Game 72 AfterThoughts: They Are Now All Officially Asking How

as well as how many

Well, just when you think the Stars can’t make a third period any tougher, they go and do something like that.

And totally…redeem themselves? Well, maybe. If DeBoer said he was disappointed by the 4-3 win last night, you would imagine he would be downright despondent after this one. But after the game, it turns out you would be wrong to suggest this game was a repeat of last night’s performance.

“Not really. I disagree with that,” said DeBoer of the comparison to the Edmonton game. “For a back to back, getting in at 3:30, 2:30 in the morning, I loved our first period. I thought we ran out of a little bit of gas tonight. I don’t think it was a compete issue at all. We had more detail to our game, goalie gave us a chance. When you look at the schedule the last week and the travel, and this game, there’s not many teams coming and grind out a win. We did that, and our guys deserve credit for that.”

It was a bit of a surprising response, given recent history.

Against Tampa Bay last week, the Stars earned a point they probably didn’t deserve. Pete DeBoer said he finally had to stop making excuses for the Stars and challenged them to raise their game, to outwork the other team.

After two marginally better performances against Philly and Minnesota, Dallas regressed in a big way last night in Edmonton, allowing season-highs in shots on goal and expected goals against, but hanging on for a 4-3 win. DeBoer unloaded even more afterward, using words like “Sloppy,” “Immature,” and “Concerning” to describe the victory.

So, of course, the Stars promptly quintupled down in Calgary, setting new season “highs” with 48 shots on goal allowed and over five expected goals against, all with Dallas blocking 32 shots throughout the game. Calgary even set a franchise record for shot attempts in the game, only to lose 5-2.

For just a moment, spare a thought for Calgary fans, who watched their team fire pucks at Casey DeSmith all night long. They lost Connor Zary to a nasty injury after Mikko Rantanen fell along the boards and slid into his knees. They had two goals called back for kicking and for goalie interfering(ing). And they racked up 15 shots on goal in the third period before Dallas registered one—only for the Stars to immediately score on their first chance of the period to restore a two-goal lead.

This is the sort of game that makes you feel like the entire world is set against you. And in Calgary, home of the original parallax controversy, they are no strangers to Us Against the World. (We’ll excuse the grammar this time.)

Back to Dallas though, you have to think DeBoer doesn’t see any point in blasting his team for the second night in a row after they were well and truly exhausted, only to have their goaltender save the bacon while their goal-scorers scored their, uh, bacon.

Roope Hintz and Mikko Rantanen scored for the top line, while Wyatt Johnston scored the biggest one of the game for Dallas when he broke a 1-1 tie with a highlight-reel move that still leaves me laughing each time I watch the puck sail into the net with Miromanov just standing there, wondering where Johnston went.

Not pictured: Wyatt Johnston

“We have those type of players,” DeBoer said. “They don’t need a lot of looks. We’re not a team that slings pucks from everywhere on the ice. If you just look at the shot clock, I think you’d be making a mistake. We look for quality, and when our guys get quality looks, they finish.”

Indeed, the Stars took Quality Over Quanity to the limit in this one, though once again, they really weren’t letting things get out of control until the third period.

But once again, the Stars bent (the way a novelty twisty straw at the fair bends) but didn’t break, actually outscoring Calgary in a third period they had no business surviving.

“Winning’s fun, no matter what it looks like,” said DeSmith with a chuckle after the game.

You can’t really say enough about DeSmith, who let in one bad goal but was otherwise unconscious, burrowing into Calgary’s pscyhe like John Klingberg did to Matthew Tkachuk back in 2022. The Flames are battling for a playoff spot in front of a Calder Trophy candidate in Dustin Wolf, and they did everything you could ask of them except beat DeSmith more than twice.

“He was great,” DeBoer said of DeSmith. “I think someone gave me a stat we’re 8-2 in back-to-backs, and he’s playing most of those situations. He’s given us that type of effort all year in that situation. A tough ask with a tired team, but he did a great job.”

That’s fair enough, I suppose. This game was the second in two nights, and the Stars’ schedule is a brutal one. But there’s no getting around the fact that the Stars’ shot suppression approach these days looks they’re trying to control a wildfire with a butterfly net.

Thankfully, DeSmith knows all about nets.

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It’s time to acknowledge that there is some bona fide chemistry among Hintz, Robertson, and Rantanen. Not only did that line score two massive goals, but Hintz and Rantanen combined twice early on for Hintz’s goal as well as a hit post on the power play.

Robertson also made the exquisite passing play to slip the puck to Hintz for the shot that created the rebound Ratanen put away in the third period. After Robertson’s natural hat trick in Edmonton, every member of the top line had two points in Calgary.

Sometimes, patience pays off. DeBoer is choosing to keep that trio together for now, and they’ve come through in two tough games to pull Dallas to victory. That’s not a bad bit of validation, at least for now.

Of course, Wyatt Johnston’s recovery from his couple of games looking less than his usual self was the biggest moment of the night. After Nazem Kadri scored the Flames’ first goal, you could feel the energy starting to build. But Johnston snuffed it out four minutes later with an all-world individual effort.

By the way, on that Kadri goal, Martin Pospisil looked to get an arm up high on Cody Ceci, knocking him over before Kadri curled around and roofed the puck past DeSmith. But that’s one where Ceci probably just needs to battle a little harder, especially given the goals Calgary had already gotten called back. You can’t count on getting the call there, and Ceci was eliminated from the play in a way that gave Kadri space to walk right in and do what he did.

Kadri’s second goal would come on the power play early in the third, and it was a bit of a stinker, catching some combination of DeSmiths’s blocker and the upper part of his stick before ricocheting into the net.

But Dallas needn’t have taken four penalties to begin with, either. That’s the third straight game Dallas has taken four or more penalties, and sure, you have to clean that up. Except also, do you want to hear the weirdest stat I ran across today? Here you go:

When the Dallas Stars give up four or more power plays, they are 14-4-1.
When the Dallas Stars allow 1 or zero power plays, they are 5-5-3.

The Stars got doubled up in power plays for the second night in a row, and they won both contests. Go figure.

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After sitting for three games in a row, Mavrik Bourque drew in on the right wing of Wyatt Johnston. By the middle of the second period, Bourque had switched places with Evgenii Dadonov, finding himself down on the fourth line.

DeBoer said before the game that his plan wasn’t to sit Bourque for three games in a row, but that the fourth line had been playing so well that the couldn’t break them up, and that meant tough cookies for Bourque (I’m paraphrasing), as it did for Colin Blackwell tonight.

To be really honest, I’m not too worried about Mavrik Bourque’s playing time right now, or anyone else’s. The Stars’ forward group is as good as they’ve had in a long, long time. Bourque will have every chance in the world to play every night next year on a cap-strapped team (most likely), but right now, a deserving forward is going to have to sit every game. He’s an NHL player, clearly. There’s a reason he got to play in the Stars’ last playoff game of the season last year, after all. They know what they have.

Right now, they just have too much of a good thing. That doesn’t mean some other guy is getting a free pass while Bourque or Blackwell or whoever is getting punished unfairly. It’s just how things go when you’re on the margins of the lineup. Bourque won’t be there for long, though.

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The second period ended 18-5 in shots on goal for Calgary, but it wasn’t quite as bad as it sounded. I think this period was a perfect encapsulation of the game as a whole: Calgary got a ton more shots, but the Stars got a few great looks, with them capitalizing on them more efficiently.

As the players have all said, this isn’t the way. Even with a 3-1 lead after 40 minutes, the Stars had a chance to flip the script on their third period from Wednesday night. They did not do that, in both senses.

That means they won and allowed a ton of shots, but I mean, one of those things is more important than the other. I think? No no, yeah, it’s totally more important to win.

Oh sure, some little voice in the back of your head is whispering things like “they won’t get away with this in the plaaaaaayoffs” and “Oops! All Berries wasn’t really an accident,” but we’re not going to start heeding those voices now, are we, ha ha ha. The Stars cannot possibly keep this up for another ten games, for better or for…something.

You can’t say they’re boring, at least.

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The Stars surpassed 200,000 viewers on their Victory+ stream tonight.

Fans were being selected for a $1,000 giveaway every minute of the 60-minute game clock. If you were one of those winners, congratulations!

By all accounts, the Stars are thrilled with the success of Victory+. I grew up as a weird kid reading the Nielsen numbers in the newspaper every week, so I really would love to know how the various streaming services for different sports and teams compare.

But for now, the most important thing is probably that the Stars’ experiment to do away with the frustrations of Bally Sports has given a lot more fans the ability to watch the game, with Stars games continuing to be free of charge all year long in the four states that make up Dallas’s local television market.

With the Texas Rangers’ season starting today, fans can now watch every non-national broadcast of their hockey and baseball teams (nearly 250 games) for just the $100 it takes to purchase a Texas Rangers season pass.

Personally, I think that’s pretty cool, given what things were like in recent years. But as always, I’d love to hear from you if your experience has been different.

Lineup

The Stars began the game with this lineup:

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

Harley-Lindell
Lindell-Lyubushkin
Bichsel-Dumba

DeSmith

It was slightly noteworthy to see Bourque come in on the third line, though that could be as much about his game being less suited for the fourth line as his chemistry with Benn and Johnston.

Brendan Smith and Colin Blackwell were the healthy scratches.

Dustin Wolf started in goal for Calgary. Joel Hanley started on the top defense pair with Mackenzie Weegar. I say that just because it’s kind of delightful, not particularly important.

Game Beats

Casey DeSmith picked up right where Jake Oettinger left off, making a slick save on Jonathan Huberdeau’s turnaround effort from the deadly part of the ice in the Stars’ customary “let the other team have a few” opening portion of the game.

Sam Steel got a rush chance on a near-breakaway a bit later, but he put it off the back glass. Matt Duchene then did the opposite of that, trying to stick handle his way out of the defensive zone, only to turn the puck over in a terrible spot, giving Connor Zary the Flames’ second Grade-A chance of the game as the Flames extended their shots-on-goal lead to 6-1 through the first six minutes of play.

No, that screenshot is not the same one as above, sadly.

Happily, Roope Hintz kept the top line rolling, as a bit of poor stick-checking by Calgary led to a loose puck that Mikko Rantanen knew what to do with, immediately feeding Hintz in the same spot DeSmith had made two saves from at the other end.

But Dustin Wolf is no Casey DeSmith. Make of that statement what you will. 1-0 Dallas.

Mavrik Bourque got another turnover in the Calgary zone after Wyatt Johnston got enough of Rasmus Andersson’s stick to disrupt a breakout pass and Benn left it off for him, and Bourque walked in and fired this chance off the same glass Sam Steel tested earlier. Still good glass, very intact. So that’s nice to know, at least.

Dallas got the first power play of the game after Mason Marchment drew (yes, drew) his second penalty in as many games, laying a good hit on Weegar, then getting conked in the back of the head for his troubles. The referee’s hand came up, but the Stars’ hammer didn’t quite come down on the power play despite some decent looks.

And after getting space to work with, the Stars nearly let the Flames tie it back up after Connor Zary beat Lindell to the crease and got a piece of a cross before bonking into DeSmith, allowing the puck to slide in at the near post.

At first, it looked like the Stars might need to challenge for goaltender interference. But it turned out Zary had kicked the puck into the net, which meant the officials reviewed it automatically, and found the legality of said tally wanting. No goal.

The officials got back on the microphones after another Calgary penalty, when Martin Pospisil interfered with Ilya Lyubushkin. The lesson here? Never interfere with Ilya Lyubushkin.

Mikko Rantanen fed Hintz early on a quick feed to Hintz at the back door, who deflected the puck into the far post.

Thomas Harley put another shot on Wolf, but the Stars continued their recent run of allowing great shorthanded chances—what’s with that?—as Blake Coleman came in with an odd-man rush and put yet another puck from the inner slot toward DeSmith, only to have it blocked away (I think) by Harley, with his brilliant reach.

Rantanen then high-sticked Weegar to put the Flames on the job, and while it was nice to see Marchment be avenged a bit, Morgan Frost’s shot off the post reminded everyone in the building that this was still a one-goal game.

The Stars ended the first period with the same lead as they’d gotten against Edmonton after 20 minutes, but the process? The process was better, albeit flawed. Shots on goal were 13-11, with scoring chances roughly even. Baby steps.

Second Period

The first line got two good looks off the rush early, but both ended up being blocked. Robertson nearly set up Rantanen off the rush—seeing Robertson’s skating these days is always encouraging when you remember where he started from years ago—but the puck was sticked away at the last minute despite a great feed from Robertson.

There was nearly a return feed between Rantanen and Hintz only for another block to torpedo their hopes of salvaging the rush. (Nautical terms.)

Wyatt Johnston only had 12 penalty minutes coming into this game, which is incredibly impressive, given the minutes he plays. But he took his 13th and 14th penalty minutes when he hooked Nazem Kadri, and while I won’t say Johnston should be legally exempt from being called for penalties based on his age, I will listen while you say it. Go ahead.

Anyway, the Stars killed the penalty despite some dangerous pucks that rebounded into and around the crease, such as this slapshot that bounced off the back boards, onto the crossbar, and away from the net.

Narrow escapes are escapes all the same, you know.

Five minutes into the second period, Razor dropped one of his best turns of phrase all year, saying that in Calgary’s black uniforms, the six-foot-eight Adam Klapka looked like “a skating eclipse out there.” I’ve been listening to Daryl Reaugh on Stars broadcasts for decades, but the real gems still cause me to stop and smile.

Speaking of stopping and smiling, Joel Farabee skated into the crease of his own accord and bumped into Casey DeSmith right before Blake Coleman shot the puck into the net.

The Stars challenged the call, and it was (in my view) a pretty obvious no-goal situation. Offensive players can go into the blue paint, and goals still count. But if an offensive player skates into the blue paint *and* makes contact with the goaltender, a goal is almost always going to be ruled out unless a goalie has a solid few seconds to regain his balance and reset himself in order to have a chance to make the save. DeSmith did not have a chance to do so after the contact, and the Patrik Dolan/Chris Demzuk challenge was successful, preserving the Stars’ 1-0 lead.

Would you believe the Calgary crowd did not like the call? They did not.

But eight minutes into the second period, the Flames would get the equalizer when Nazem Kadri roofed a puck like he was trying to impresse Auston Matthews. Both Stars defensemen (including Cody Ceci, who would have otherwise been the one to mark Kadri) got tangled up with Pospisil just in front of DeSmith, but there was no contact with the goaltender, so this tally stood. Thus, after putting the puck in the net for the third time, the Flames finally got one to count. 1-1.

Kadri gave a sarcastic point to center ice from the bench, giving some extra catharsis to the delirious fans. I hear it’s short for “fanatic,” gotta check whether that’s true, hmm.

Some good chances followed the tying goal, for both teams.

After Thomas Harley circumnavigated the offensive zone to create a dangerous chance for Dallas, Ryan Lomberg rushed back up the ice and turned the corner on Ilya Lyubushkin, only for DeSmith to keep his five-hole sealed, preserving the tie.

Robertson then stole a puck from Coleman to rush in on a 2-on-1 chance, and this time he shot it, sending a tricky backhand on Wolf that the Calgary netminder just did manage to save.

It would be Wyatt Johnston who actually converted his chance in the series of offensive efforts, turning every corner on Daniil Miromanov on his way to the front of the net, where he put a shot on Wolf that was saved, only for Johnston to instantly collect the rebound and put it away.

Act 1:

Act 2:

Act 3:

(That’s Johnston’s helmet peeking out above Jake Bean’s shoulder there, having just dished the puck over Wolf’s pad and into the net.)

Anyway, just go watch the goal yourself. It’s incredible.

It was a gorgeous goal in total, with Johnston’s initial move around the defender and patient, perfectly placed rebound to finish the chance he’d started. Josh Bogorad immediately termed it Johnston’s “latest masterpiece,” and yeah, that’s exactly right. With Johnston, it really is about his most recent jaw-dropping moment, because there’s always gonna be another one.

The second line then decided it was their turn for a pretty goal, joining the party the first and third lines had started. Matt Duchene beat two Flames along the wall, pulling the puck loose for Marchment to grab and send across to a wide-open Mikael Granlund, giving the Stars a 3-1 lead in short succession.

I’ve said it plenty of times already, but doesn't it just feel like Granlund is going to score a massive playoff goal for Dallas this postseason?

Anyway, the period ended almost entirely in Dallas’s zone, as Ilya Lyubushkin took a hooking penalty after an extended bit of pressure for Calgary led to an icing, after which Lyubushkin was caught reaching out and hooking Jonathan Huberdeau to stop another glorious Calgary chance with a minute to go in the second period.

On the ensuing minute of the power play, Matt Coronato rang the crossbar after the Flames collapsed in on the Stars penalty kill, leading to a flailing DeSmith escaping the period with a 3-1 lead and a dented post.

Third Period

The message in Calgary’s room was pretty clearly, “Keep doing what we’ve been doing.” So with shots on goal at 31-16, the Flames came out shooting, while Casey DeSmith had his first lapse of the night (and his first in a while, given his recent excellence).

This shot from Kadri went off the inside of DeSmith’s blocker hand (or perhaps the inside of the skinny part of his stick?) and trickled into the net behind him for a bit of an unforced error to give Calgary a power play goal, and life aplenty with an entire third period stretching out in front of them.

It was a test for Dallas, after they’d been run ragged in the latter part of the third period the night before in Edmonton. Could they hang onto a 3-2 lead for 19 minutes?

Well, the Flames raced out to an 8-0 lead in shots on goal, and they were good ones. The most dangerous one came when DeSmith’s glove hand was a tick slow, allowing a puck to loop off his arm and back toward the net, only for Thomas Harley to juggle the puck out of the air and just high enough to clear the crossbar.

The Stars were well and truly under siege, with everything feeling like it did in the final ten minutes against Edmonton. It was all they could do to clear their zone, and shots climbed to 40-16 for the Flames.

But for the second time in as many games, Mikko Rantanen collided with an opposing player in a freak accident, losing an edge in the messy ice by the boards and sliding into the back of Zary’s legs, catching what has to be his knee at a terrible angle.

Rantanen was clearly apologetic, but the Flames were apoplectic, as they had a 3-on-2 rush whistled down with Zary clearly in agony back up the ice. He left, and would not return.

Klapka tried to get his group going again after the sobering injury, and he did so by giving DeSmith a bump after a save with 11:24 to go in the game. The large Flame drew a large crowd, as shots climbed to 41-16. You may have noticed that the Stars also began the third period with 16 shots on goal. I might as well just stop updating the second number at this point.

Klapka also laid a big hit on Duchene in the next shift, after which the Stars once again got caught spinning in their zone, only escaping after a whistle came with shots on goal now at 43.

45: Lian Bichsel takes an interference penalty while successfully clearing the crease with 9:29 remaining.

46: DeSmith gloves a puck from distance, not cleanly. Stars regroup with 80 seconds left on the power play.

The Stars made it through the kill with a couple of other tip attempts by Calgary going just wide. And after some near-misses by the Flames, Dallas finally got a shot on goal when the top line went the other way with numbers, and Robertson slipped a perfect backhand in for Hintz, who Wolf foiled while attempting a poke check you can see him winding up for below.

Wolf got enough of the puck to stop it, but the Stars would immediately double their shots on goal total in the period when Rantanen followed up the chance, and sent a fluttering puck in just under the bar and past a helpless Dustin Wolf.

If you’re a Stars fan, you probably laughed your head off or at least gave a wry grin, knowing just how undeserved the 4-2 lead was. If you’re a Flames fan, I can only imagine that this was the game that caused you to finally replaced every pane of now-shattered glass in your house.

The Flames ought to have drawn back within one with just under three minutes to go, but DeSmith got back to his old form, absolutely robbing Morgan Frost on a sprawling blocker save just to rub some salt in the wounds of every angry Calgary fan in the building.

Marchment then showed off the best of his forechecking with Wolf pulled for the extra attacker, as Marchment erased Pospisil who was protecting a puck in the corner.

Marchment then took the puck and fed Duchene in the middle of the ice, and he dunked it for a 5-2 dagger.

Klapka decided to be more of a Moose than anyone else on the ice by giving Rantanen a nasty slash and a cross checking the final minutes, leading to an altercation with Bichsel on the ice, only for two Flames to hold back Bichsel, who was aching to jump in and protect Rantanen (who was frankly holding his own). In the end, the referees just gave everyone on the ice a ten-minute misconduct to avoid any further nonsense, and that was all she wrote.

This was not a 5-2 game. And yet, the Stars won, 5-2. I can’t figure it out, but ours is not to wonder why. Hopefully you won $1,000 while watching the game tonight.

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Dallas now heads to Seattle for a rare two-game set in the same city on the road. I’m flying up to Seattle Friday morning as well, so we’ll see if DeBoer has the team working part-time jobs at the salmon ladders by the time I get there.