time of year and continuing to win battles. After the game, he pointed to the Stars’ push in the third period as a good sign of that, and indeed, they nearly did grab the lead then. You look for positive signs in tough games like this one, I suppose.