Game 71 AfterThoughts: Jason and Jake Foil the Oil

People with "Robert" in their name are usually great, I have heard

If you forgot what playoff hockey feels like, that game was it. Not in the good way, except for also the good way.

We’ve been talking lately about how the Stars can win games even when they’re not at their best. It’s not ideal, as Pete DeBoer has made clear. And it’s even less ideal when you’re a fan with a heart condition, as that third period was as effective a vibe-killer as a regulation win could’ve been.

That’s how the playoffs go, though. Teams are really good, and they can kick things into gear. You don’t win a playoff series because you’re persistently better than the other team every single periods; you win becase your punches land harder than theirs, because your goalie steals a period like Oettinger did in the first period tonight. They aren’t always fair, and you don’t always have all of your guys there to help.

Teams win in the playoffs because they have the horses to get it done, and because they can ride the wild, nerve-wracking swings without getting too tilted. Teams win in the playoffs because they can make mistakes without being buried by them, because their best virtues are stronger than their worst vices.

There is something to be learned from that, I think. Looking only to minimize your weaknesses without maximizing your strengths is always going to end badly. Sports aren’t real life entirely, but they’re a genuine reflection of truths that hold outside the arena. And when you have a top line and a goalie like Dallas did tonight, you can withstand even this sort of third-period onslaught and come out the victor.

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This wasn’t a playoff game in terms of the quality of play (hopefully), as both teams had rough sequences and misplays that would drive coaches crazy. But the way momentum swung felt almost unstoppable, as the Oilers found themselves down 4-0 after 40 minutes despite being the better team for a lot of that time. And then they almost erased that lead entirely once they got cooking down the stretch.

Playoff games can swing wildly, no matter how tight a team is supposed to be on defense. When momentum really gets rolling and you string a couple of shifts together, the belief flows through every player out there, and everyone is looking to make that extra little play on every shift that can make life harder for the other team.

For Dallas, that’s what it looked like in the second period, when the top line got everything they wanted, including a 5-on-3 goal that felt almost preprogrammed, with Robertson scoring a natural hat trick in just over a 10-minute span. It was an example of how much latent firepower the Stars have, even if offense always feels fickle in tough times.

Robertson scored just 10 goals in the first 41 games of his season. He scored 22 goals in his next 30 games. And tonight showed why, as Robertson scored on a backhand, a 2-on-1 wrister, and a power play deflection. He isn’t a one-note player, even if scorers sometimes get typified like that. Robertson is a surgeon, a (much more pleasant) hockey version of Dexter, someone who knows goalies so well that he can exploit every twitch of their muscles for his goal-scoring purposes. You can win games with players like that, and that’s what Dallas did.

Jake Oettinger was the story for most of the game, though. If the Oilers capitalize early in the first period, we’re never talking about anything other than silver linings. Dallas wasn’t good enough defensively for the early and latter parts of this game, and Oettinger made sure it didn’t matter.

For all the folks who were crowing about Oettinger not being a playoff-ready goalie, I think you can look at that first period and think on it for a bit.

Yes, the game ended 4-3—with Edmonton getting twice as many power plays as Dallas, though not entirely undeservedly—but the Stars had the better goalie(s), and that’s all you really care about in the end, don’t you? The most important position leaned in favor of Dallas tonight, and that’s exactly what you would’ve hoped to see after the doldrums of the last few weeks.

There is more than one way for a team to get healthy.

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The Stars and Oilers played three periods of hockey on Wednesday, and each team alternated dominating a frame.

Edmonton leapt out to a 14-5 lead in shots on goal in the opening 20 minutes along with a host of scoring chances, but Wyatt Johnston capitalized on the Stars’ best chance, and Jake Oettinger was fantastic for the second straight night, meaning Dallas got a 1-0 lead against the run of play.

Jason Robertson scored three straight goals in the second period en route to a 4-0 Dallas lead that they absolutely earned, and it looked like the third period would be a cathartic victory lap for a Dallas team that had been embarrassed against Edmonton a couple weeks back.

The third period didn’t go that way, however, as Edmonton got two more power plays and scored on both of them to summon all the ghosts of last year’s playoffs. The Oilers dug deep for a third goal late, falling just short of a comeback to mirror Dallas’s false hope rally from their last trip to Edmonton.

That 45-degree spike (representing Edmonton shots) in the final eight minutes made this game feel every bit as tense as a playoff matchup. That’s an absolute rush of blood to the head for Edmonton, and even without Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, you could see how this team got so close to coming back from a 3-0 deficit against Florida last year.

Both teams were missing players, and Stuart Skinner had to leave after Mikko Rantanen’s leg collided with Skinner as he fell forward outside of the crease. It was a scary moment, and we’ll hope it’s nothing more serious than basic concussion screening for Skinner.

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It’s almost one in the morning, so let’s cut this preamble short with a couple of bullet points:

• Lian Bichsel had some ups and downs tonight. Learning moments are going to happen any time you face a fast team like the Oilers, but the Stars’ third defense pairing had some hiccups tonight that you can’t afford to see repeatedly over a long playoff series, with players getting behind them more than you would like to see.

• Roope Hintz had three assists, including two primaries. If he wants to keep racking up helpers while Robertson capitalizes, there will be no complaints here.

• I didn’t have a problem with the Sam Steel goaltender interference call. Initially, I thought he had been pushed by Jake Walman, but when you watch every angle, it becomes clearer that Walman is pressuring from behind, but if he’s doing anything, he’s reaching out and holding Steel. In any case, Steel is skating full-bore to try to beat him, and he just didn’t quite have enough room to bail out before hitting Pickard. Given how Skinner had just been pulled, that’s always a penalty unless the defender is knocking you off your skates. I just wanted to throw this in here because I like giving people reasons to be angry at me. I hear it makes you stronger.

• Mikko Rantanen is getting circled on the board every night by the other side, as you are always going to be when you don’t have the Hart and Norris guys in front of you on that list. He still found a way to make some great plays in this one, and his assist on Robertson’s first goal was a marvelous bit of playmaking and grunt work. He’ll get going on the scoresheet eventually, but even if he doesn’t, this version of Rantanen is still a weapon in the playoffs.

• Wyatt Johnston has looked more like old self in the last two games. Not sure if that’s the nature of the opponent or just how he’s feeling, but it was good to see. He may be the most important forward for Dallas on any given night, in my opinion. Yes, really.

• Thomas Harley was really good, but when haven’t we said that? Watching him run the power play is starting to remind of John Klingberg’s heyday, when you just knew he was seeing things you weren’t, but that all would be revealed very shortly. Lately, it’s been revealed a lot.

• Dallas’s power play was 25th in the NHL after 20 games. In their next 50 games, the Stars have been 11th in the league. They’re currently at 13th, and while they might not make it into the top ten by season’s end, the most important thing is this: the power play is a decisive weapon for them more often than not. That’s a beautiful thing.

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Tonight was a TNT game, which meant a national broadcast. As far as national play-by-play folks go, Alex Faust is one of the best. I still can’t understand why the Kings let him go. It’s always an adjustment going from a local broadcast to a national one, but I think if you adjust expectations for how the game is going to be covered, there’s a lot to enjoy from hearing another call.

Most enjoyable of all, however, is Darren Pang, who joined the intermission panel. I remain convinced that you could ask Pang about a random Dallas Stars player from 2007, and he’d have a story about them from his time with the Phoenix Coyotes doing color commentary. Delightful is a good for him.

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Finally, I wanted to take a moment to mention fellow writer Sam Nestler, who’s recovering from a bit of a surprise medical adventure over the last 48 hours. If you get a chance, feel free to send him a note of encouragement.

Lineup

The Stars began the game with this lineup:

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

Harley-Lyubushkin
Lindell-Ceci
Bichsel-Dumba

Oettinger

Dallas finished the game against Minnesota with Robertson and Marchment swapped from the second period on, so it was interesting to see things go back to the usual order to start this one.

After taking a puck up high against Minnesota, Mikko Rantanen was wearing the same extended visor that Matt Duchene wore. Well, probably not the same one. Or if it way, I’m sure they ran it through the dishwaser once or twice in the interim.

Mavrik Bourque and Brendan Smith were healthy scratches.

Edmonton, of course, was without Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid. Stuart Skinner started in goal.

Game Beats

With McDavid and Draisaitl out, you might have thought the Oilers wouldn’t be as aggressive offensively. You’d have been wrong.

Mattias Janmark made a nice play to keep the puck in the offensive zone early, and Evan Bouchard made a nicer play to feed Zach Hyman at the far blue line, giving the Oilers’ most dangerous threat (by default) a breakaway in early minutes of the game. Hyman turned with the puck and split Dumba and Bichsel, whom I think each thought the other guy was more focused on Hyman than either turned out to be. But Oettinger got the shot to bail them out.

As is customary, the Stars generously spotted the opposition the first few shots on goal. Connor Brown missed what would have been the Oilers’ fifth shot on goal, on the second too-open play by an Oilers forward of the night. Dumba had been caught a bit too high, leaving Thomas Harley to deal with two players.

The first shot of the game for Dallas came a little over six minutes in, when Matt Dumba put a shot from distance on Skinner after an extremely clever entry by Matt Duchene. That’s what it took Dallas to get anything going offensively in the first period, as the Oilers were sabotaging the Stars’ zone exits far too frequently for Dallas’s comfort. After another such failed exit, Roope Hintz got called for hooking after Vasily Podkolzin did what players tend to do when they find a stick around their midsection, slyly claiming his arms over the stick and leaning towards Hintz enough for both players to fall down, drawing the call.

The Edmonton power play looked much less fearsome without two of the best players in the NHL, which is what I call Brilliant Analysis. Evan Bouchard uncorked a shot from some distance that Oettinger kicked out, and that set up a better chance at the end of the power play when Bouchard wound up for another shot, only to feed it across to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, forcing Oettinger to clamber across the crease and raise a hopeful assemblage of arms and legs. His blocker hand ended up stopping Nugent-Hopkins, though it wasn’t exactly a textbook sort of save. But how many of the most exciting plays are, really?

Pete DeBoer did a TV Timeout interview where he pointedly looked up at the shot clock while saying the team hadn’t had the start they’ve wanted. DeBoer also said the other night that he doesn’t really watch the shot clock, so I would just like to take this opportunity to point out that we are all of us watching the shot clock, sometimes.

Matt Dumba took another penalty for Dallas after the halfway mark of the first after pushing Mattias Janmark down—interfering, sorry—but that power play was one in name only, with shots at 9-3 both before and after its occurrence.

Wyatt Johnston then decided to solve the Stars’ breakout problems by just bypassing the neutral zone altogether, collecting a puck all alone behind Bouchard after a Jamie Benn bank pass to Dadonov at the blue line got deflected perfectly by Dadonov Bouchard past Bouchard, and in to a streaking Johnston, who whistled the puck over Skinner’s glove after a little dust-off for a pretty goal. It’s nice to the team’s oldest and youngest forwards aren’t feeling the generation gap.

The Stars got a power play chance shortly thereafter when Viktor Arvidsson continued his less-than-amazing season with Edmonton by high-sticking Sam Steel. But the best chances of the two minutes were by Edmonton, as Brett Kulak turned a 1-on-1 shorthanded rush into a 2-on-1 by beating all four Dallas forwards back up the ice.

Mattias Janmark then spurned his former buddies as the penalty expired by testing each of Oettinger’s pads, as a weak shot through the defender’s legs went off Oettinger’s far pad and bounced unfortunately right back to Janmark, who then got another shot at the near post, only for Oettinger to stretch ever bit of his lanky frame and make the second save, too.

Oettinger was called upon for a couple more quality saves in the final minute, but the Stars took a 1-0 lead to the intermission that was extremely flattering to their actual play.

Second Period

The second period started with a scary moment where Hyman and Marchment came together along the boards and Hyman looked to injure his leg. Hyman was trying to get inside of Marchment, but the two got tangled up and fell, with Hyman’s leg getting caught underneath him and pretty clearly being asked to bend in a way legs are not supposed to bend.

Edmonton was a bit stunned after Hyman went down the tunnel, as Dallas prevented a couple of exits and created some great chances on Skinner to nearly double their shots on goal from the first period just a minute into the second. Bouchard also went off the ice in a bit of pain after play stopped, eventually heading down the tunnel as well. Both players would return shortly afterward, however.

Lian Bichsel had a couple of decent hits early in the game, looking for all the world like a player that can’t wait for you to try to get by him. One of his best hits wasn’t the hardest, but it was crucial, as he put enough of a hit on Jeff Skinner to drag him along the boards, allowing just enough time for Colin Blackwell to get to the puck and prevent a scoring chance.

Edmonton got a 3-on-2 chance four minutes in with Darnell Nurse feeding Hyman on the back door, only for Oettinger to take away the pass just before the puck got through.

That would prove to be a painful missed chance for the Oilers, as the Stars’ top line came in with their own rush chance shortly after that, and some hard work got rewarded. Mattias Ekholm failed to glove down a puck at his blue line, and Robertson grabbed it and waited on the blue line for the entry, feeding a rushing Hintz. Hintz then dropped the puck to Rantanen and headed for the net, as Rantanen protected the puck and turned, but he was also being brought down, and the play looked like it was about to end.

But they call him Moose for a reason, it turns out, and Rantanen held his ground long enough to swat the puck over toward Hintz as he was falling.

Hintz then dished a backhand feed to the back post that got a bit of a deflection, but not nearly enough, as Robertson was there to backhand the puck past a hopelessly beaten Skinner.

Shots on goal got up to 20-12 for Edmonton before the halfway mark, and a Robertson high-sticking penalty on Jeff Skinner didn’t help matters, as Edmonton put a fruitless 21st, 22nd, and 23rd puck on Oettinger with half an hour in the books.

After serving his time, Robertson then decided to atone for his mis-stick, collecting another Hintz feed at the far blue line and rushing in with Mikko Rantanen, only to pull a bit of his shootout repetoire out of the bag and slip a shot in between Skinner’s stick and skate for his second goal of the game.

Robertson very nearly got the hat trick right afterward on a chance all alone thanks to a strong Rantanen play to win the puck away from Ekholm. Robertson once again looked to beat Skinner low after Rantanen found him alone in the shot after getting to a puck in the corner.

Robertson followed up the chance and started digging at the puck from behind Skinner as the whistle blew, eventually prying it loose (along with the net) but to no avail. You can’t say he wasn’t hungry.

The Stars got another power play when Mason Marchment actually drew a penalty, thanks to a slash from Bouchard. Rantanen got a look at Skinner he probably would’ve liked a do-over on, but the Oilers once again got a couple of shorthanded chances off the rush, both 1-on-1 and a near 2-on-1 that didn’t connect.

But Robertson was Doing It All, and that included Getting Leveled By Darnell Nurse Way After The Play to draw a second penalty, and a brief 5-on-3 for Dallas. But it turns out that 13 seconds is plenty for Dallas, as they won the face-off and Thomas Harley immediately found Robertson’s stick blade, firing a perfect shot that found a perfect deflection to beat Skinner a fourth time. for a Jason Robertson natural hat trick—his second time in 15 games scoring three goals in the second period.

Robertson nearly scored his fourth on the remaining minor penalty in one of those sequences where a team is getting so many looks they almost don’t know what to do with them. Rantanen also nearly scored, as the Oilers were just listless for a bit, but Dallas couldn’t quite score another power play goal.

Matt Dumba made a great backcheck on a potential chance just after that, using his skating to get back to prevent a breakaway while also keeping his hands on his stick to avoid a holding call. It was a nice recovery that Bichsel didn’t quite emulate at the end of the period, getting called for tripping Kasperi Kapanen, who had his always-fast wheels in this one.

Third Period

The Stars began the final period on the penalty kill, though Blackwell took what I think was the butt-end of Arvidsson’s stick up high off the faceoff, drawing a whistle, but no penalty call.

Oettinger had to do some work on the ensuing power play, but the Oilers’ strongest effort came early in the two minutes, and Oettinger’s excellence was enough to send Edmonton’s power play away empty-handed for the fourth straight time.

Arvidsson hit a crossbar later in the third off the rush, proving that Oettinger didn’t have a giant magnet buried underneath the ice or anything. It’s good to allay suspicion every now and then.

On the other end of the ice, Stuart Skinner had to flinch at the last minute on a deflected shot from Robertson, and he ended up falling into the path of Rantanen, who was traversing the top of the crease, and Rantanen’s leg collided heavily with Skinner’s head as he fell forward from the save attempt.

It was a freak play, but Skinner was clearly shaken up, and he was always likely to get pulled by the concussion spotter anyway. Skinner stayed on the ice for a bit after the collision, and the hope will be that he doesn’t miss too much time, with Edmonton already fighting some injuries at the top of their lineup.

Lian Bichsel got beaten by Zach Hyman midway through the third, and while he didn’t take a penalty reaching in on the breakaway shot, Bichsel did slash Hyman behind the net right afterward, and that penalty would be the one to finally put Edmonton on the board. Corey Perry collected a lively end-boards rebound from a Jake Walman point shot, and he used his reach to tuck it behind Oettinger for a spoiler goal. 4-1.

With 7:42 to play, Dadonov got called for the Stars’ sixth penalty of the game. But Sam Steel immediately got a shorthanded rush, and ended up barrelling into Calvin Pickard with Jake Walman close behind him. At first blush, I thought Walman shoved Steel into Pickard, but the last reply they showed looked a bit more like Steel declined to really bail out until he got right to the top of the crease, and that didn’t leave him enough time (fast as he was skating) to avoid Pickard entirely.

In any case, Steel was roughed up after the play, as you’d imagine he would be, and matching minors were dealt out, not affecting manpower.

Edmonton remained on a 5-on-4 power play, and an Adam Henrique shot from the circle with bodies in front found the top corner to give the Oilers real life, drawing within two goals. And after all, given how the Oilers nearly blew a four-goal lead of their own against Dallas the other week, who knew what was possible?

Podkolzin hit another post shortly after, and the nerves started tightening well and truly. Edmonton pulled the goalie and started getting Real Looks, and Oettinger had a lot of work to do for the final two minutes with Edmonton’s net empty.

Things got dire after an extended shift in the Stars’ zone and an icing led to exhausted Dallas skaters, allowing an Evan Bouchard shot to get swept home by Hyman to make it 4-3. The Jason Robertson hat trick felt like a lifetime ago at this point, with last year’s playoffs surely echoing in every Stars fan’s memory.

Dallas iced it with 42 seconds to go, but Edmonton wouldn’t get another great look, and the Stars held on for a 4-3 win that felt a lot less fun than things did in the second period.

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Now the Stars head to Calgary to play again tomorrow night. One would expect Casey DeSmith to draw in, and we’ll see if Mavrik Bourque and/or Brendan Smith get some game action. In any case, the Stars made up for their last trip to Edmonton, with the Oilers being the ones to walk away frustrated and shorthanded after nearly executing a four-goal comeback. Turnabout is fair play, even in Edmonton. Especially in Edmonton.