Game 77 AfterThoughts: Another Minnesota Episode

Dallas may not be so keen to face them in the playoffs after all

Coming into this weekend, the Stars controlled their destiny with six contests remaining. They had the ability not only to ensure home ice in the opening round of the playoffs down the stretch, but they could also wrest the top seed in the Central (and the West) from Winnipeg. But only if they took care of business in preparation for facing Winnipeg at home next week in a huge showdown.

Pittsburgh was in a bad spot with an injured Evgenii Malkin returning and Kris Letang looking his age, but they managed a bigger push than Dallas and stole the game in the third period.

Minnesota was reeling before Sunday, with a 1-4-2 record in their last seven games. Players are hurt, a playoff spot had started to look in doubt after being almost certain for 60 games, and the general manager was losing his temper at the officials after the Jake Middleton injury the other day.

But in the end, Dallas dropped three of four points against an awful Pittsburgh team and a flailing Minnesota Wild club. And honestly, as bad as that Pittsburgh game felt yesterday, this game felt worse.

The little brother complex Minnesota has with Dallas is well-documented by now. And while it was satisfying for the Stars to beat them in both 2016 and 2023, it still rankles when they manage a big, blue-collar (so-called) victory like they did back in December, coming back in the third period to beat Dallas, with all the flap around the Stars’ illicit practice the day before in the background.

So for the Wild to host the Stars in the most desperate moment of their season thus far and come back to win with a huge third period effort Dallas didn’t match? Well, it felt kind of like the Stars were the bad guys in an inspiring sports movie.

That’s the message Minnesota tends to cultivate, too. Words like “grit” were thrown around in 2023, with Dean Evason even calling DeBoer’s Stars out for diving, which is as inflammatory a remark as one can make in the NHL. But to the Stars’ credit two years ago, they calmly pointed to the scoreboard and the penalty leaderboard, and they proceeded to dice up Minnesota on the power play after Joe Pavelski had been knocked out of the series by Matt Dumba.

It was a galvanizing and validating series for the Stars, but this game, like December’s was a haunting reminder of just how bad of a taste a different result to this team can leave in your mouth. It’s never fun to be the big guy when you lose to the little guy.

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Jake Oettinger has been money against Minnesota in his career, and he, like Casey DeSmith yesterday, gave the Stars every chance to win a game. Instead, the Stars mustered just four shots on goal in the entire third period, and it was only due to a lucky bounce off Zach Bogosian that Dallas didn’t lose yet another heartbreaker in regulation.

Things are not good right now for Dallas. They have a lot of good players, yes. And they’ve got great goaltending, absolutely. But when your great team can’t match desperate ones, you start to wonder if they will be able to hang in there when the real behemoths come to play in the postseason. Fans are annoyed lately despite the solid record—Dallas is now 7-1-2 in their last 10 games—and the team hasn’t really done enough to forestall worries that are only amplified by a longer-than-expected injury timetable for Miro Heiskanen.

Report: Miro Heiskanen Not Expected to Return in First Round of Stanley Cup Playoffs

Pete DeBoer mentioned after the game that the Stars have had some things creep into their game along with taking too many penalties. The former is absolutely true, as the Stars gave up 40+ shots on goal on Sunday for the fourth time in seven games.

More than that, in their last seven contests, the Stars have allowed fewer than 36 shots on goal only once—in the 5-1 third period explosion against Nashville. They’re asking a lot of their goaltenders, and while the run support hasn’t always been there, Matt Duchene pointed out after the game that Dallas hasn’t been making good enough plays with the puck, leading to too much time defending.

That falls first and foremost on the top of the lineup. Usually, I cringe at blaming the best players when a good team stumbles, because the best players are usually the ones who got you there to begin with. But when a team as offensively stacked as Dallas is constantly looking like they have to be opportunistic in the ways they have lately, there are too many flaws to their entire game to ignore—not just on defense, not just on breakouts (though they got brought up again today), and not just on the power play. It’s everywhere, and especially with the players who ought to be leading the way.

For Minnesota, Matt Boldy was outstanding. He looked like a player you would pick for the Four Nations Face-Off, whereas Dallas’s top guys had some great shifts here and there, but not nearly enough moments where they were forcing desperation out of Minnesota. The divide in expected goals at 5-on-5 puts this in even starker relief:

With five games left to play, I’m losing interest in talking about yet another game in which Dallas’s forwards couldn’t string enough shifts together to generate momentum consistently. It’s a clear problem—I’d argue it’s the problem—and it leads to players taking chances and trying to do too much in an effort to turn the tide all in one shift.

It’s not how the Stars are built—though they do have players who can make excellent plays—and when your depth is looking more like a congealed mass than an overwhelming wave, you have to figure out where the disconnects are, because it’s usually not one or two players. Rolling your lines only works when they don’t look like square wheels.

And with no Miro Heisaknen likely to be available for a first-round matchup against (probably now) Colorado, it’s hard to be confident that the Stars will be able to bring a better performance in four out of seven games against one of the best teams in the NHL, whoever it is. It’s up to them to inspire that confidence with better play, and they haven’t been able to do that.

Frankly, even if the Stars do manage to catch Winnipeg and play the eighth seed, how much would you like to play Minnesota, if they claw their way into the playoffs? They have every reason to want to thrash Dallas on every level, and they look like they’ll be getting their best players back in time to do that, should fate lead things to fall that way.

They say that those who sit and wait are blessed. But waiting for the Stars to get back to the basics of their elite game is far from a blessed experience, these days.

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The Stars took three penalties in the second period, but I’m not sure you can really get too annoyed that them for any of them, even if DeBoer took the high road after the game and said his team needs to stay out of the box. The penalties were:

• A Too Many Men on the Ice penalty that neither the broadcast nor Pete DeBoer could find any solid evidence for, based on DeBoer’s reaction on the bench.

• A Lian Bichsel trip on Ryan Hartman, who went down like he hit a banana peel after brushing past Bichsel’s hand 40 feet away from the puck.

• An interference penalty on Jason Robertson on Marcus Johansson who was also hooking the puck carrier for Dallas at the same time.

But in the end, they had themselves to blame for the most damaging penalty, when Robertson caused a trip in overtime with a play that just wasn’t sharp enough. Even giving the referees (who know full well that power plays are 4-3 to Dallas at that point) the option to consider calling a penalty there is foolhardy, let alone taking down a player skating backwards toward you. It’s just not good enough.

The power play didn’t score, though Harley’s goal came just after the Wild got back to even-strength. But the penalty kill was also great in regulation, giving Dallas a chance to win the special teams battle. And in any case, given the players Minnesota is missing and how badly they’ve been playing lately, that third period from Dallas, especially early when they got tagged for two goals, just wasn’t good enough, either.

Minnesota gave their Player of the Game thingy (see above photo) to Devin Shore, the old captain of the Maine Black Bears, and the old friend who came up as a Dallas Star for a few years.

They place a premium on the hard work of lower lines, and Shore (and even Marcus Foligno, who is more of a middle-six guy) embodies that philosophy. It’s hard to be upset about seeing Shore happy, but it’s also a reminder of what the Stars keep saying they need to do, but haven’t been able to consistently do for, well, a consistent few weeks now.

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On December 27, Mason Marchment’s face was “shattered” (his word) in a game against the Minnesota Wild in Dallas. It took him over a month to return to play.

Thankfully, things weren’t that severe today, but the Dallas Stars had a no good, horrible, very bad first period when it came to their faces against Minnesota once again on Sunday.

First, Oskar Bäck was boarded by Matt Boldy a minute into the contest, then he took a puck to the right side of his jaw after an Esa Lindell point shot deflected up high.

Then Roope Hintz took a puck up high late in the period, heading right down the tunnel as well.

Thankfully, both players would return, but man, it’s been a crazy season for Dallas players’ faces.

I personally think they should all just wear spangenhelms with hinged metal visors. This is my idea, nobody steal it.

Lineup

Dallas began the game with this lineup:

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

Lindell-Ceci
Harley-Lyubushkin
Bichsel-Dumba

Oettinger

Filip Gustavsson started what felt like his 15th game in the last 10 for Minnesota, who are trying to squeeze blood from every stone they can find right now.

Game Beats

(We’re gonna be sparse on pictures today due to the hurdles with switching between HLN to TNT on YouTube TV, so bear with me, if you would.)

Pete DeBoer started the fourth line on the road, which is a pretty decent statement after a game like yesterday’s. And it worked out for Dallas, albeit at some cost.

That’s because Matt Boldy began the game by hitting Oskar Bäck in the numbers, putting him face-first into the dasher in front of the bench. Bäck bounced back up to keep playing, but it was a scary moment that saw Bäck lucky not to suffer worse than a banged-up face, and Boldy lucky to still be in the game.

Early power plays can be rough, since some of the players won’t have gotten a single shift under their belt yet. But the Stars did get a glorious chance with both Roope Hintz and Mikko Rantanen whacking away at a puck on Gustavsson’s doorstep. Hintz had a killer chance blocked by Zach Bogosian, and Rantanen’s follow-up didn’t get off cleanly either. Johnston put a puck on goal as well, but Minnesota escaped otherwise.

Jamie Benn announced his return with a decent hit on old buddy Devin Shore low along the boards in the Minnesota zone, after which Justin Brazeau and a few other folks gave him some guff before immediately backing away and going about their business. Wise choice.

The top line wasn’t great yesterday, but Rantanen raised the bar with a slick between-the-legs drop after gaining the blue line. Jason Robertson scooped up the puck and took a couple steps before whipping it on Gustavsson, catching him far from set on the near post, and the puck banked off his upper body and found its way in for Robertson’s 34th goal of the year.

Here is a good place to point out that the Stars put up an early lead in shots on goal for the first time in recent memory, going up 6-2 a few just a few minutes (thanks in no small part to the power play, of course).

But because we are talking about The Dallas Stars, any good thing has to be immediately repaid twice over upon a player’s face. Oskar Bäck’s number came up this time, as he took a deflected Esa Lindell shot up off of what looked like the right side of his chin, heading down the tunnel immediately. Given the repairs Bäck’s jaw has undergone in the past year, that was an especially unnerving moment.

Lindell got into a battle in front of the net where he dispensed with his man, only to have the puck go right back down low for what looked like a perfectly timed chance. But Lindell recovered and saved the shot on goal from happening, as he is wont to do.

Cody Ceci equaled Lindell’s salvific instincts with a crucial block on Mats Zuccarello a couple of minutes later, as the Wild started to push back a bit after Dallas had dictated early, evening up shots at seven apiece with 6:08 to play in the first period.

One moment that jumped out at me that tells you about who the Dallas Stars are was this defensive zone faceoff in the first period. You can see right wing Mikael Granlund just blow the zone the instant Dallas wins the draw:

TNT didn’t give a clear look before the draw, but I’ll wager both Minnesota defensemen were lined up closer together leaving the weak side open. That means Dumba can go back here and rim the puck around hard without even looking, allowing Granlund to catch up to the puck with space in the neutral zone.

He would find Matt Duchene for a drop pass and an easy offensive zone entry. It’s not a breakaway or anything, but having these sorts of prepared plays in certain situations is a big help over the long haul.

Roope Hintz then got his own Matt Boldy Medicine to the face, when the Wild’s young forward sent a backhand that got Hintz up high, sending him off (and back) the ice.

Thankfully, both Hintz and Bäck would return to the bench before the end of the period.

Also thankfully, Jake Oettinger would keep Dallas in front after the Wild got going, as the Stars spent the last six minutes without a shot on goal. Oettinger made two of his biggest stops on Marco Rossi, including one slick play in tight where Rossi’s shot also nicked the post, and a late Rossi chance from 30 feet out in the slot, requiring a sharp left pad save from the Stars’ big Minnesotan.

Shots on goal ended up 12-7 for Minnesota after the first period, which at least means the world is still the same one we’ve gotten to know over the last month of the season for this team. There are constants in this life.

Second Period

Matt Dumba got a great slapshot on goal after a nice bit of work by the Stars’ fourth line, but Gustavsson was able to swallow up the missile. And the Stars’ third line put together a great shift of their own just after, with Jamie Benn eventually drawing a tripping call after a nice give-and-go busting to the net, even managing to get a stick on a return pass to put a puck on net despite being tripped by Ryan Hartman.

The Stars would generate some looks, but nothing close to the dagger they needed to put some more distance between them and Minnesota, as Gustavsson was able to seal the near post this time around on a couple of chances from Johnston.

And a the end of the power play, things got worse when the Stars got tagged with a too many men on the ice penalty that nobody seemed able to explain on a rush by Minnesota that I believe was misread by the officials on a chaotic rush by Minnesota. But again, Oettinger was very good, stopping Gustav Nyquist all alone after he got in behind Cody Ceci and Lindell on a stretch pass.

Dallas got out of the kill without incident, though the Wild got another break (two of them, actually) when Johnston and Evgenii Dadonov both broke their sticks within seconds of a defensive zone face-off. Thankfully, Minnesota showed their typical killer instinct, which is to say they didn’t really make anything of the brief 5-on-3.

Lian Bichsel had a good rush where he made a move to gain the offensive zone and put a puck to the front of the net with traffic. It didn’t amount to anything, but it was another reminder that Bichsel is far more than just a big body.

Mikael Granlund had a great sequence to start a nice offensive zone shift for the second line when he absorbed a big hit from Yakov Trenin and another big hit attempt from Shore, only to spin off the latter and get things going for Dallas as they went north. Granlund is worth every bit of that first-round pick Jim Nill paid for him, I believe.

As for the other first-round picks Nill spent, Mikko Rantanen took a nice entry pass from Jason Robertson and put this puck on Gustavsson, but he couldn’t get it over the pad, and Rantanen could only collect the rebound and circle down behind the net and out the other side.

Meanwhile, remember how the Minnesota Wild publicly begged for more penalty calls by calling the Stars divers two years ago? Well, Lian Bichsel was called for tripping on the notoriously ethical Ryan Hartman, who fell down, ah, quite easily after bumping into Lian Bichsel’s top hand on the stick as he was brushing past him 40 feet away from the puck.

But once again, Oettinger was fantastic on the penalty kill, making a couple of point-blank saves to keep Dallas up 1-0.

Mikael Granlund got another chance off a 2-on-1 rush after the penalty expired, and while he didn’t score, his shot did create a plump rebound for Thomas Harley, whose shot Gustavsson got a piece of to sent it just over the crossbar on a fairly open net. It was a fantastic save from the Minnesota goaltender.

We got over five minutes of continuous play during that stretch, and Bichsel and Matt Dumba both got caught on the ice for a good bit right after Bichsel got out of the box. The real action happened in the final minute, however, when Mikko Rantanen and Brock Faber started exchanging cross checks after Rantanen brushed Faber high as he passed by him, and Faber gave him an extra shot of his own after that, and you know what happened net.

But it was Jason Robertson who got tagged with another Stars penalty with 41 seconds left in the period when he felt Marcus Johansson trying to push past him and Robertson leaned into him for a casual pick play…while Johansson also hooked Ceci with his stick as Ceci was skating with the puck. Only Robertson was called for a penalty, however,

Overall, Dallas did a better job of controlling things at even-strength in the second period, and despite a couple of penalty kills, they also out-shot Minnesota 14-10 in the middle frame while hanging onto a 1-0 lead.

Third Period

Dallas summarily killed the Robertson penalty to start the third, and you knew Minnesota was going to bring everything they had left with their backs against the wall trailing by just one goal to a bitter rival.

Matt Boldy nearly equalized for the Wild after a slick move around Dumba, who overcommitted low in the circle, with Hartman also on the doorstep pounding away at a rebound chance, but Oettinger held the fort. But it would be a crazy bounce that finally beat him, as a Jared Spurgeon shot bounced off bodies in front and landed right in front of Boldy, who reared back from one knee and swung away, slapping the puck perfectly past Oettinger’s blocker to tie it up on a play I’m hesitant to say he aimed too specifically.

Still, when you push as hard as Minnesota did to start the third period, you’re bound to get a bounce eventually, and they did. Two, in fact, as Marcus Foligno got a return feed from Marco Rossi on a zone entry that diced up Dallas far too easily, and Foligno corralled the long saucer pass on his backhand as he crashed the net, eventually pounding home the puck after Oettinger did all he could to hold his ground.

It was really a play that was caused in the neutral zone, however, when Dallas’s third line couldn’t sort out coverage, ceding a 3-on-2 to Minnesota far too easily.

Boldy then gets the puck down near the boards and easily hits Rossi with Lyubushkin coming up to challenge, leaving Harley all on his own for a 2-on-1 with no Dallas forwards anywhere near to help.

Dadonov actually got back to Foligno, but he didn’t get inside him, and that made the difference, as Foligno was able to take a bouncing puck into Oettinger and get a final whack at it without being troubled.

Minnesota’s push clearly rattled the Stars, and as the clock hit 10 minutes to go in the third, the Wild had piled up a 13-2 advantage in shots on goal in the third frame, leaving Dallas with everything to prove after letting a third period lead slip away the day before against Pittsburgh.

Dallas would get their chance to get back into things went Johansson got nailed with a tripping call on Jamie Benn in neutral ice—his stick went right into Benn’s skates—but Dallas couldn’t get anything going for the two minutes. But just after said two minutes, Harley fired a puck from distance that hit Bogosian standing just outside the crease and banked perfectly into the net off his leg for the tying goal.

It was a lucky bounce for Dallas every bit as favorable as the ones Minnesota had gotten, if not moreso. And so for the second day in a row, the Stars had a tie game in the third period with six minutes to go, hoping this ending wouldn’t mirror Saturday’s.

Dallas got another bounce with four minutes to go when a Marchment shot hobbled Matt Boldy, giving Dallas some space to work with. And with Boldy on the ice, Faber got his stick between Matt Duchene’s legs, bringing him down and putting Dallas on the power play for the fourth time.

Jason Robertson had the game on his stick when he walked into an open one-timer from the high slot, and he nailed the post with Gustavsson possibly being interfered with by Granlund’s skate in the crease.

Marchment got a great chance of his own off some hard work from Duchene and Granlund with the power play ending, but he couldn’t find a hole in Gustavsson from the right circle. And so, as they did back in December, the teams went to overtime after Dallas gave away a lead in the third period.

Overtime

Hey, remember when we talked about penalties earlier? Well, Robertson took the most no-doubt penalty you’ll ever see in overtime to kill any momentum the Stars might have built after winning the faceoff, sticking out his leg to stay onside just in time to bring down Matt Boldy.

It wasn’t entirely intentional, but it was foolish, and Robertson knew it. And from there, the Wild got one of those 4-on-3 power plays that teams always seem to convert in overtime, and they did.

I don’t much care to break down 4-on-3 breakdowns, but here, Lyubushkin probably is a bit guilty of overplaying Boldy on the far side, allowing Boldy to pass it across to Mats Zuccarello.

Zuccarello immediately sends it down to the wide-open Marco Rossi, who easily tips it in behind Oettinger. Ballgame.

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Look, this is two games in a row where Dallas has needed to lock down a third period, and instead been heavily outplayed. It’s not nearly good enough, and everyone knows it. And while knowing may be half the battle, the Stars have struggled with the other half in recent weeks.

They next play on Tuesday back at home against Vancouver, who have dropped out of a playoff spot while putting up a 4-4-2 record in their last ten games. We’ll see if Dallas can find a way to best yet another team fighting for survival.