Game 75 AfterThoughts: By a Thousand Cuts
This wasn't a pretty one
SotG
Matt Duchene called this the worst game of the road trip for Dallas, and he’s probably right. And while he probably didn’t mean it this way, I think that term applies more broadly than just to the Stars’ play.
This was, flat-out, an ugly night. The ice looked bad from the first period on, though whether or not that factor was responsible for pucks slipping off sticks on both sides or not is something only players know for sure. But it wasn’t just the ice, either. Board issues required repairs right before the Stars’ first power play, and the sound of pucks going off them was odd. Razor made a joke on the broadcast that the boards might have been installed backwards with all the pucks bouncing off stanchions all night, but I’m not entirely sure he’s wrong. This game did not have no alibi, is what we’re saying.
But you have to play the game you find yourself in, and Dallas only managed to look comfortable in one of the three periods tonight. The game was closer than the final scoreline indicated, but that scoreline tends to expand when you’re trailing by two goals in two different periods.
“It wasn’t one of our better games,” Glen Gulutzan said. “Certainly there are losses, and then there are losses where you get outplayed. I thought in the first, they didn’t come out and overwhelm us, but they’re up two-nothing. We just didn’t do some things. We self-inflicted some wounds. We lost some battles at key times, and we got ourselves down two-nothing.”
The second period was good, and Gulutzan attributed a lot of that improvement to the Stars’ winning more battles around the net, which they did. To my eyes, Dallas was closing on pucks more quickly in the second, which is generally the result of harder work, better positioning, and more anticipation and skating. But as Gulutzan went on to say, it’s hard to keep doing that when you’re trailing.
To that point, Jake Oettinger letting in that third goal early in the final period hurt. It’s a save he’d tell you he has to make, but as we’ve said over and over, it’s all about proving things in the playoffs for him. Still, you can’t help but notice the amount of blocker-side goals that he’s been giving up lately. He simply hasn’t had his best stuff on a lot of nights, and it takes the wind out of the sails of a team already running a little low in other departments.
Still, I refuse to get drawn offside by the folks on social media. Oettinger’s had an up-and-down season, but this recent dip follows a preceding spike.
I just can’t bring myself to get too down on a franchise goaltender for his performance against Eastern Conference teams in late March. I can almost guarantee you that he feels worse about this game than any of you do, anyway. All the elite athletes tend to be wired that way.
Then again, maybe Oettinger was just playing down to the level of his teammates. Rantanen put a great look off a post instead of in, and Jason Robertson had a breakaway that he didn’t score on. Thomas Harley, Miro Heiskanen, and Lian Bichsel all had some uncharacteristic mistakes on defense, and the penalty kill essentially gave up two goals, even if one came a second or two after the two minutes had elapsed.
This was the result of a desperate bubble team playing a depleted team with less desperation, and Gulutzan could see it, judging by his words after the game.
“We haven’t matched the work ethic of the teams that are trying to get in,” Gulutzan said of the road trip. “They’re up a half a degree, and we’re down a half a degree, and that’s a degree of separation that causes losses.”
What’s true is that the Stars haven’t been getting shelled 5-1 every night. These have been close games, which means a bit more effort at the right time can turn into a game-changing goal. They looked like they out-chanced Boston at even-strength tonight when it came to the best looks, but the bad breaks hurt them more than the good looks helped them. You can’t score on every breakaway, but you can kill one more penalty, or take one fewer penalty, or block one more shot than Dallas did tonight.
Most bad bounces tend to have a bad play somewhere in their recent pasts. Hence, I think, Gulutzan’s message. They can’t wave a magic wand and yell “Episkey!” for the four centers they have injured right now. They just have to work harder than the other five guys on the ice.
And as Gulutzan reiterated tonight, putting in that work is still important for this team, as their fate is far from locked up.
“Our positioning can change. Minnesota’s got a game in hand on us,” Gulutzan said. “This can all change around. We gotta find our own game from our own motivation and not look at the standings to get it. It should come from internal drive. If you gotta light your fire by an external source, it only will burn briefly. So we gotta find it within ourselves to get it going.”
Philosophy always does bring consolation.
Highlights and the Lowdown
A bit of poking and prodding at both sides of the ice was the name of the early game. Oettinger had a bit more of the work to do early, while the Stars got the makings of a 3-on-2.5 that Blackwell opted to drop back to Lindell rather than try to force through to Hryckowian, only to have the chance go for naught.
Still, the top line was dangerous as ever, with Rantanen, Johnston, and a reinvigorated Jamie Benn testing the Boston defense. They would also draw the first power play of the night when Nikita Zadorov went all Zadorov on Jamie Benn behind the play. (He’ll do that.)
But Boston’s aggressive penalty kill won the two minutes, and they would get further rewarded when the top line came out following the kill, as Marat Khusnutdinov got a favorable rebound that he found faster than anyone else, and whacked it through a maze of bodies to give the Bruins a lead:
But as Brent Severyn pointed out during the intermission, it was all about the puck battle Thomas Harley lost behind the net prior to the goal. Take a look here
Elias Lindholm (#28 in black) engages with Harley (55 white) below the goal line before the puck comes around. That puts Harley off-balance, and Lindholm is able to get position and win the puck as a result. Nice play to keep possession that ultimately ends in a goal.
Benn got a look right after that for Dallas, on a feed from behind the goal line, but he couldn’t beat Joonas Korpisalo, and you wondered just how many such looks Dallas was likely to get.
After a couple of tidy Oettinger stops at the other end including a dramatic one-timer by David Pastrňák, Jason Robertson whiffed on a bouncing rebound in the offensive zone, and then put his stick in a really unnecessary spot when chasing down Viktor Arvidsson, tripping him up and unleashing the Steve Spott Boston Power Play.
The power play was a weird one indeed, starting with Hryckowian’s stick immediately breaking. He made an executive decision to go to the bench right away for fresh lumber rather than wait out the 5-on-3.5, and that turned out well for him, as he was able to rush down shorthanded and test Korpisalo.
Bäck would also lose his stick later in the power play on what looked like a partial pick play, but he got it back in time to see another blocked shot bounced favorably for Boston, as a puck went off Hyrkcowian, then perfectly down to Pastrňák as he skated below the goal line, where he was easily able to feed it into the crease behind a stricken Jake Oettinger for Arvidsson to finish.
It wasn’t technically a power play goal, but it might as well have been. Boston had a 2-0 lead, and Dallas finished the period with 40 minutes left to figure out what to do about it.
Elias Lindholm nearly made it 3-0 on a gift of a chance to start the period, after Harley had trouble with a puck and lost it along the wall again:
Colin Blackwell took a heavy hit three minutes into the second, but he would set up a good chance himself later in the shift, flinging a point shot at the net that bounced to Adam Erne’s feet, and no further. It was that sort of a game for Dallas, where it looked like they’d need some scoring from the bottom-six to get things going.
Instead, they got a bottom-six type of goal, but from the top line, as Jamie Benn finished some work down low with Rantanen by spinning off his man and getting to the net, where he collected a puck off Johnston’s body and tucked it through Korpisalo to halve the lead.
Let’s take another look at that goal, because the sheer work rate from Rantanen and Benn deserves it:
Colin Blackwell got in alone and nearly tied it up shortly thereafter, forcing a good save out of Korpisalo himself as Dallas continued to tilt the ice.
Lukas Reichel demonstrated just how odd this point of the season is when he caught Miro Heiskanen, of all people, fishing for a puck and beat him quite handily before Lindell came over to help:
Thomas Harley’s game-long argument with the puck continued minutes later, and it was Nils Lundkvist’s turn to pick up his buddy with a nice play in crunch time:
Mavrik Bourque took another hit later in the second, but this one was for a purpose: he was able to send in Jason Robertson on a full breakaway from the blue line. But once again, Korpisalo was up to the challenge, as Robertson’s five-hole effort got denied.
But the line would get another chance, and this one would be put home.
After Duchene nearly sent Robertson in on another breakaway, the Stars turned the halted rush into a straightforward play with dutiful forechecking, and they found a scrappy goal of their own. The puck eluded everyone but Matt Duchene, who lifted it over a befuddled Korpisalo to tie the game:
Momentum had changed markedly from the first period, but a Benn backhand went over the boards from his own zone with 1:43 to play, and suddenly Boston had a chance to grab the game and the mo’ back.
Colin Blackwell’s strong night continued on the PK, however, as he tracked a pass well enough to sabotage a potentially deadly one-timer with a block that got them a whistle and line change.
The shoulder check, the lash of the stick, and the proper body positioning—that’s gotta be full marks from Alain Nasreddine, right there.
As a result of continued diligence shorthanded, Dallas got to the second intermission with just a sliver of a power play still to kill, but otherwise on even terms after a much better second period than a first one.
Unfortunately, that sliver would prove more of a splinter, and it dug under the Stars’ metaphorical finger nail of Jake Oettinger, by which I mean Elias Lindholm walked down the wing on a simple entry play and beat Oettinger’s blocker from the top of the circle to make it 3-2:
Dallas would get a second power play of its own right afterward, when Rantanen was brought down off a faceoff.
Rantanen immediately put a casual one-timer off the post with net to shoot at, but that would be Dallas’s best look of the set, and Dallas was faced with a one-goal deficit and even-strength hockey.
Oettinger made a good pad save on an onrushing Kastelic just after 5v5 resumed, and then Lian Bichsel served up a turnover to Pastrňák that was only half a pepperoni short of being a full-on pizza. Both were reminders that a team looking to come back from a one-goal deficit would do well to likewise prevent the deficit from growing.
But yet another broken play would do them in on that front, as Henri Jokiharju would restore the two-goal lead for the Bruins after collecting a loose puck, and Dallas’s good second period might as well never have happened.
The Hryckowian line nearly scored the goal they’d earned right after, but Blackwell couldn’t pitchfork a rebound inside the post after a Bichsel shot, and we played on.
Rantanen and company continued looking dangerous on multiple shifts down the stretch, but the Stars’ good zone time just couldn’t bring the bounces they needed, and nothing came of their good work.
It was a mucky, grimy sort of game, and it ended more or less the way it began. Rantanen’s skate caught a rut or a puddle, and he wiped out to serve up what looked sure to be the Bruins’ fifth goal:
That shot missed, but Viktor Arvidsson would not a few minutes later when Jake Oettinger was pulled for the extra attacker, and Arvidsson sent a puck in from distance after the Bruins fully committed to the trap. Arvidsson’s first (you’ll see) empty-netter made it 5-2, but then a late Dallas power play convinced Dallas to mount one more push, and that brought the prettiest goal of the night, by (who else?) Wyatt Johnston, who pushed his franchise record to 25 PPGs, with his 41st goal of the season when he perhaps made a mockery of Korpisalo’s save attempt here:
With things 5-3 and some time still left, Gulutzan pulled Oettinger again, but Arvidsson would complete the Bourque Trick with another empty-netter in garbage time, and a smattering of caps celebrated the achievement, and the Stars lost 6-3.
Dallas returns from its road trip having collected just three points out of eight available, and most of their final seven games are likely to matter, unless Minnesota returns from its four-day break with similar issues. The team is tired, hurt, and still with a decent enough cushion to finish as one of the top teams in the league, so long as they can get out of the 1-4-2 rut they’ve found themselves in lately.
Lineups
Dallas assembled a new forward group today:
Benn-Johnston-Rantanen
Robertson-Duchene-Bourque
Erne-Hryckowian-Blackwell
Bäck-Hyry-Hughes
Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Lyubushkin
Oettinger
Boston brought these veritable baked beans:
Khusnutdinov-Minten-Pastrnak
Mittelstadt-Zacha-Arvidsson
Reichel-E. Lindholm-Geekie
Jeannot-Kuraly-Kastelic
Aspirot-McAvoy
H. Lindholm-Jokiharju
Zadorov-Peeke
Korpisalo
After-AfterThoughts
When you look at that forward group for Dallas, it really hits home just how banged-up they are. They’re missing six forwards right now, including Hintz, Bunting, and of course Tyler Seguin. Along with Steel, Faksa, and Bastian, that’s two bona fide NHL forward lines they simply don’t have available right now. The fact that they’ve gone 4-4-2 (with three of those four wins coming without Rantanen) in their last ten games feels like a minor miracle, all things considered.
No, but really: How injured is Dallas right now? So much so that the AHL team has to go 11/7 tonight:
This graphic from the Victory+ broadcast was a good reminder to take most power play stats from the mid-aughts with a grain of salt:
Weird play here in the first, when Bourque took an innocent enough check along the bench, only to have his face get mildly cut by something on the bench. Scary moment there, but Bourque stayed out there, so all’s well that ends well, I suppose.
Technically, interfering with a player on the ice while you’re on the bench is a minor penalty (Rule 56.2), but given the check beforehand and rapidity of events, it’s understandable not to see a call there. Can’t imagine that was anything more than an accident.
Jamie Benn had jump tonight. I remain convinced that he gets more energized the higher up the lineup he plays—to a point. He’s also the oldest player on the team, and fatigue is real for all of us. Still, I liked his game a lot tonight.
Here’s where Duchene shot the Stars’ second goal from:
That’s capitalizing on a goaltender who has lost track of the puck, that is.
Lian Bichsel had a great shift in the third period where he activated and laid a huge hit behind the net on the forecheck, then ended up blocking a 2-on-1 pass back in his own end to potentially save a goal. Not a perfect night from Bichsel, but it’s fun to see him turning into the player the Stars were hoping they’d drafted.
Cameron Hughes drew a late power play when it was 5-2. Good effort from Hughes all night, as you’d expect. He didn’t play too much with the Stars trailing much of the game, but he gave a solid 7 minutes that looked fully NHL-quality. He deserved every one of them, too.
I’ve never much cared for the Eastern Conference, personally.
Victory+ Finally, all three of the Stars’ assist leaders got on the board tonight, so the helper-race looks like this:
Heiskanen 52
Rantanen 51
Robertson 49
Hey, you gotta find drama where you can at this point in the season.
Matt Duchene called this the worst game of the road trip for Dallas, and he’s probably right. And while he probably didn’t mean it this way, I think that term applies more broadly than just to the Stars’ play.
This was, flat-out, an ugly night. The ice looked bad from the first period on, though whether or not that factor was responsible for pucks slipping off sticks on both sides or not is something only players know for sure. But it wasn’t just the ice, either. Board issues required repairs right before the Stars’ first power play, and the sound of pucks going off them was odd. Razor made a joke on the broadcast that the boards might have been installed backwards with all the pucks bouncing off stanchions all night, but I’m not entirely sure he’s wrong. This game did not have no alibi, is what we’re saying.
But you have to play the game you find yourself in, and Dallas only managed to look comfortable in one of the three periods tonight. The game was closer than the final scoreline indicated, but that scoreline tends to expand when you’re trailing by two goals in two different periods.
“It wasn’t one of our better games,” Glen Gulutzan said. “Certainly there are losses, and then there are losses where you get outplayed. I thought in the first, they didn’t come out and overwhelm us, but they’re up two-nothing. We just didn’t do some things. We self-inflicted some wounds. We lost some battles at key times, and we got ourselves down two-nothing.”
The second period was good, and Gulutzan attributed a lot of that improvement to the Stars’ winning more battles around the net, which they did. To my eyes, Dallas was closing on pucks more quickly in the second, which is generally the result of harder work, better positioning, and more anticipation and skating. But as Gulutzan went on to say, it’s hard to keep doing that when you’re trailing.
To that point, Jake Oettinger letting in that third goal early in the final period hurt. It’s a save he’d tell you he has to make, but as we’ve said over and over, it’s all about proving things in the playoffs for him. Still, you can’t help but notice the amount of blocker-side goals that he’s been giving up lately. He simply hasn’t had his best stuff on a lot of nights, and it takes the wind out of the sails of a team already running a little low in other departments.
Still, I refuse to get drawn offside by the folks on social media. Oettinger’s had an up-and-down season, but this recent dip follows a preceding spike.
I just can’t bring myself to get too down on a franchise goaltender for his performance against Eastern Conference teams in late March. I can almost guarantee you that he feels worse about this game than any of you do, anyway. All the elite athletes tend to be wired that way.
Then again, maybe Oettinger was just playing down to the level of his teammates. Rantanen put a great look off a post instead of in, and Jason Robertson had a breakaway that he didn’t score on. Thomas Harley, Miro Heiskanen, and Lian Bichsel all had some uncharacteristic mistakes on defense, and the penalty kill essentially gave up two goals, even if one came a second or two after the two minutes had elapsed.
This was the result of a desperate bubble team playing a depleted team with less desperation, and Gulutzan could see it, judging by his words after the game.
“We haven’t matched the work ethic of the teams that are trying to get in,” Gulutzan said of the road trip. “They’re up a half a degree, and we’re down a half a degree, and that’s a degree of separation that causes losses.”
What’s true is that the Stars haven’t been getting shelled 5-1 every night. These have been close games, which means a bit more effort at the right time can turn into a game-changing goal. They looked like they out-chanced Boston at even-strength tonight when it came to the best looks, but the bad breaks hurt them more than the good looks helped them. You can’t score on every breakaway, but you can kill one more penalty, or take one fewer penalty, or block one more shot than Dallas did tonight.
Most bad bounces tend to have a bad play somewhere in their recent pasts. Hence, I think, Gulutzan’s message. They can’t wave a magic wand and yell “Episkey!” for the four centers they have injured right now. They just have to work harder than the other five guys on the ice.
And as Gulutzan reiterated tonight, putting in that work is still important for this team, as their fate is far from locked up.
“Our positioning can change. Minnesota’s got a game in hand on us,” Gulutzan said. “This can all change around. We gotta find our own game from our own motivation and not look at the standings to get it. It should come from internal drive. If you gotta light your fire by an external source, it only will burn briefly. So we gotta find it within ourselves to get it going.”
Philosophy always does bring consolation.
Highlights and the Lowdown
A bit of poking and prodding at both sides of the ice was the name of the early game. Oettinger had a bit more of the work to do early, while the Stars got the makings of a 3-on-2.5 that Blackwell opted to drop back to Lindell rather than try to force through to Hryckowian, only to have the chance go for naught.
Still, the top line was dangerous as ever, with Rantanen, Johnston, and a reinvigorated Jamie Benn testing the Boston defense. They would also draw the first power play of the night when Nikita Zadorov went all Zadorov on Jamie Benn behind the play. (He’ll do that.)
But Boston’s aggressive penalty kill won the two minutes, and they would get further rewarded when the top line came out following the kill, as Marat Khusnutdinov got a favorable rebound that he found faster than anyone else, and whacked it through a maze of bodies to give the Bruins a lead:
But as Brent Severyn pointed out during the intermission, it was all about the puck battle Thomas Harley lost behind the net prior to the goal. Take a look here
Elias Lindholm (#28 in black) engages with Harley (55 white) below the goal line before the puck comes around. That puts Harley off-balance, and Lindholm is able to get position and win the puck as a result. Nice play to keep possession that ultimately ends in a goal.
Benn got a look right after that for Dallas, on a feed from behind the goal line, but he couldn’t beat Joonas Korpisalo, and you wondered just how many such looks Dallas was likely to get.
After a couple of tidy Oettinger stops at the other end including a dramatic one-timer by David Pastrňák, Jason Robertson whiffed on a bouncing rebound in the offensive zone, and then put his stick in a really unnecessary spot when chasing down Viktor Arvidsson, tripping him up and unleashing the Steve Spott Boston Power Play.
The power play was a weird one indeed, starting with Hryckowian’s stick immediately breaking. He made an executive decision to go to the bench right away for fresh lumber rather than wait out the 5-on-3.5, and that turned out well for him, as he was able to rush down shorthanded and test Korpisalo.
Bäck would also lose his stick later in the power play on what looked like a partial pick play, but he got it back in time to see another blocked shot bounced favorably for Boston, as a puck went off Hyrkcowian, then perfectly down to Pastrňák as he skated below the goal line, where he was easily able to feed it into the crease behind a stricken Jake Oettinger for Arvidsson to finish.
It wasn’t technically a power play goal, but it might as well have been. Boston had a 2-0 lead, and Dallas finished the period with 40 minutes left to figure out what to do about it.
Elias Lindholm nearly made it 3-0 on a gift of a chance to start the period, after Harley had trouble with a puck and lost it along the wall again:
Colin Blackwell took a heavy hit three minutes into the second, but he would set up a good chance himself later in the shift, flinging a point shot at the net that bounced to Adam Erne’s feet, and no further. It was that sort of a game for Dallas, where it looked like they’d need some scoring from the bottom-six to get things going.
Instead, they got a bottom-six type of goal, but from the top line, as Jamie Benn finished some work down low with Rantanen by spinning off his man and getting to the net, where he collected a puck off Johnston’s body and tucked it through Korpisalo to halve the lead.
Let’s take another look at that goal, because the sheer work rate from Rantanen and Benn deserves it:
Colin Blackwell got in alone and nearly tied it up shortly thereafter, forcing a good save out of Korpisalo himself as Dallas continued to tilt the ice.
Lukas Reichel demonstrated just how odd this point of the season is when he caught Miro Heiskanen, of all people, fishing for a puck and beat him quite handily before Lindell came over to help:
Thomas Harley’s game-long argument with the puck continued minutes later, and it was Nils Lundkvist’s turn to pick up his buddy with a nice play in crunch time:
Mavrik Bourque took another hit later in the second, but this one was for a purpose: he was able to send in Jason Robertson on a full breakaway from the blue line. But once again, Korpisalo was up to the challenge, as Robertson’s five-hole effort got denied.
But the line would get another chance, and this one would be put home.
After Duchene nearly sent Robertson in on another breakaway, the Stars turned the halted rush into a straightforward play with dutiful forechecking, and they found a scrappy goal of their own. The puck eluded everyone but Matt Duchene, who lifted it over a befuddled Korpisalo to tie the game:
Momentum had changed markedly from the first period, but a Benn backhand went over the boards from his own zone with 1:43 to play, and suddenly Boston had a chance to grab the game and the mo’ back.
Colin Blackwell’s strong night continued on the PK, however, as he tracked a pass well enough to sabotage a potentially deadly one-timer with a block that got them a whistle and line change.
The shoulder check, the lash of the stick, and the proper body positioning—that’s gotta be full marks from Alain Nasreddine, right there.
As a result of continued diligence shorthanded, Dallas got to the second intermission with just a sliver of a power play still to kill, but otherwise on even terms after a much better second period than a first one.
Unfortunately, that sliver would prove more of a splinter, and it dug under the Stars’ metaphorical finger nail of Jake Oettinger, by which I mean Elias Lindholm walked down the wing on a simple entry play and beat Oettinger’s blocker from the top of the circle to make it 3-2:
Dallas would get a second power play of its own right afterward, when Rantanen was brought down off a faceoff.
Rantanen immediately put a casual one-timer off the post with net to shoot at, but that would be Dallas’s best look of the set, and Dallas was faced with a one-goal deficit and even-strength hockey.
Oettinger made a good pad save on an onrushing Kastelic just after 5v5 resumed, and then Lian Bichsel served up a turnover to Pastrňák that was only half a pepperoni short of being a full-on pizza. Both were reminders that a team looking to come back from a one-goal deficit would do well to likewise prevent the deficit from growing.
But yet another broken play would do them in on that front, as Henri Jokiharju would restore the two-goal lead for the Bruins after collecting a loose puck, and Dallas’s good second period might as well never have happened.
The Hryckowian line nearly scored the goal they’d earned right after, but Blackwell couldn’t pitchfork a rebound inside the post after a Bichsel shot, and we played on.
Rantanen and company continued looking dangerous on multiple shifts down the stretch, but the Stars’ good zone time just couldn’t bring the bounces they needed, and nothing came of their good work.
It was a mucky, grimy sort of game, and it ended more or less the way it began. Rantanen’s skate caught a rut or a puddle, and he wiped out to serve up what looked sure to be the Bruins’ fifth goal:
That shot missed, but Viktor Arvidsson would not a few minutes later when Jake Oettinger was pulled for the extra attacker, and Arvidsson sent a puck in from distance after the Bruins fully committed to the trap. Arvidsson’s first (you’ll see) empty-netter made it 5-2, but then a late Dallas power play convinced Dallas to mount one more push, and that brought the prettiest goal of the night, by (who else?) Wyatt Johnston, who pushed his franchise record to 25 PPGs, with his 41st goal of the season when he perhaps made a mockery of Korpisalo’s save attempt here:
With things 5-3 and some time still left, Gulutzan pulled Oettinger again, but Arvidsson would complete the Bourque Trick with another empty-netter in garbage time, and a smattering of caps celebrated the achievement, and the Stars lost 6-3.
Dallas returns from its road trip having collected just three points out of eight available, and most of their final seven games are likely to matter, unless Minnesota returns from its four-day break with similar issues. The team is tired, hurt, and still with a decent enough cushion to finish as one of the top teams in the league, so long as they can get out of the 1-4-2 rut they’ve found themselves in lately.
Lineups
Dallas assembled a new forward group today:
Benn-Johnston-Rantanen
Robertson-Duchene-Bourque
Erne-Hryckowian-Blackwell
Bäck-Hyry-Hughes
Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Lyubushkin
Oettinger
Boston brought these veritable baked beans:
Khusnutdinov-Minten-Pastrnak
Mittelstadt-Zacha-Arvidsson
Reichel-E. Lindholm-Geekie
Jeannot-Kuraly-Kastelic
Aspirot-McAvoy
H. Lindholm-Jokiharju
Zadorov-Peeke
Korpisalo
After-AfterThoughts
When you look at that forward group for Dallas, it really hits home just how banged-up they are. They’re missing six forwards right now, including Hintz, Bunting, and of course Tyler Seguin. Along with Steel, Faksa, and Bastian, that’s two bona fide NHL forward lines they simply don’t have available right now. The fact that they’ve gone 4-4-2 (with three of those four wins coming without Rantanen) in their last ten games feels like a minor miracle, all things considered.
No, but really: How injured is Dallas right now? So much so that the AHL team has to go 11/7 tonight:
This graphic from the Victory+ broadcast was a good reminder to take most power play stats from the mid-aughts with a grain of salt:
Weird play here in the first, when Bourque took an innocent enough check along the bench, only to have his face get mildly cut by something on the bench. Scary moment there, but Bourque stayed out there, so all’s well that ends well, I suppose.
Technically, interfering with a player on the ice while you’re on the bench is a minor penalty (Rule 56.2), but given the check beforehand and rapidity of events, it’s understandable not to see a call there. Can’t imagine that was anything more than an accident.
Jamie Benn had jump tonight. I remain convinced that he gets more energized the higher up the lineup he plays—to a point. He’s also the oldest player on the team, and fatigue is real for all of us. Still, I liked his game a lot tonight.
Here’s where Duchene shot the Stars’ second goal from:
That’s capitalizing on a goaltender who has lost track of the puck, that is.
Lian Bichsel had a great shift in the third period where he activated and laid a huge hit behind the net on the forecheck, then ended up blocking a 2-on-1 pass back in his own end to potentially save a goal. Not a perfect night from Bichsel, but it’s fun to see him turning into the player the Stars were hoping they’d drafted.
Cameron Hughes drew a late power play when it was 5-2. Good effort from Hughes all night, as you’d expect. He didn’t play too much with the Stars trailing much of the game, but he gave a solid 7 minutes that looked fully NHL-quality. He deserved every one of them, too.
I’ve never much cared for the Eastern Conference, personally.
Victory+ Finally, all three of the Stars’ assist leaders got on the board tonight, so the helper-race looks like this:
Heiskanen 52
Rantanen 51
Robertson 49
Hey, you gotta find drama where you can at this point in the season.