Game 77 AfterThoughts: Playoff Hockey Arrives Early

This one was a postseason affair in almost every respect

Song of the Game

Bouncing here and there and everywhere
High adventure that’s beyond compare

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In a way, this game was proof that the Stars can flip the switch.

Glen Gulutzan himself said he liked the Stars’ game in this one, outside of the missed coverage on the one meaningful goal. It was a playoff-style game from start to finish, even if the first 20 minutes were the most entertaining, by far.

But Dallas not only hung with Colorado; in fact, they gave as good as they got through 40 minutes, including a much more tentative second period than the first. If you asked anyone what a playoff game between the two best teams in the league might look like, this game fit the bill, whatever the pace.

Colorado put more pucks on net, but Dallas largely kept them to the outside, as you can see.

HockeyViz.com

Dallas was missing a ton of forwards, while Colorado was missing Cale Makar and Nic Roy. Both goalies made some excellent saves, and both teams were doing some outstanding checking. It was every bit a one-goal game, even if the first period felt more like an 8-7 likelihood.

However representative this game will end up being of what feels like a probable playoff matchup remains to be seen. But what we got today was encouraging for the Stars in the sense that their recent malaise appears to be truly in the rear-view mirror. Things are sharpening up, even if they couldn’t beat Scott Wedgewood tonight.

Look, you know how hockey works. If you’re a fan, you want your team to be the heroes and the opponent to be the villain. That difference can extend, in your mind, all the way from style of play to the character of the individual players. Moments like post-whistle scrums can feel like righteous confrontations. It’s the best part of hockey, but it’s also the worst, when your guys lose.

Today, Stars fans watched their team get shut out by Colorado. But considering this game came at a point of the season with less to play for than was at stake in any of the first three, I’d imagine the loss won’t sting quite as much as the shootout loss in early March, when Dallas outplayed Colorado for much of the night, only to give up a 6-on-5 goal to Val Nichushkin and lose in the shootout.

This time, the game hung in the balance for 50 minutes, and both sides tested each other and found resistance in full force. No breakaways were given out, and as Gulutzan reiterated, both sides were pretty much one-and-done in the offensive zone.

For Dallas’s part, they had to lean on their top guys a bit, given the bodies they’re missing. Jason Robertson led both teams in overall ice time, defensemen included. He played 24:52, staying out for nearly all four minutes of the Stars’ two power plays, but his 5v5 work was where the Stars got most of their chances. With their three best forwards together, the 21-53-96 line outchanced Colorado 7-4 at evens, with Natural Stat Trick giving them a 5-2 edge in high-danger shots as well.

Games like this one are, by their nature, more about the goals that don’t happen than the miniscule amount that do. Both goaltenders were outstanding, and the defensive work in both zones was vicious. If you remember any of the low-scoring playoff games of years past, you can recall any number of them that were decided by a goal far more flukey than the one that sealed this affair.

That goal came after the fourth line iced a puck, and while Robertson and Johnston were able to get on for Hyry and Bäck, Erne was stuck out there. Lian Bichsel also found himself nearly two minutes into a shift, and perhaps that was why he wasn’t able to prevent a slick Artturi Lehkonen pass from getting through him to the back door.

But you can go back and dissect everything before the goal, too, from the icing, to a Robertson clearance attempt that was never getting past the point, to some other forward coverage that looked a bit too lax. The crux of the whole thing was that bodies were in suboptimal places, and the Avalanche got the only goal they would need.

I suppose you could pull on a lot of threads in this game, including an early Jamie Benn look that he opted to pass rather than shoot. Gulutzan said that multiple Stars players probably passed up looks that would have been better-served to go at the net, but such is often the case when a goalie is playing as well as Wedgewood behind a defense as stifling as Colorado’s was. I do not envy whichever 8th seed ends up facing them, but I’d imagine no other team will envy Colorado’s facing Dallas, if such should prove to be the case in the second round.

Oskar Bäck played nearly 17 minutes tonight, as Gulutzan asked a lot of the third line that was so dominant on Thursday, which we wrote all about yesterday.

What Domination Looks Like: Breaking Down Five Tone-Setting Shifts by Justin Hryckowian, Mavrik Bourque, and Oskar Bäck

Gulutzan summarized Bäck’s effectiveness this way, when asked today.

“The one thing that you’re looking for in that 5-on-5 offense,” Gulutzan said, “Is a guy that can win and hold the puck, and that’s what he can do. And he’s very good defensively, so you don’t mind him out there against the top players. In the O-zone, he’s not creating high-danger chances at an alarming rate, but what he does is he can win a battle, hold the puck, and get it into the hands of the guys that it needs to be in, and get a greasy one. So these types of games are built for guys like that.”

I think that quote is perfect backdrop for the aforementioned video piece from yesterday, so do take the time to give that look, if you’d like to know exactly how Bäck goes about his business.

As far as this game, it was basically the two top lines creating the best looks, while the depth defended and probed with more caution. Either team could have won, and that’s probably why the last three contests have gone to a shootout. These two clubs are extremely evenly matched, and it makes for great hockey. I can’t find it within me to be too bent out of shape about the result of this game, given the high-quality process we got to witness on both sides.

However, the result is that Minnesota is now within four points of Dallas, with a game in hand. If Dallas doesn’t win their Calgary game before the two teams meet up next week, then Minnesota could arrive in Dallas with the ability to win and pull ahead. The Stars can prevent that by beating Calgary in the interim, which will be more than doable if the Stars continue playing like they have in the last 120 minutes.

The big picture here is that with five games left to Calgary, Minnesota, New York, Buffalo, and Toronto, Dallas remains in a spot everyone would have taken before the start of the season: with home-ice in the first round, so long as they don’t cause too much drama down the stretch. And once again, they’re playing good hockey.

This game had plenty of drama, even if it didn’t have many goals. But the real drama is one step closer. You’d suspect it will end up involving these two teams again, before long.

Highlights and the Lowdown

The teams exchanged chances in the first minute, with Wyatt Johnston and Artturi Lehkonen both getting high-quality looks that required corresponding saves. Landeskog and Logan O’Connor likewise tested DeSmith early, but he was up to the task. The pace was furious, and the play was enthralling.

Wedgewood had to stretch for a big blocker save when Hryckowian line generated yet another scoring chance, as Oskar Bäck reached out to deflect a shot that Wedgewood’s blocker just barely caught up with.

Nate MacKinnon tested DeSmith off the rush midway through the first, but DeSmith again made the stop. But things got tense when Jamie Benn’s stick reached out to play a puck behind the Colorado goal line, only to catch the skate of Valeri Nichushkin, bringing him to the ice for an Avalanche power play.

But the Stars’ PK came up big, and Lian Bichsel would punctuate the kill with a very big hit on Nichushkin right after its expiration. The game only continued to ramp up in intensity, and the full-throated crowd expressed its disapproval when Martin Nečas slyly pulled Mavrik Bourque’s helment off in the offensive zone without a call.

The Colorado offense is dangerous for a reason, and Dallas’s checking had to be spot-on in their zone, including a Justin Hryckowian stick-check to narrowly prevent a shot from the low slot with traffic. The margins were razor-thin on defense, with Colorado’s speed and playmaking in full effect.

Thomas Harley got victimized by a weird bounce along the boards (possibly off his stick and/or skate) with three minutes to go, and Brock Nelson nearly capitalized. But DeSmith once again came up huge with a pair of stops, and the playoff-caliber period ended as it had begun: 0-0.

The second period continued apace, but this time Dallas would get a power play, when Brett Kulak tripped Colin Blackwell away from the play in the Colorado zone.

Dallas won the ensuing faceoff, but a high block short-circuited that momentum, and Heiskanen even had to defend a near 2-on-1 shorthanded rush the other way. But the second version of the power play (with Robertson still on it) would finally create some danger, as Robertson hit Wedgewood with a sneaky shot from the circle. Mavrik Bourque would dig for the rebound, and that drew the ire of Jack Drury, and the scrum you would expect took place.

Bourque and Drury both sat for two minutes, and the power play elapsed without further event. The five-on-five play resumed with its usual pace and just-abouts, as both teams defended with playoff-level attention to detail.

That detail included a near-penalty by Lundkvist, as he had to lock up Brock Nelson on a rush chance that looked like a 2-on-1, but the officiating continued to emulate the playoff-style gameplay, and nothing was called.

Things slowed down a bit from there, as the second period settled in a cagier affair, with Dallas defending for nearly all of the middle part of the period. Wyatt Johnston in particular made a couple of brilliant (and critical) defensive plays with his stick to prevent Colorado scoring chances, and Casey DeSmith continued to look calm and composed for the pucks that did get through.

Wedgewood had less work to do at the other end, but what he did have to do was dangerous stuff, including some friendly fire when one of Brett Kulak or Josh Manson tipped a point shot into his own goaltender.

MacKinnon and Benn exchanged some words after Benn brought him down in the Stars' zone on a play that probably could’ve drawn a penalty earlier in the contest. But the incredulous MacKinnon’s plea fell on deaf ears, and he and Benn exchanged pleasantries as the crowd begged for a fight that didn’t come.

When asked after the game what he and MacKinnon were discussing, Benn said, “Just saying hi.” (And if you expected him to say anything more than that, you don’t know Jamie Benn very well.)

Overall, chances were at a premium in the second, and the period ended uneventfully. Not surprisingly, the final frame of a Dallas/Colorado game looked likely to be the decisive one.

DeSmith had a fluttering blocker save to make at his end, but Dallas would generate some looks of their own. Wedgewood’s best stop came off a Johnston’s one-timer at his blocker side, which was shortly followed by a Brock Nelson tripping penalty on Jason Robertson, hunting for the rebound.

Wedgewood immediately protested that Robertson had gone down too easily, but despite a pileup in the aftermath, the original penalty stood, and Dallas had their second power play of the day.

They nearly converted it when the puck was threaded behind Wedgewood and through the paint, but frantic sticks couldn’t get ahold of the bouncing puck to tap it home, and a hand pass killed the play right after that. Colorado’s PK bowed up as usual from there on out, and Dallas once again let the opportunity slip away.

Things got tense in the final 12 minutes, and Sam Malinski nearly put Colorado ahead when a blocked Colin Blackwell shot up high turned into a 1v1 battle up ice that Malinski won, bringing the puck in on DeSmith from the corner all alone. But DeSmith once saved his teammates’ bacon with a big stop, and we played on.

Colorado would finally get the lead when their top line got Dallas’s fourth line out of sorts, and Robertson’s attempt to clear the puck out wasn’t good enough to break the blue line. Artturi Lehkonen was fed up high in the zone, and he found Nečas streaking to the back post, where Lehkonen’s pass got through Lian Bichsel (who was nearly two minutes into a long shift) to the back door, where Nečas easily cradled the puck off the post and in for the lead with ten minutes to play.

Arttu Hyry got a couple of good looks with under five minutes to play, but he was caught off-balance on a great tic-tac-toe bit of passing that he was only able to wobble towards the net, and his next shot was collected by Wedgewood to halt the play.

With 4:08 left, Dallas put the top line out for an offensive-zone draw with Harley and Heiskanen, but they once again lost the faceoff—a trend in this one—and further efforts couldn’t get through Colorado’s blockade to net.

With 2:41 remaining, another O-zone draw prompted a goalie pull from Gulutzan, and Benn and Duchene joined Heiskanen and the top line. This time, a Rantanen shot was blocked into the heavens, and Dallas would take a third draw, which they won.

Dallas felt like a penalty on Rantanen went uncalled, but they would eventually defend a couple of empty-net attempts by Colorado and get more looks. Duchene created the best one with a perfect read much like Harley a few games back, cutting off a pass in the neutral zone. But Wedgewood only had one stop to make, and Colorado would ice the puck after that.

The trouble was, MacKinnon was cherry picking high in the zone for just such a play, and he won the race up the ice to the puck before any of the exhausted skaters from Dallas could recover. Thus, MacKinnon potted the puck, and Colorado walked away with a 2-0 victory that doesn’t mean much for the standings, but certainly irked the Stars.

As ever, the real story will be written in the playoffs.

Lineups

Dallas rolled another 11/7 lineup in this fashion:

Robertson-Johnston-Rantanen
Benn-Duchene-Blackwell
Bäck-Hryckowian-Bourque
Hyry-Erne

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Lyubushklin
Petrovic

DeSmith

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Colorado brought this:

Lehkonen-MacKinnon-Nečas
Landeskog-Nelson-Nichushkin
Kelly-Kadri-Kiviranta
Colton-Drury-O'Connor

Toews-Malinski
Kulak-Manson
Burns-Blankenburg

Wedgewood

After-AfterThoughts

• Big congratulations to Brent Burns, who hit 1,000 straight games played today. Team affiliations aside, Burns is a delightful human being who is doing remarkable things as an NHLer. This great piece by Nick Cotsonika has you covered, if you’d like to know a bit more. Dallas also gave him a solid round of applause for the feat during a stoppage in the game today.

• Important news from Cedar Park: Justin “Ritzy” Hryckowian’s younger brother will get a likewise more diminutive nickname: “Ritz.”

  

• The decision to start Casey DeSmith instead of Jake Oettinger was interesting, particularly with Oettinger coming off a shutout on Thursday. When asked about the choice to go with DeSmith today, Glen Gulutzan said it was something that had already been decided before the Jets game:

  • “It was already pre-planned. Just with our travel and management, and managing our energy. A little bit of rhythm. We talked it through probably five days ago […] and then we just stuck with the plan. You always want, when a goalie plays as good as [Jake] does, you kinda maybe keep him going. And maybe if it was in the meat of the season, we would have done it, just to go [today]. But we kind of had this planned with our energy levels where we thought we were, even before we had the game against Winnipeg.”

• With the decision to bring in Alex Petrovic as well, I can’t help but think the Stars are already transitioning into more of a playoff-preparation phase with their lineup. If the gap between them and Minnesota closes, then perhaps that changes, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see more consistent rotation both in goal and on defense in their final six games.

• Alex Petrovic played with a variety of partners today, as did most defensemen. He looked solid and efficient, much as he has late in the previous two seasons. Good on Gulutzan for making sure the Stars don’t wait for Game 82 to start spreading the load around a bit more on the blue line.

• Miro Heiskanen was tenacious and excellent today, looking every bit ready for the playoff hockey we saw. But man, you’d have loved him to just get one more of his looks through to the net. With space down low so constricted, the low-to-high plays were almost the only ones available on either side.

• Before the game, Glen Gulutzan said Roope Hintz had made some good strides lately, so his return before the playoffs is just shy of 100 percent. He went on to add that, aside from Tyler Seguin, he thinks it’s likely the Stars will have all the injured players—including Radek Faksa—back before Game 1 as well.

  • For my part, I’m going to remain cautiously optimistic until we start seeing players practice with the team again. Thus far, all of Bunting, Bastian, Steel, Hintz, and Faksa are not doing so.

• Brock Nelson is having such a great season. Easy player to root for, and he’s found a serious groove in Colorado. He’s going to be a much bigger problem for opponents in this postseason than he was in the last one.

• Likewise, Sam Malinski. The Colorado blue line isn’t perfect, but it’s a testament to how well-constructed their team is that they could have the 5-foot-11 Malinski and the 5-foot-9 Blankenburg both on the ride side, with neither looking remotely less than good. That’s a very good hockey team, from top to bottom. They might even manage to get out of the first round this year.