Monday Rundown: Divisional Projections, Team Leaders, and First Goal Trivia Time
It's time for some healthy competition
Winter is well and truly over, which means the spring rains are arriving this week.
Spending a lot of my childhood on the West Coast, my relationship with rain was very different to what it is in Texas. Back there, the rain is wet and cold, but usually that’s all it is. Going for a jog in the rain was doable, and sometimes even delightful.
Here in Texas, rain is an onslaught, something that shoots down from heaven like it’s being propelled from a giant, atmospheric Super Soaker 50. Texas raindrops test the tensile strength of car windshields, and as a fun bonus, you might get hit by lightning at any given time. Welcome to the prairie.
It’s weird to think that barely a month ago, we had ice and snow covering the tollways, forcing people that usually careen down the DNT at 90 miles per hour to carefully inch down those same roads at a mere 85mph, usually sideways. Now, we’ve got heat and humidity and probably a monsoon or something. I’m sure ERCOT is on top of it, whatever it is.
Enough of the weather. Onto hockey!
Is the Central Division…in play?
Minnesota lost to St. Louis last night, 3-1. Joel Hofer came within a couple feet of scoring a goalie goal, and Quinn Hughes looked every bit like a player who has been asked to be everywhere over the last six days, and who has said yes to each and every request. Losing to the St. Louis Blues is tough to do these days, as Dallas has repeatedly demonstrated, but credit to the Wild: They found a way not to find a way.
Meanwhile, the Stars scraped an overtime win against Nashville on Saturday in a game that Juuse Saros kept artificially close for far too long, as the Predators weren’t credited with a single high-danger scoring chance at even-strength on Saturday. Perhaps that’s why Glen Gulutzan was pretty happy with the Stars’ game overall, outside of a mistake or two. When you’re up 10-zip in high-danger shots at 5-on-5, you’re probably doing a couple things right.
I suspect we’ll see more and more of these weird divisional games down the stretch, especially with the condensed schedule. Hockey can get kooky in the final quarter of the season, and everyone is going to be feeling the schedule’s effects before long, if they aren’t already.
As for right now, here’s what the Central Division looks like:
The Stars’ points percentage is 30 percent better than Minnesota today, as they lead the Wild by a point, and also have two games in hand. So, does that mean Dallas is actually in a position not only to fend off Minnesota for home ice in the playoffs, but also to chase down the mighty Colorado Avalanche?
Well, no. Probably not. Because the Gary Bettman Loser Point™ serves to make even a “small” gap like six points nearly impossible to overcome in a measly 23 games, unless a team completely crashes and burns.
Put it like this. If Dallas shrugs off the loss of Mikko Rantanen for a while and maintains their .686 points percentage to finish the year, they would wind up with 113 points (which would be an outstanding total).
In order for Colorado to finish with just one fewer point than that, the Avalanche would have to fall apart to the tune of a .520 points percentage over their final 24 games. How bad is a .520 mark, you ask? Well, that’s even worse than the Los Angeles team who just fired their coach. It’s also worse than Seattle, Nashville, Florida, Edmonton, Toronto, and Philadelphia.
So, it’s technically possible for Colorado to suddenly forget the basic physics of ice hockey, but there’s a reason why models like HockeyViz have Dallas and Minnesota with a 95% chance to face each other in the first round of the playoffs right now. They’re both too far ahead of the pack (despite Utah having more regulation wins than Minnesota) and too far behind Colorado to hold out much hope of any other result.
Still, there’s this: Dallas and Colorado play each other three more times this season, while Minnesota also have one final crack at the team they just defeated last week. win a couple of those games in regulation, and Colorado could start sweating, just a bit.
It may not be likely, but catching the Avalanche is not quite impossible. Yet.
Team Leaderboard
In their last five games, both Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston have amassed five points.
Robertson scored in both of the Stars’ games before the break, while Johnston has come out on fire, scoring twice against Seattle on Wednesday, then adding a goal and an assist Saturday night against Nashville.
That pace means the Stars’ two top goal-scorers are still neck-and-neck, far ahead of the field when it comes to putting the biscuit in the basket. Here’s how it looks right now:
Goals
Robertson: 33
Johnston: 32
Rantanen: 20
Hintz: 15
Bourque: 11
Duchene: 11
Benn: 9
While that second half of that list reminds you why the Stars are in the market for another forward this week, it’s worth noting just how absurdly high those top two numbers are.
Last year, Robertson led the team with 35, while Johnston had 33 goals and Duchene posted 30. And all three of those players played 82 games last year. This year, Robertson and Johnston have only played 59, and Johnston has already broken the Dallas record for power play goals in a season. (You may have heard about this.)
In other words, the top of the lineup is far outpacing itself from last year, and it’s not even close. There are many reasons the Stars are where they are in the standings, but Johnston and Robertson are certainly two of the biggest.
Plus/Minus
Yeah yeah, we all know plus/minus numbers don’t really tell you a player’s full story. But they do tell a story, and right now, we’re on the chapter of that story that’s entitled “Esa Lindell and Jason Robertson Race to the Top of the Plus/Minus Mountain.” (This book did not sell well, but I blame the marketing department.)
Jason Robertson: +21
Esa Lindell: +20
Roope Hintz: +15
I, for one, am fascinated to see whether the defensive defenseman or the dynamite goal-scorer winds up atop this list. We all know Robertson’s defensive game is vastly underrated, but even so, it’s pretty great to see two drastically different players battling for supremacy in the same stat.
Staying Accountable
I didn’t mention this after the game on Saturday, but I think it’s worth pointing out something about the Preds’ second goal the other night.
While Jamie Benn was the one who turned the puck over, I think it’s probably worth noting that Lian Bichsel tried a little too hard to correct his captain’s error, as he ended up selling out to attack the puck here.
You can understand what Bichsel’s looking to do there, but he ends up turning a 3-on-2 into a more dangerous 2-on-1 by completely vacating his side of the low slot, where Stamkos ends up shooting from.
I wonder if Bichsel felt bad for having just passed it to Benn before the turnover, causing him to try a hero play to shut it all down rather than back off and try to keep lanes clogged up.
It’s not a big deal, but it’s worth pointing out what growth can look like for young defensemen in the NHL. Sometimes, less can be more.
When Jamie Benn Last Played Right Wing
I do my best not to constantly badger some of the more veteran players with questions that have stuck in my mind for decades about prior teams and players, but every now and then, I can’t help but ask one of them to go down memory lane for me.
For instance, the other day, I asked Jamie Benn if he remembered ever playing right wing before this season, when Gulutzan has asked him to play on his off-hand side. I’m sure Benn has had this conversation already this year, but he was patient enough to have it again with me. And he said he last played right wing during his rookie year, in 2009-10.
My immediate thought (and perhaps yours?) was that Benn played a lot of his rookie year with Mike Modano. But it turns out, that wasn’t really the case. The 1,229-game veteran actually played the bulk of that rookie year on the right wing of center Mike Ribeiro, because the team’s then-captain was playing on the left side: Brenden Morrow.
You can see that same formation on Benn’s first NHL goal, in fact, when Morrow feeds a puck from the left boards that Ribeiro relays across to Benn:
Benn said he did play a bit on his natural left side that year when he was with Modano and Jere Lehtinen, but that combination wasn’t nearly as frequent as the 10-63-14 line was.
Elite athletes always seem to have incredible memories for these sorts of things, and Benn’s was no exception. When I looked it up, I found that Benn had indeed played dozens of games on a line with Morrow and Ribeiro that year, far more than he did with any other single line combo.
As a side note: that Toby Petersen/Mike Modano/Jamie Benn line in early November has a ton of history attached to its members. And while the Texas Stars head coach never set up a Benn goal, the current Stars captain did get a secondary assist on Toby Petersen’s eighth goal of the year, on March 10th in Buffalo.
First Goal Trivia
Let’s stay on theme here and wrap up with four trivia questions for you, going from easiest to hardest.
I’ll link box scores or videos with the answers, making it easy for you to cheat and subsequently brag that you already knew the answers, if that’s your jam.
Name one of the two players to assist on Wyatt Johnston’s first NHL goal
Bonus point: What very familiar goaltender did Johnston score his goal on?
What body part of Jason Robertson’s body did he score his first NHL goal with?
Bonus point: Name both of the current Stars players to assist on Robertson’s first NHL goal.
Name one of the two players to assist on Brenden Morrow’s first NHL goal
Hint: Both players won a Cup with Dallas in ‘99, but both went on to win another Cup on different teams within the next five years.
Name the Hall of Famer who got the only assist on Mike Modano’s first NHL goal
Hint #1: This player started his career in Los Angeles
Hint #2: This player got a specific play named after him—a play Esa Lindell is also quite good at executing
Tally up those scores and start bragging, you bunch of cheaters loyal readers!
Final Score:
0 points: Did you think this was an astronomy website?
1-2 points: Congratulations on watching the pregame montage that one time
3-4 points: You dodged a hit from Steve Ott, nice work
5 points: Tyler Seguin will buy you a donut
All 6 points: Hop on top of that net.
Addendum: Because I don’t see this particular highlight package get nearly enough love, go ahead and juice your Monday morning by reminding yourself why the greatest player in franchise history has a statue outside.