Game 78 AfterThoughts: Three Times Is a Spanking

The Stars have picked a terrible time of year to turn third periods into a "lick the battery" contest

Now is probably a good time to remember that regular season games down the stretch do not necessarily predict playoff outcomes.

That might be useful to remember if, for example, you just watched a hockey team blow third-period leads to supposedly inferior opponents in three straight games. Or if, for example, the most recent of those defeats was to a team that looked listless after 40 minutes, ready to call it quits on their season. And if, just for one more example, that most recent loss came in such unfathomable fashion that half the building was empty because the celebration for the all-but-certain victory had begun minutes before the humiliation even started to look remotely possible.

You may have started to realize that these examples are not hypothetical.

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Okay, let’s do a history check first.

Just over five years ago, the world stopped. And that ended up being very good news for the Dallas Stars, as you surely remember:

On a six-game losing streak with no end in sight, those got the reprieve of a global pandemic, eventually getting a shot at hitting the Reset button and taking another crack at hockey after a three-game round-robin warmup.

That same group (actually with one fewer player, as Roman Polák did not return for the bubble playoffs) would win three playoff series, making it all the way to Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final, just as most of the Cup-winning team did 20 years before.

Now, I hesitate to compare anything to that bubble playoff season five years ago because that season is (and hopefully will be) completely unlike anything else the Stars ever go through.

But the other thing to remember is last year, when the Stars rolled to a 17-4-0 finish. They looked every bit like a team that had a monstrous top-four on defense, a lethal offense with depth and deadly shooting, and a franchise goaltender just waiting for a shot at redemption.

That team promptly lost two games to Vegas, and nearly a third one.

In other words, there is a world where great teams can write off the garbage time, so-called, of the regular season. But that world probably isn’t the world where a supposedly great team also writes off the garbage time of their 78th game of the season, losing in historically embarrassing fashion to a team their owner dearly loves to defeat. That has to mean something, right?

Especially when that defeat comes just two days after losing two other third-period leads, including the most recent one to a city that loves to beat Dallas. Those last two wins (and we’re not even going to mention the Sidney Crosby hat trick game) are ones the winning teams are going to remember for a long time. They are also ones Dallas would dearly love to forget.

But it’s up to them to generate enough amnesia to cover these last few games. And Thursday might be their last chance of the (regular) season to do it before the margin for error disappears altogether.

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Vancouver entered the game on the verge of elimination from the playoffs. Elias Pettersson (that one, yeah) wasn’t playing, because the Canucks know this probably isn’t their year. Rick Tocchet is being coy about whether he even wants to get paid millions of dollars to come back and coach again next year, and Quinn Hughes has spent more than a little of this season leading a group filled with infighting, drama, and futility. They traded perhaps their best forward because of how bad the room had grown, and that didn’t seem to help things much at all, as they slowly slipped out of the playoff picture, entering Tuesday’s game eight points back of 8th.

And yet, that team mustered a massive push in the third period, when everyone would have excused them for mailing it in. That team looked a dagger goal to make it 5-2 square in the eye and said, “Not today.”

Sure, some bounces were involved. They almost always have to be for a comeback of this magnitude, though actually I don’t know what is required for a comeback of this magnitude, and neither do you, on account of it hasn’t happened before.

If it’s a matter of effort and will, the Canucks found a way to muster it ex nihilo, while the Stars simply couldn’t match their effort. And that story is sounding a little too familiar in the last two months.

“Unacceptable by our group, especially this time of year,” said Jamie Benn before he summarily ended the postgame interview after one minute. And for the record, Pete DeBoer agreed with that assessment.

“You gotta play for sixty minutes, and we didn’t.” DeBoer said.

What more is there to say? The team’s captain and head coach both acknowledge that you can’t do what they did, that you can’t accept it. But the whole thing about that is, those are also the people primarily responsible for not accepting it, for ensuring it doesn’t continue to happen. And after three straight games of entering the third period prepared to sip the champagne of victory, the Stars have wound up with a whole lot of egg on their faces.

“For whatever reason, we didn’t execute down the stretch,” DeBoer said. “It’s disappointing, because we did put in some work in a positive direction, I thought.”

That’s true, too. As Mikko Rantanen said, the Stars did outplay the Canucks pretty thoroughly for 59 minutes, particularly at 5-on-5. But when that one minute includes three goals for the other team, linear math isn’t especially useful.

Is there anything in common among that last three blown third-period leads?

“All totally different situations,” DeBoer said when asked about the three straight third-period comebacks by Stars opponents. And he’s not wrong, if only because the Vancouver loss was so preposterous that you can’t compare anything to it, unless the Stars get a piano dropped on their team bus tomorrow, then hop off the smoldering bus and right into an open manhole.

That’s the level of absurd calamity Dallas has strung together here in the last four days. It’s unprecedented, especially for a team like Dallas, that spent most of the year holding third-period leads especially well.

And as any millennial knows, there is nothing worse than living in Unprecedented Times.

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But yes, the Stars did good things. Great things on the power play, when they went three-for-three, including two pretty primary assists from Jamie Benn and the first home goal for Mikko Rantanen.

And hey, after surrendering two power play goals to Vancouver in the third to make things worrisome, Dallas bowed up late and finally killed a penalty, and a rookie scored a huge goal for them late in the third. And then a big trade acquisition in Mikael Granlund scored a fifth goal into an empty-net that sent a huge chunk of the crowd to the exits while happily clutching their Wyatt Johnston bobbleheads.

That was a mercy, it turned out, given what the folks who stuck around ended up having to witness.

Look, it’s not good enough lately. Nowhere near it. But Pete Deboer and Jamie Benn just aren’t the sort of people who are coming to come into a press conference and go full John Tortorella or whatever, and I think that’s because they don’t believe that would help anything.

In fact, Vancouver is living evidence of how drama can derail a season. And despite this win, you only have to talk to one Canucks fan to understand just how frustrating life has been for over a decade now. This win is preposterous, but it’s like a tiny version of the Jamie Benn Art Ross game in 2015, when the Stars were already out of the playoffs. It’s a fun memory, but it doesn’t negate the larger disappointsments of the group as a whole.

So whatever your feelings, the leadership of this team is going to be largely calm, because they are working on things they aren’t going to tell us about in the ways they think are best. Disappointment and condemnation are tools for them, not emotional resources to be wielded in times of anger.

I really do believe that DeBoer has a philosophy of how to motivate and steer a club, and you’re seeing it in action. Jamie Benn has a clear philosophy too, and it’s one his teammates swear by, even though it can burn him like it did in 2023.

The coach and the captain each push when they think they need to. But DeBoer in particular doesn’t like to kick his team while they’re down—remember, his two harshest postgame press conferences came after a shootout loss and regulation win.

Either that means the team is fragile and delicate and can’t handle harsh criticism, or it means they know how successful they’ve been for the last (nearly) three seasons. And the latter option seems the likelier one, like it or not.

It’s fine to be calm and even stoic, if you’re addressing things behind the scenes. Every player and coach has a choice in how to respond when the cameras are on. The proof will ultimately be in the pudding. But lately, it’s been more of a mud pie. And yet, the team is still 3rd in the National Hockey League.

It’s tough, though, because their fans haven’t bought tickets and jerseys (or stood in line for bobbleheads) to look at the standings, but to experience the games, to feel a sense of kinship with other Stars fans, rooting for world-class athletes to bring glory to their city. And despite the overall results, the feeling in the fanbase tonight is sour indeed.

I suppose just about every top team is losing some weird games these days—just look around the standings tonight—and what Dallas did going off down the stretch last season is pretty rare. And as much as DeBoer said this morning that he thinks your regular season game is the foundation that you build your playoff game on, there’s no denying that playoff games are a completely different animal than a mid-April game against Vancouver. You really do have to bring something special to win any playoff series, let alone one against the best teams in the league. Maybe Dallas has that level in them, and their record is a much truer representation of their actual capability than the last three games filled with trying to fix a jammed shotgun by staring down the barrel.

Maybe it will all be okay when the games get real, and recent history is just an aberration from the months-long success of this club.

At least, the Stars had better hope so.

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It was Wyatt Johnston Bobblehead Night in Dallas, and the bobblehead hunters were lined up in droves, hours before the doors opened at 5:30pm. I will now show you some low-res screencaps from videos sent to me by folks who were there, since downloading videos from Twitter appears to be something you can only do if you buy Grok dinner first:

The concourses inside were packed. According to fans on Twitter who were there, the lines took anywhere from 25 minutes to double that, and ticket-scanning was inconsistent in some of the distribution lines, if not outright abandoned to speed things along after a bit. The upside of the new approach was to avoid folks going through lines multiple times to collect excessive amounts of bobbleheads, and that does appear to have been accomplished.

Overall, the demand for the Johnston and Oettinger bobbleheads appears to have skyrocketed this year, and with the team continuing to be as good and popular as they are, I wouldn’t be surprised to see that trend continue, along with some new methods of distributing them next year, whatever those might be.

Lineup

The Stars began the game with this lineup:

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

Lindell-Ceci
Harley-Lyubushkin
Bichsel-Dumba

DeSmith in goal

Before the game, Pete DeBoer said the Stars have Oskar Bäck

Thatcher Demko started in goal for the Canucks. Elias Pettersson (yes, that one) is still questionable to return for the season, which might just be code for “we’re waiting to be officially eliminated before shutting him down for the year.”

Game Beats

Jamie Benn laid a decent hit on Linus Karlsson in an effort to drive some energy into a cagey opening 10 minutes. Mason Marchment also tested Demko, but it was Casey DeSmith who had more work to do, making a couple of staccato saves during one frenetic sequence battling with Keifer Sherwood after a puck deflected off the referee and found the Stars scrambling to regain defensive positioning.

Sherwood and DeSmith exchanged pleasantries afterward, with Sherwood preventing DeSmith from grabbing his stick, and DeSmith preventing Sherwood from being able to feel his face for a minute or two.

Sherwood’s day wouldn’t improve after he got sent to the box with seven minutes to go after whacking Lian Bichsel in a manner displeasing to the officiating crew. Dallas got their first power play.

After nearly a minute of less-than-terrifying work, the Stars finally struck gold when Thomas Harley made a nifty little nutmeg pass through Kyle Forbort to find Wyatt Johnston in the center of the ice to Mikko Rantanen for a one-timer:

It turns out that Rantanen’s shot is faster than Demko’s glove, as you can see here:

1-0, Dallas.

That nearly wasn’t the score for long, as both Max Sasson and Mason Marchment had great chances that didn’t quite get put away. But the game had well and truly woken up, and the Stars got another power play a few minutes later with a chance to capitalize on the newfound momentum, thanks to Filip Hronek’s flinging the puck halfway up the lower bowl from his own zone.

Marchment would find the net with 0:01 remaining on the power play after the second power play unit managed some extended puck work that ended with Jamie Benn chipping the puck off the back boards to himself below the goal line, then feeding an open Marchment ten feet away for the easy one-two-roof.

With a 2-0 lead thanks to goals by both power play units, the Stars had given themselves the sort of cushion you ought to have when you get a couple of power plays against a team on the verge of giving up on their season.

Also, shots on goal were 8-7 for Dallas, in case that’s what you really care about deep down in your heart. Which is fine, of course.

Second Period

After DeSmith calmly gloved a Jake DeBrusk shot from Broadway, the Stars got a great chance when Sam Steel dipped a shoulder and cut into the crease, getting by Demko and trying a fadeaway shot at the far post that slipped past Demko’s right skate, but got just enough of the post to stay out.

The top line nearly scored again soon after, but Rantanen perhaps got caught being a bit too generous, passing a puck from the slot over to Hintz that the entire building was begging him to shoot.

Dallas would get another chance to punish Vancouver on the power play five minutes into the middle frame, when Marcus Pettersson took a high-sticking minor. Jamie Benn got three shots off in his latest attempts at 400 goals, but his real plan was to distract the penalty kill with those efforts and find Duchene wide-open with a no-look backhand.

Seriously, how many players sitting on a 13-game goal drought would take this chance and pass it?

Well, it was absolutely the right chance, as Benn’s brilliant backhand to Duchene left Demko flailing his legs in vain (as flailing of any kind usually is).

Even-strength goals are for babies, I’ve always heard.

Dallas owned the bulk of possession after that, with Vancouver appearing to have conceded the game, the season, and quite possibly any remaining Aquilini/Gaglardi beefs. The Give-Up was strong.

Elias Pettersson (not that one) showed a bit of fight when he laid a decent hit on Mikko Rantanen away from the play, sending him into the boards.

Rantanen then got up and decided to demonstrate that he wasn’t entirely pleased with Pettersson’s choice:

Both players were sent to the box, where they proceeded to continue their conversation in a more orderly fashion.

It wasn’t on the opening shift of the game, but the fourth line did draw a penalty for the third straight game when Colin Blackwell got hooked behind his own net, putting Dallas on the job for the fourth straight time. Would the Stars go 4-for-4 like they did against the Blues last month?

Well, they would not, and it wasn’t particularly close, either. And as you’d expect, the officials took the first plausible chance they got to call a penalty on Vancouver, nailing Matt Dumba for cross-checking Aatu Räty just as the Stars’ power play expired.

Casey DeSmith made a couple of confident stops in the final 90 seconds of the second period, and the Stars took their 3-0 lead to the intermission with every reason to feel confident they could finally bring a third period lead home.

Third Period

If the 3-0 lead was a ship Dallas was trying to bring into harbor, they started off by running around and setting fire to the flying jib (nautical term).

Jake DeBrusk took a pass off the rush from Conor “Turtleneck” Garland, and the Canucks converted their power play just before it ended after DeBrusk caught DeSmith challenging for the shot and tucked it into his skate from below the goal line, banking it into the net.

It was a bummer of a start for the Stars, and things didn’t get better when Marchment got a 2-for-1 deal on his next penalty, taking a double-minor for high-sticking Teddy Blueger in the offensive zone.

And because someone put this game in a time machine and traveled back to 2005, the fifth power play goal of the game was scored by Victor Mancini after a turnover in the corner by Ceci gave Vancouver a chance to reset. Mancini came downhill and fired through a couple of bodies, and DeSmith didn’t pick it out of the mass of hockey in time.

Worse, the goal came with a few seconds still remaining on the first half of the minor, so Dallas had to kill another two minutes and change. But thankfully, they showed that just like Vancouver, they could at kill at least one out of every three or four penalties they took.

Granlund had a great look right in front of Demko with about nine minutes left in the third, but the Vancouver goaltender somehow held onto the shot with Duchene begging for the tiniest rebound to pick off his pads and stuff into the net. No dice.

But after some extended time defending in their own zone, Dallas finally got the puck out and generated a push of their own. Lines were scrambled, with Benn, Duchene, and Rantanen out there together at one point with Dallas maintaining offensive-zone pressure that was bound to end one way or the other.

And end it would, as Jason Robertson found Mavrik Bourque (like I said, forwards were coming from everywhere) for a goal not dissimilar from the Benn-to-Marchment tally earlier to make it 4-2.

But if you thought that the goal would be a knockout blow, you would be wrong. Very wrong.

But first, Mikael Granlund found the empty net from distance just a few seconds after Demko left for the extra attacker. 5-2, Dallas. But if you thought that would be the knockout blow, you would somehow be even more wrong, and yeah, you know where this is going.

You can watch Aatu Räty score the Canucks’ third goal here from down low in the circle after a nice feed from Marcus Pettersson. The Canucks had put Demko back in net, only for a too-casual play by Wyatt Johnston in his own zone to give the Canucks the puck, and life.

It came with exactly one minute remaining in the game.

And in that final minute, Demko would exit the net again. Oh, and then Pius Suter scored two goals.

First, Conor Garland went low and fed a slick cross to Suter that he buried. 5-4, with 30 seconds left to play in what is normally called garbage time.

But after a Canucks timeout, the unthinkable happened, as Vancouver thwarted Stars’ efforts to tie up the puck and kill the clock, winning yet another battle to dig the puck out and swing it around, after which Quinn Hughes threw it on net. Hronek then threw it back at net from below the goal line, and it slipped right to Suter, who put it past an utterly lost DeSmith (and who could blame him) in order to send the game to overtime in what would soon become historic fashion.

Overtime

For the second straight overtime, Dallas took a penalty. Mikko Rantanen was called for a borderline slash on the stick, but despite everyone in the building expecting disaster, Dallas killed it, because they’ve enjoyed toying with their fans recently when it comes to these late losses. You have to give them credit for variety, at least.

The kill was impressive, though, as Lindell in particular was utterly uninterested in changing despite Dallas clearing the puck multiple times, because his shifts go for the full two minutes when Dallas is on the kill.

But without a whistle after the kill, the teams played 4-on-4, and it never got back to 3-on-3, after Thomas Harley and Matt Dumba couldn’t quite control things below the goal line despite a near-takeaway by Harley. Vancouver won the puck battle down low, and Kierfer Sherwood won the game with a carbon-copy of Bourque’s goal.

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Dallas can still technically catch Winnipeg, but it will take a string of victories down the stretch just for them to have a chance. And even if they roll off four final wins—including their last big game against Winnipeg Thursday night—it will take a collapse from Winnipeg in their final few games every bit as embarrassing as this loss was for Dallas tonight.

Anyway, if you spent your evening watching this game, I have one piece of good news for you: NHL history was made tonight.

I just cited this aphorism the other day, but I’ll say it again, because it always makes me chuckle. My friend’s parents would chasten him when he would goof off too much growing up with this phrase: Once is funny, twice is silly, three times is a spanking.

Well, the Stars got spanked tonight. And nobody is laughing anymore.