Game 73 AfterThoughts: Playoffs, Ahoy

(Nautical term)

The Stars’ last two games saw them digging a trench in the third period and hanging on against a barrage of shots. Everyone agreed it wasn’t optimal, but the result was there, and so they said they’d build on it.

Tonight, the Stars came into the third period with a one-goal lead against a team already out of playoff contention. Would Dallas finally get the performance they needed to close out a game they deserved to win?

Yes. Mostly.

“Yeah, I thought it was better,” DeBoer said of the third period. “We did some good things.”

Improvement is the name of the game, after all.

“We’re still taking too many penalties for me,” DeBoer continued, “So we’ve gotta clean that up. We had some really good individual performances. I thought Rantanen was outstanding, our best player tonight by far. That line’s starting to get some chemistry, starting to look dangerous. Wyatt Johnston, another big goal, making it look easy. Some good things happening.”

That’s a good way of summarizing it, too. DeBoer also said that Jake Oettinger was great—his work early in the first period and on the penalty kill was crucial for Dallas early in the game—and DeBoer gave some credit to the power play, which scored two key goals as well.

So when your goaltender is really good, your superstar winger is your best player, and you win the special teams battle 2-0? Well, that’s a winning recipe most any night.

On the other side of special teams, two early penalty kills kept Seattle from getting a bigger lead when they had more jump early. The Kraken could easily have gone up 2-0 in the first period when they obeyed the prevailing NHL dictum that the Stars have to give the other team the first five shots on goal. But Oettinger was good, and the Stars’ defense had a couple of key plays as the game moved along that prevented them from suffering too many extended sieges like they did in Canada.

With the Stars going 11 forwards/7 defensemen on Saturday, DeBoer immediately started double-shifting Robertson and Rantanen with Bourque and Steel. That paid off on Dallas’s first goal, when Steel and Bourque worked hard to win the puck in behind the Seattle net, and Bourque was able to get a decent shot off that Joey Daccord put back into the slot, where Jason Robertson knew it was going before anybody else. Putting first-line goal-scoring talent with fourth-line persistence can work wonders, turns out.

With that said, the first line really was outstanding all night, regardless of where any of the players were playing. Rantanen’s last two games, for my money, have been much closer to the player Rantanen really is, and will be for a while, as opposed to the recalibrating winger the Stars got at the deadline right when the team started to lose some of their ability to dictate games. Things are looking up, however, and that starts with the best players.

Roope Hintz, for once, played among the most minutes of any forward, second only to Mikael Granlund (whom you absolutely would not have guessed led the forwards in ice time tonight, don’t lie, you didn’t guess him, we all know you didn't).

Hintz frequently has the shortest shift-lengths of anyone in the top six, if not all twelve forwards. That’s certainly better than overstaying your time on a shift and becoming a tired liability, but DeBoer specifically said this morning that he wanted to give his big guys some more ice time, and the 11-forward lineup was a way to do that.

Every player except Thomas Harley played between 11 and 20 minutes tonight, with Harley only slightly above that at 21 and change. This was a night where everyone had to play meaningful minutes, and the Stars won a meaningful game, clinching a playoff spot with over 10% of their season still to go. That’s a nice accomplishment.

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As for the seven defensemen, I was pleasantly surprised to see how evenly the ice time ended up being distributed down there, too. Brendan Smith played a team-low 11:03, with 10:10 of that being at even-strength. That’s not too shabby, given he had six other blueliners on the bench.

DeBoer said afterwards of the 11/7 lineup that he “didn’t mind it,” and that the team is going to “try some different things down the stretch” with nine or so games remaining. Might as well explore all your options before the games get even more important, yes; but it also allows deserving players to get into games.

“It gave us a chance to get [Brendan] Smith in for a night. He’s been such a good pro, such a good leader,” DeBoer said, “He hasn’t played in a long time, so we wanted to try and get him in, and we got that accomplished, so that’s good.”

This was a really interesting game in that sense, with many players involved. Lian Bichsel had his first NHL fight and a crucial last-ditch disruption on a Seattle breakaway when the game was still really close. Esa Lindell played 5:46 of penalty kill time, but only 18:36 overall.

Even Thomas Harley, who put a minute of shorthanded time on top of his nearly five minutes on the power play, only had to play 21:17 tonight. It’s nice when you can avoid grinding players into dust in March.

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Rantanen was great tonight, undoubtedly. He had multiple shifts where he just made the decision to beat some guys with the puck and did do with an unnerving amount of ease. It’s not the case that Rantanen can do that at will like the two or three most elite skaters in the NHL, but it is true that his reach and skill allow him to do special things when he has even a tiny advantage, and he did them tonight.

Mason Marchment also showcased the better side of his game in this one, after losing a puck in a terrible spot for the opening goal. Marchment got a breakout pass from Duchene and tried to make a move in the neutral zone, only to turn the puck over and give Seattle a quick counterattack with Dallas out of position that turned into a rebound goal.

But Marchment had more good shifts as the game went on, and his power play goal was no less than he deserved. His line also had a couple of shifts of dogged work in the offensive zone to keep Seattle spinning. It was pleasant to see the Stars on the other end of such things, thing time.

Here’s a bonus for you: If you watch the postgame interviews of him and his good friend Jake Oettinger when they get posted, you’ll notice a little extra playfulness, if you’re paying attention.

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By the way, did you notice Jamie Oleksiak much at all tonight? This was one of those games where, to my eye, you remembered how he could tend to fade into the background of games when he wasn’t going at his best.

Seattle is an interesting team. You can find a lot to like about a lot of parts of them, but when you see all the pieces together, it just feels like 80% of a good team. I think they’re close to making a good jump, but are those final pieces all in the system? I’m not sure they are, yet. I think they need one more players to either make a giant leap, or else they need to get one more player. Chandler Stephenson is looking like he could turn into a sort of forward version of Sergei Bobrovsky, where his contract means you’re stuck with hoping for him to have a really good year at some point that makes the other so-so years not so irksome.

Matty Beniers is a good store-brand Wyatt Johnston, and Shane Wright has taken a step this year, for certain. Is Brandon Montour the lynchpin of a good team’s defense? I suppose we’ll find out in the coming years. Personally, I think you could compare them to other teams that have been in that 2013 Stars sort of neighborhood, where they need that Demers+Klingberg shot in the arm to really start controlling games on the regular. Ryker Evans is a start, I suppose.

We’ll see what happens long-term with Seattle. It’s a nice building, and I have a bias towards teams playing in beautiful areas. It’d be nice to see them be a little more competitive a little more often. Though I guess their knocking out Colorado two years ago is something Columbus had to wait a whole lot longer for, so maybe it’s our expectations that need the shot in the arm. That’s enough about the Kraken, for at least a day.

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I talked to Matt Duchene this morning about the team’s play in the last two games, and he was pretty honest, as he always is. Yes, the team hasn’t been playing their absolute best version of their game lately, and they’re working on fixing that. The breakouts are a big focus, and they’re talking about it and working to improve their execution of those details. Nobody is complacent or slacking or anything like that. We all know this, I think.

It is also the case that a team like Dallas, playing the second night of a back-to-back against Calgary on Thursday with playoff clinching all but a formality at that point, is just not going to easily summon the kind of Game 7, back-against-the-wall desperation that teams (like Calgary) fighting for their playoff lives are going to summon. That’s not a lack of effort or willpower, but just how hockey tends to work when a team is playing their 70-somethingth game of the year for a squad that is focused on getting past the Western Conference Final, at last.

No team is the best version of themselves for all 82 games, just like no player has their A-game every single night. And frankly, I’m pretty sure you there, reading this, have mailed in one or two of your work days this week. How do I know this? Because you are (most likely) human.

The playoffs are just different, and the Stars are gearing up for them as best they can. They are not at all taking these remaining games lightly—you only have to watch them to know that—but players also know, deep down in their intuitive stomachs, that they don’t have to win each of these games in the way a team desperate to get back into the playoffs for the first time in a couple years (or longer) does. And no amount of screaming or barking or benching or challenging each other is going to change that knowledge. Facts are stubborn things, and the Stars’ job right now isn’t to brainwash themselves into thinking they’re playing Game 7 every night, but rather to work on what they can control, and see if they can’t make each other a little better in the process.

So for the Stars, they’re dealing with an important challenge: sharpening up their game after some recent dips in form, and working through adversity to do so. I believe that can make anyone better. That challenge is to make sure they can activate those urgency gears (so-called, by me) on command, to whatever extent that is possible. Because in a few of their recent games, the “extent possible” was “basically zero,” especially in the third period. They have more, and they’re starting to show it.

Tonight was a much more encouraging third. If you look at a smoothed graph of shot pressure by each team, like this one, you can see that score effects gave Seattle the bulk of play down the stretch in the final frame. And with the Stars up 3-1 and having taken a penalty when Granlund held Tolavenen’s stick, it started to feel like the same old (recent) story.

But it wasn’t, at least not to the same extent. That Johnston goal just a couple minutes into that pressure (and after another successful penalty kill) really did mean the Stars could sit on their 4-1 lead while Seattle vented their frustration, and Oettinger did have to make some more good stops, which he did. Team-wide cohesion wasn’t always there, but enough players showed up to drag the other folks with them. Great teams win more than a couple of games in any given season in just such a fashion.

Anyway, DeBoer was pretty clear after the game that this wasn’t the Platonic ideal of a third period of Dallas Stars hockey, but that’s okay. They won 5-1, and the Stars tried some new lineup strategies and combinations, and the top line looked as dangerous as it ought to be. There are good things about this game. Also, you know, they won. That’s the whole idea.

In football, do you worry about a team winning a 17-10 game against a bad team in Game 15? Probably not, unless it’s the Cowboys, in which case you’re worried about many things, such as the fact that any key player is just one podcast away from altering ESPN’s entire news cycle for the week.

For the Stars, winning 5-1 on the road in your fourth game in six nights is good enough. And when you’ve clinched your playoff appearance, enough is very good indeed. Going from good to great is another story, but it’s one the Stars are actively trying to write. If they keep finding ways to better their record from last year despite too many players bringing their B and C games, imagine what this team could be if they really do get back into a groove at some point in the final nine games? The mind boggles.

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Fun fact: Seattle fans during the anthem yell out “SEA!” for “Oh say, can you see” as well as “RED GLARE!” because, well, their logo:

What are the Kraken, really? They like to suggest the monster that their name represents rather than show it outright. There’s a glaring eye, a forbidding ocean, and the odd tentacle, but they appear to be leaving the real Kraken up to your imagination, much like the current team’s playoffs hopes.

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The Kraken had a bit of a mascot convention Saturday night, with Victor E Green in town along with Buoy of the Kraken and Carlton the Bear from the Toronto Maple Leafs, as well as the characters from Coachella Valley and the Seattle Storm.

They played dodge ball during the second intermission, though I did not see any wrenches being thrown. Kids these days just don’t know how to train.

Lineup

The Stars began the game with this lineup:

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

Harley-Lyubushkin
Lindell-Ceci
Bichsel-Dumba
Smith

Oettinger

For the first time this year, Pete DeBoer went with a 11F/7D lineup, inserting Brendan Smith into the defense.

As we discussed earlier today, DeBoer said he thought the additional defenseman could help Harley and Lindell not to absorb quite as many minutes as they have been lately, in addition to giving players like Rantanen (and I suspect Hintz and Robertson as well) a chance to play a bit more minutes by double-shifting on the fourth line.

Joey Daccord started in goal for Seattle.

Game Beats

Dallas players and DeBoer have all been saying their breakouts haven’t been as good as they need to be lately, and that was proven especially true on the game’s opening goal.

Mason Marchment had the puck knocked off his stick right as he crossed the blue line after receiving a pass from Duchene and trying to make a move, and Seattle came back with numbers. Jared McCann put his shoulder down and cut to the net on Thomas Harley, and he put a good shot on Oettinger that the goalie flashed out a glove to stop, whacking the puck aside. But Eeli Tolvanen was following up the play, and he was able to slap a backhand on the rebound just before it trickled below the goal line, sliding the puck into the net before Oettinger had a prayer of resetting.

The Stars’ top line nearly equalized shortly after with a Mikko Rantanen breakaway, but he came in on the left side and tried to beat Daccord short side, and the room just wasn’t there. Rantanen wasn’t credited with a shot on goal (though I thought Daccord got a piece of it). The top line nearly created a goal in the aftermath thanks to Robertson, but they couldn’t quite get the puck on net in time to do any damage.

Another Seattle rush resulted in a Lian Bichsel high-sticking penalty, and that was on top of an all-too-familar 6-0 disparity in shots on goal.

That power play would get Dallas on the (shot counter) board, however, create another breakaway (partial, at least) for Dallas, as Wyatt Johnston grabbed a puck from Jani Nyman at the blue line and went north with some space, testing Daccord’s blocker arm with a quick forehand shot, with Roope Hintz following up for a rebound that never came.

Oettinger’s best save of the game came before the end of the power play when a loose puck trickled to Burakovsky on the glove side, and a quick shot was nabbed by Oettinger’s quicker catching mitt.

Mavrik Bourque then ended the penalty kill with another shorthanded rush, once again putting a decent shot on Daccord, but from the circle, where it was never going to beat him.

Rantanen took a puck at the blue line and showed why he’s been one of the best wingers in hockey for a while, lugging it around and through the Seattle neutral zone defense (charitable term) and into the offensive zone where he dropped it off for Robertson and took his defender to the net. Robertson got a good chance, but his shot would, unfairly, deflected off Rantanen and just off the side of the net.

A couple games ago, DeBoer mentioned how the Stars’ fourth line was the only one really clicking. Two-thirds of that trio was sitting in this game, with Rantanen and Robertson each getting turns double-shifting as the third forward with Sam Steel and Mavrik Bourque. That group put in some great work behind the net, and Bourque got a shot off Daccord’s pad after curling out from behind the goal line. Robertson turned more quickly than Seattle’s defenders, and he found the juicy rebound in front of the open net to tie the game at one.

Thomas Harley would put Dallas back on the penalty kill when he got his stick into Jaden Schwartz’s skates with 5:58 to play in the first.

That kill looked better for Dallas, with both Mikael Granlund and Bourque making important plays to clear the zone. Bourque in particular laid a great hit along the boards on a dump-in to allow the puck to clear back out the other side, and it was a physical and smart play that reminds you how much more complex of a player Bourque is than just a playmaker, just a fourth-liner, or just a scorer. He’s a Very Good Player, it turns out, and those sorts of players have games that travel, so to speak.

After the kill, Harley jumped into the play as the Stars’ top line got the puck into the Seattle zone, and Dallas got a couple of glorious chances with Harley getting pucks to the net with traffic, only for Dallas to come just short of converting the rebounds with Seattle scrambling to clear. Still, it was an encouraging push after the second penalty kill of the period for Dallas on the road. (You may recall penalty trouble being a point of improvement for this team in recent times.)

Thomas Harley drew a power play for Dallas to start evening things out in that column, as the Stars’ top defenseman cut to the middle of the ice with what has become almost routine excellence for him, forcing a reach by Ryker Evans that put a stick on the hands.

Dallas wouldn’t waste time converting, either. Rantanen curled up high and fed it down low to Robertson at the side of the net, and that created just enough space for Hintz in the middle of the ice for Robertson to hit him with a slick saucer pass that Hintz one-timed into the top corner, far side.

Shots on goal ended up at 12-9 for Seattle by the end of the period, but I have heard recently that the shot counter is not necessarily indicative of the play on the ice. You may have heard this as well. 2-1, Stars after 20 minutes.

Second Period

The Stars began the middle frame with a hardworking shift to gain and keep the Seattle zone by Benn, Johnston, and Dadonov. Unfortunately, Benn would work a little too hard, working over Brandon Montour with a cross check up high in front of the net that got called interference.

Seattle decided to take themselves right back off the power play halfway through, however, when they put out too many men on the ice. That’s a penalty, you know.

The Stars got one great look on the abbreviated power play when they executed what had to be a set play high in the zone where Harley skated right, fed it back left for Johnston, who then bumped it again to the middle of the high slot for a Robertson fadeaway one-timer with Rantanen and Hintz down low. The shot was smart, but it didn’t quite get through, and Seattle was able to fling away the rebound before Dallas found it.

Those sorts of set plays should give you a lot of confidence about this group’s power play execution in the playoffs, I think. They’ve been really hot for months now, but they’re not content to just cycle and look for basic lanes that their skating and speed can generate. They want more, always. Who could blame them?

As the second period went on, the Stars had a few excellent keeps and knocked-down clearances to sustain pressure in the Seattle zone. At one point, the Duchene line spend nearly a minute of dangerous attacking time probing, attempting shots or crosses, and recovering the puck to continue the pressure. It was, in short, what you’ve probably been wanting to see this offense do for a long time: put the other team on the back foot.

Mikey Eyssimont and Lian Bichsel dropped the gloves eight minutes in behind the play. Bichsel rag-dolled him before punches were ever really thrown, which is what you’d expect from a player seven inches and 40 pounds smaller than his opponent. Eyssimont was probably fortunate he got taken off his skates as quickly as he did, as Bichsel never really had a sporting punch to throw. It was Bichsel’s first fight in the NHL, though mostly just on paper.

Mason Marchment had a bit of a disagreement with a linesman after he appeared to beat out an icing with 10:20 remaining in the second period. The puck circled around to the far face-off dot, but I can only assume the linesfolk didn’t count his approach as having “transferred” from one side of the net to the other in order to beat it out.

After the icing, Dallas made it up the ice, where Mikael Granlund hit a post after getting one shot blocked and collecting it for a second attempt that he nearly beat Daccord on shot side. But the puck ended up coming back into Dallas’s zone after that with Matt Dumba in the midst of a nearly two-minute shift. Jake Oettinger made one nice save, saw one two thankfully-missed rebound attempt, and got a goal-saving block by Harley in front of the far side after a feed from behind the net to the doorstep was one-timed on net, except Harley ensured it wasn’t.

Sam Steel and Brendan Smith collided high in the defensive slot a couple minutes later, with both players staring at the puck carrier and Steel getting the worst of the collision. He would remain on the bench, however.

Roope Hintz turned down a glorious chance after the top line’s latest successful traversal of the ice, with Rantanen finding Hintz crossing the top of the crease all alone—only for Hintz to feed the puck back toward the back post into a crowd of Kraken, with no Star in sight. It’s not the first time in recent days that Hintz has looked for the knockout pass after getting a good luck, but hoo boy, that’s a puck he’ll wish he’d just shot when he watches it back later.

Seattle once again created their own penalty when Nyman whacked a puck out of the air in that same top-line shift for Dallas, sending it many, many, many rows deep into the seats for a Delay of Game penalty.

Robertson had a great look feeding the puck into the crease and trying to essentially bank it off Rantanen, who was crashing the net. The puck went just wide, and Rantanen expressed his disgust at missing the great chance when he slammed the door on his way off the ice.

Marchment also put a tip play just wide from about 12 feet further out, and a Daccord glove save that he may or may not have seen kept Dallas’s second unit from extending the 2-1 lead as the second period wound down.

The Stars would get one final power play with 2:35 to go when Cody Ceci got his skate clipped by Schwart’s stick while going after a puck in the corner, sending Ceci down to the ice and the back official’s hand up into the air.

That power play was Dallas’s fourth, giving them a rare (in recent days) lead in special teams opportunities. But despite creating some chaos, they didn’t get a real high-grade shot on Daccord, and Seattle escaped without giving up what would have been a really demoralizing (for them) goal late in the second period.

Third Period

What is also demoralizing is giving up a goal to start a period, though.

Montour got his stick up high on Wyatt Johnston on the first shift of the third period, and Mason Marchment snapped a wrister past Daccord’s glove at the near post after a smooth pass through the crease by Matt Duchene across the royal road to make it 3-1.

Marchment said after the game that he’d backed off a bit to find more open space, and Duchene’s pass eventually did get through to that space, where he put it on net, beating Daccord. Nice play, one would have to admit.

Oettinger didn’t get to relax after the two-goal lead, however. Jaden Schwartz nearly beat his left pad on a foray in tight, and the Kraken created a couple of successive looks that asked Oettinger to be alert.

Mikael Granlund took a holding the stick penalty to give Seattle their fourth shot on the power play with 14:46 to go, and Bourque and Steel came over the boards to start the penalty kill. With the Stars’ wealth of options on the power play, Bourque hasn’t been getting as much time there, but he’s a rookie whom the coaches haven’t hesitated to give more responsibility to as the year has gone along. His future is a bright one.

Back to the game. The Stars killed off the penalty with efficiency, though the most dangerous chance came after its expiration, when only a desperate stick by Lian Bichsel proved just disruptive enough to prevent Eyssimont from tucking a backhand around Oettinger.

Matt Dumba would Cause Problems after taking something up high in the defensive zone, slowly heading over to Eyssimont (popular fellow tonight) and mixing it up, but nothing more would come of it other than some chastening by the officials.

Wyatt Johnston has faced Seattle before, you may recall. In fact, two years ago, the Kraken pushed Dallas to seven games in a second-round series (after eliminating Colorado!), and it took a Wyatt Johnston effort in behind the defense to really help Dallas pull away.

Well, once again, Dallas faced Seattle, and Wyatt Johnston did the same thing, more or less, getting behind (through) the defense and beating Daccord with a nifty backhand move over the blocker after getting a very, very sweet feed from Mikko Rantanen at center ice.

Speaking of which, the 4-1 game was put to bed for good when Rantanen punished Seattle for optimistically pulling Daccord. You should watch this goal with the sound on, just to listen to Razor put his hand to his forehead after Rantanen disappears Jared McCann on the last line of defense with what must be a magic wand, sending him sliding hopelessly into the boards before dunking the puck into the empty cage.

And so it was that the Dallas Stars clinched a playoff berth for the fourth straight season. With nine games to go, they are still ahead of their pace last year.

Now, the Stars…stay in Seattle. They don’t go anywhere on a road trip, because Seattle is beautiful in the springtime (also many other times), and so the team will get a chance to spend Sunday relaxing and reveling in checking the first and most important box of any season: a playoff spot.

There are bigger goals, but there is wisdom is enjoying the ride. And a 5-1 victory is a ride well worth the price of admission.