Game 78 AfterThoughts: Riding out the Wave

Two points, however you get them, are two points

SotG

The cowboy’s burning eyes
Don't like the sight of me

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After Dallas fell behind 3-1 early in the third period, the Stars’ lines looked different: Justin Hryckowian was back up with Wyatt Johnston and Mikko Rantanen, while Jason Robertson and Mavrik Bourque were each moved off their respective lines to flank Matt Duchene.

The result? Two goals in five minutes, and a much-needed lifeline to overtime. Johnston and Duchene found new life with new linemates, and the third period was—thankfully—much different than the first two.

“I thought that kind of got us going there a little bit,” Gulutzan said. “Sometimes there’s a message there when you shuffle lines.”

The message in the second intermission was not a particularly cheery one, to hear Matt Duchene tell it afterward.

“We should be happy with the third, and the stick-to-itiveness, I guess,” Duchene said. “But not a great 60-minute effort. We need to have better on Thursday against Minny.”

Duchene had much more to say about how the Stars simply have no excuse to be playing worse than they were a month or two ago, when they were also dealing with injuries. His mood after the game was very much the veteran who was not willing to dismiss the issues with their process just because of the end result.

“I don’t think any of us really like a lot of the stuff we’re doing,” Duchene said. “Again, the third was better. But we’re not connected like we were in our long points streak. There’s a lot of things that go into it, and we gotta get back to it.”

Fans probably won’t be quite as down about this win, given the sheer necessity of staying ahead of Minnesota before Thursday’s big tilt. But certainly, the first 41 minutes of this game were cause for concern. Dallas was facing a team with nothing but pride to play for, and they found themselves being humbled.

Gulutzan said the Stars were looking for easy offense early in the game, and two shots off posts in two first-period power plays kind of lend credence to that assessment. Dallas appeared, at times, to be expecting to slice and dice a fairly disconnected Calgary group up, only to find themselves getting punched in the mouth and unable to push back.

Sure, the Flames got some good fortune on a couple of their goals, and Dallas can take some solace from the fact that they didn’t let Calgary drag them into an Anaheim-style track meet. But there’s not much consolation to be found in a 3-1 deficit to a team sitting 30th in the league in April.

That’s why Dallas’s response after juggling lines in the third was so important. Not because it washes away the mistakes made from insufficient chemistry earlier, but because it shows their ability, as Johnston said, to come back, to deal with a bad hand and still try to make something of it. Most teams in the playoffs will find themselves having to win a game or two like this, at some point.

Of course, the game on Thursday isn’t likely to be like tonight’s was. Dallas owns the tiebreaker outright, so Minnesota has to gain three points on Dallas in the final four games of the season to nab home-ice advantage. That means you can expect them to be attacking Thursday’s game with everything they’ve got.

The easiest way I’ve found to think about this sort of playoff race is the magic number verbiage that baseball uses. Dallas’s magic number is the amount of points gained and Minnesota points not gained that are required to clinch the second seed (and home-ice advantage over the Wild).

Right now, Dallas’s magic number is down to six. That means:

• A regulation win for Dallas over Minnesota would account for four of those six points, since it would also mean two points dropped by the Wild.

• A regulation win for Minnesota over Dallas would tie the teams at 104 points with three games to go, meaning Minnesota would only need to collect one more point than Dallas in those remaining three contests in order to grab home ice.

The dream scenario for Dallas would be to win in regulation on Thursday, then to win on Saturday (or have Minnesota lose in regulation). That would solidify Dallas’s spot in second, and it would mean their final two games (road contests in Toronto and Buffalo) would be purely academic affairs, allowing them to rest players in the final week of the season.

More likely, Dallas will be fighting for their spot right up to the end. The Wild are on a four-game winning streak, and they’re 7-3-0 in their last 10 games. This is a hungry team, and Dallas is in their crosshairs. You can bet they are going to channel that motivation into Thursday’s tilt.

For the Stars, tonight wasn’t about proving anything to anyone but themselves. And yet again, they proved they can wiggle their way out of the metaphorical mousetrap of adversity. Ideally, they’ll soon go back to being the ones setting the trap in the first place.

Highlights and the Lowdown

Arttu Hyry put the first dangerous chance toward the net, on a rush that looked like a developing 2-on-1 with Bourque streaking to the back post. But Hyry fired instead, narrowly missing short side.

The power play got its opening look when a Dallas breakout forced a tripping penalty out of Matt Coronato on Wyatt Johnston in the Stars’ zone. What had been a pretty calm first six minutes of play had a chance to ramp up from there.

Matt Duchene got a great look in the slot from Johnston’s office, but he fired it just wide of the far side. And Robertson got a nearly identical look seconds later, only to put his bid off the post. Harley would miss a shot from up high as well, and nothing more would happen.

But the thing about teams that have already been eliminated from playoff contention is that they are not particularly good. Martin Pospisil demonstrated that fact with 9:48 to go in the first when he took a high-sticking penalty on Lian Bichsel to put Dallas right back on the power play.

Heiskanen would hit iron again, beating Devin Cooley with a wrister from the right circle that rang off the elbow. But again, Dallas would dent the wrong part of the goal, and Calgary killed a second penalty without any damage.

Oettinger had to make some sharp saves early, including a couple of tip plays from just above the crease with four minutes to go. But his positioning and reflexes were more than up to the challenge, and Dallas avoided the worst outcome each time.

Calgary got their first power play with 2:12 to play in the first, when Lyubushkin got sequestered for hooking. But the Flames racked up exactly the same number of shots on goal as Dallas did on their two power plays, which is to say none at all. A quiet first period ended with no goals, and with shots on said goal at just 4-2 for Calgary (though Dallas had much the better of the opportunities).

Calgary would have to play the final 40 minutes with just five defensemen after Kevin Bahl suffered a lower-body injury in the first period and did not return.

Arttu Hyry was brought down by Yan Kuznetsov early in the second while going for his own rebound, but perhaps because of the puck being involved, or perhaps because of Dallas’s already having drawn two power plays, nothing was whistled.

Ilya Lyubushkin would end up making a critical block four minutes into the middle frame, when a Tyler Myers pass along the boards was intercepted and fed to Matvei Gridin, who spun and fired. But Lyubushkin’s stick was there just in time to send the puck skyward.

That block proved key for what happened next, as a Thomas Harley shot went just wide, kicking off the end boards to the other side, where Justin Hryckowian was able to get just enough of the puck to get it past a flailing Devin Cooley to make it 1-0.

Zayne Parekh nearly equalized a minute later, when he got a drop pass as the late man on a 2-on-2 rush and hammered it off the inside of the near post and out the other side behind Oettinger.

Dallas’s top line got hemmed in with Lindell and Heiskanen midway through the second, with all five skaters hitting two minutes or more on their shift clocks. But a deft Lindell clearance allowed the Stars to change, only for the minus that had been coming to finally hit on the next shift.

Joel Farabee would clean up the rebound from an Adam Klapka shot after the Flames rushed back down the ice after the Stars’ third line didn’t quite finish a rush of their own. Lyubushkin and Harley both gravitated toward Klapka, and Lyubushkin wasn’t able to recover from his stick-check attempt in time to beat Farabee to the rebound.

Duchene nearly put the Stars back ahead with an individual rush with three minutes left in the second, but Cooley just barely caught up to his chance after a dizzying sequence of dekes brought him to the doorstep.

But tonight wasn’t a night for pretty goals, as Yegor Sharangovich demonstrated with his 15th of the year. With just 1:08 to play in the second, Sharangovich banked a shot squarely off Lyubushkin and through Oettinger after Robertson couldn’t get the puck out of the zone up high in a battle with Klapka, making it 2-1.

To put the cherry on top of the disappointment sundae, Myers was penalized for tripping before the end of the period, putting Dallas on a pretty important penalty kill, of which 1:21 would carry over to the third period. Through 40 minutes, Dallas had managed just eight shots on goal to Calgary’s 12. It was an affair best described as tepid, and the Stars had 20 minutes to change that.

The third period would bring change indeed, starting with the forward lines. But before that happened, Calgary converted their leftover power play, thanks to a shot from Zayne Parekh:

But even though a 2-1 deficit had seemed insurmountable, suddenly a 3-1 gap felt like nothing at all, as 50 seconds later, Wyatt Johnston would find himself on the end of a nice Rantanen pass through the crease. He knows what to do with those pucks:

And just a few minutes after that, Jason Roberton would tie the game back up, using every bit of his 6-foot-3 frame to reach out and poke a great Matt Duchene cross into the net:

Dallas got their third power play after Robertson drew it at the end of a long offensive-zone shift, during which he almost took a penalty himself. But once again, Dallas couldn’t take advantage of a power play, and we remained level.

Jake Oettinger made a big save on Farabee with the glove to keep it tied with 7:30 remaining, and he would be called upon multiple more times down the stretch, as Dallas took a Too Many Men on the Ice penalty shortly after that, giving Calgary’s power play a chance to further display their dominance.

Dallas bowed up, however, as Colin Blackwell led the way with a dogged, determined shift to win a puck and clear it himself on the PK. But then Tyler Myers appeared to get himself in trouble with 34 seconds remaining on the penalty, when he hit Ryan Strome from behind with contact that sent Strome down the tunnel leaking from his face.

The officials called a major penalty and reviewed it, only to completely rescind the penalty after taking a long look, much to the delight of the crowd. Dallas would kill the remainder of the original penalty, but while you’d think those events would have given them a big push, Oettinger wound up being forced to come up with a couple more big saves down the stretch. Dallas was fortunate to get to overtime with a chance to win a game they had done a pretty decent job of trying to let slip away.

Overtime would swing on some ultimate irony, as almost a minute into it, Ryan Strome—with his nostrils still full of gauze from the Myers hit—caught Jason Robertson with a pretty rough cross-check in the face (Gulutzan called it “dirty” after the game, but your mileage may vary), resulting in a high-sticking penalty that opened Robertson’s face early in overtime—but also giving Dallas four minutes of 4-on-3 overtime in which to win the game.

Dallas would need a large portion of it, for honest and truly, Calgary’s penalty kill and Devin Cooley were outstanding. But you give Wyatt Johnston that much time and space on the power play, and he’s eventually going to crack the safe open, as he did with a move that looked awfully familiar to win the game:

The bloodied Jason Robertson got an assist on the goal, as Dallas managed to keep Minnesota two points at bay. Not all wins are pretty, but they do all count for two points.

Victory+

Lineups

Dallas rolled with this group, 11/7 style:

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

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Myers
Lyubushkin

Oettinger in goal

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Calgary also brought some hockey players:

Coleman-Backlund-Coronato
Farabee-Frost-Gridin
Suniev-Strome-Pospisil
Sharangovich-Zary-Klapka

Bahl-Whitecloud
Maatta-Brzustewicz
Kuznetsov-Parekh

Cooley

After-AfterThoughts

• I was surprised the Tyler Myers boarding major was overturned, and not at least reduced to a minor. Take a look here:

  • Possibly Strome’s seeing Myers coming and turning back a second time was the reason for the call being rescinded, but guesses are all we have.

  • Gulutzan’s take on the no-call:

    • “I think it’s smart,” Gulutzan said. “The hit’s right to the back. He’s a heavy guy. You’re not gonna give a guy a penalty for being heavy. It wasn’t a high hit. So I thought that was smart with the referees.”

    • I’m sure Calgary fans will feel differently, but you can see what Gulutzan is talking about with different still shots, like this one below. Strome knew he was coming, and turned back into the boards, and Myers contacted him.

      

• Thomas Harley made a potentially game-saving play on the backcheck here to deny Mikael Backlund a clean shot on this chance all alone:

  • Harley was on the ice for all three of Dallas’s 5v5 goals scored…and for both of Calgary’s 5v5 goals, too. Eventful night for #55.

• In case you also thought you’d seen that Wyatt Johnston move on the game-winner before, I’ll let you know you are not crazy. He did the same thing against Boston just a couple weeks back, just magicking the goalie off the near post a tad before burying a goal. Slick stuff.

  • “That’s a move I don’t get to try too often, but talking to Jake, I know it’s tough for goalies to read that,” Johnston said. “I kind of did it a little bit ago in I think Boston, and it worked out. So I figured I’d try it again and see if it worked out.”

• Arttu Hyry (11-for-14) and Matt Duchene (11-for-13) were incredible on faceoffs tonight. That’s dominant stuff, right there. Apologies to Jamie Benn’s former Kelowna teammate Mikael Backlund for bringing this up, as Backlund went 5-for-17 tonight.

• Was there any way Robertson was going down the tunnel with a four-minute 4-on-3 power play in overtime sitting right there? I doubt it. It’s a good thing the injury wasn’t to his forehead, or else we might have seen him grabbing duct tape and a stapler.

  • “Robo’s a lot tougher than people think,” Gulutzan said. “He’s got a knack, and he makes a play. He should be fine.”

• Miro Heiskanen played 27:09 tonight, though 3:39 of that was in overtime, as he never left the ice. Not all miles are created equally.

• Jason Robertson’s goal tonight made him the first player in Dallas franchise history to have multiple 90-point campaigns with the club.

  • (Mike Modano did it once for Dallas, and once for Minnesota.)

• Due to Calgary going down to five defensemen after the first period, Olli Määttä played 30 minutes and Zach Whitecloud played 29:52. Great work by both¹ to step up when needed.

1. One of them probably deserved to be named of the three stars tonight, but the bozo who picked them got all starry-eyed about points instead. When will we ever learn?