Monday Rundown: Jake Oettinger on Goalie Fights, Thomas Harley on Team Canada, and Petrovic's Pronunciation
We also talked to Mark Scheifele and Jonathan Toews, too
It’s been a packed day so far, but thankfully we’ve got a 7:30pm start tonight, which gives me an extra half-hour to do my afternoon game prep. Let’s get into the Monday Rundown.
Tonight’s Stars/Jets tilt begins at 7:30pm, rather than the usual 7:00pm home start time for local broadcasts. Thus far, I have not found anyone who knows why tonight’s game is starting a half-hour later.
One theory I heard posited for the later start time is that tonight’s game might have originally been slated to be a national broadcast of some kind in the US or Canada, only to have been taken off that slate of games at some point after the initial scheduling was done. Another theory says it has to do with tonight’s game being shown on both Victory+ as well as on FOX4 in Dallas.
Maybe some of you have a better theory, so feel free to share. In any case, you’ll have a bit of extra time to crush a Torchy’s taco before a later puck drop tonight. (The Democrat is perfection itself, for the record. Don’t overthink it.)
And boy, if you think tonight’s game has a late start time, wait until we get to Wednesday’s 8:30pm local start time that will probably be more like an 8:50pm start time. Save some chips and guacamole for a late-night snack, folks.
Lineup Notes
Jake Oettinger will start in goal tonight, while the rest of the lineup will remain the same as it was in Utah last weekend.
Glen Gulutzan says Lian Bichsel is still “to be determined” regarding whether he will return for the Stars’ final game of the Olympic Break or not. Bichsel worked out on the ice for a while with David Pelletier before the rest of the team arrived, and the focus was clearly on Bichsel’s testing out his healing foot, with him alternately trying different skating exercises on one leg at a time. As Gulutzan has said, it’s all about ensuring Bichsel is pain-free before he returns.
The injured Ilya Lyubushkin could play if he really had to, Gultuzan said, but they clearly aren’t looking to rush him back from his lower-body injury suffered after a blocked shot a week ago, so Lyubushkin will also be a scratch tonight.
Here are the lines we saw at morning skate today:
Robertson-Hintz-Bourque
Hryckowian-Johnston-Rantanen
Steel-Duchene-Benn
Bäck-Faksa-Erne
(Bastian and Blackwell skated as extras)
Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Capobianco-Petrovic
(Bichsel-Lyubushkin skated as a fourth pair)
Stadium Series Reflections
A couple of fun notes about the incredible Stadium Series game between Tampa Bay and Boston last night:
Jake Oettinger on the goalie fight last night between Andrei Vasilevskiy and Jeremy Swayman:
“I thought it was awesome. I don’t know if I would have picked Vassy as the guy I would have tried to go against. He’s a pretty big boy. But Sway’s a fiery, passionate guy. Surprised it took this long for him to get into a scrap, so I’m sure it won’t be his last. Pretty fun to watch.”
Oettinger also says he didn’t know Vasilevskiy had a left hook, either: “Yeah, no chance. I can’t imagine, like, seeing him fighting, and then looking up and he’s got his left up. I’d feel like, ‘What’d I get myself into?’”
"I’ve never been in a fight in general, let alone a goalie fight, so I might have to start pissing guys off.”
The Winnipeg Jets will play their own outdoor game in October this year, but head coach Scott Arniel won’t be copying Jon Cooper’s outfit from last night:
“I’m not gonna dress like Cooper,” Arniel said. “No chance. I’m gonna be in a jacket or a heavy fur coat or something.”
Challenging Challenges
Glen Gulutzan didn’t want to get into the weeds of it, but his response this morning when asked about the Stars’ unsuccessful challenge for goaltender interference on Saturday in Utah was pretty clear:
“We just saw the stick across the face,” Gulutzan said. “First of all, the biggest criteria is, did the player go into the blue paint all on his own? And he did. So now you’re looking, did he get him [the goalie]? Well, he clipped his toe, he had the stick in the face. And then it’s up to the league to decide if it’s egregious enough, and my explanation that the refs gave me was it wasn’t bad enough for them to overturn it. So, that’s what I got.”
In times like these, I always go back to Sean McIndoe’s seminal piece on goaltender interference, which includes this section:
Put simply, the crease belongs to the goaltender, and with very limited exceptions, the attacking team goes in there at their own risk. Almost anything an attacking player can do to bother the goalie is interference if it happens in the crease. Is there contact, but it’s clearly accidental? Doesn’t matter, you can’t be in the crease. Is the contact initiated by the goalie as he’s trying to work around or through a player? Doesn’t matter, that guy can’t be in his crease. Is there no contact at all? It still may not matter, because even screening a goalie isn’t allowed if you’re in his crease. You’re getting the picture. Don’t want a goal called back for interference? Stay out of the crease.
Personally, I still tend to think the upholding of the no-interference call after review came down to looking for a way not to change the original call on the ice, even if you probably need to acknowledge the contact happening there. Frustrating from the Stars’ point of view, but of course, it didn’t end up mattering.
Mikko Rantanen’s Backhand Complements
(No typos there, I promise.)
Mikko Rantanen’s backhand passes are one of many jaw-dropping things about his whole game. So today, I asked him about when he started to really develop that tool in his hockey tool kit. His answer? A long, long time ago.
“Yeah, I’ve been working on it [the backhand] my whole career,” Rantanen said today. “Because the game is fast, and a lot of plays happen on your backhand, especially playing on the right side as a lefty. A lot of touches come on your backhand, so I’ve tried to work on it, and still try to work on it, and keep the level high and try to make plays on my backhand also.”
His point about the backhand being especially useful as a left-shot playing on the right side is one that I ought to have realized. It also comes in handy when he’s trying to get the puck to his forehand, and he needs to make a tight little saucer pass to himself, as he did against the Kings a little while back:
Mikko Rantanen is a very special hockey player.
Thomas Harley’s First Full Team Canada Camp
While the Four Nations tournament was a special experience for Thomas Harley last February, the Olympics are going to be something else entirely. Part of that has to do with the grander scale of the Olympics in general, but part of it also has to do with the fact that he joined Team Canada team mid-tournament as an injury replacement for Shea Theodore last year, which meant he missed out on all the earlier experiences leading up to the first game.
“I feel like I didn’t get to experience some of the off-ice things,” Harley said today. “But just being a part of that group, just getting to kind of be the quiet guy that just soaked everything up was cool for me.”
Sharing a locker room with Sidney Crosby and company was a memorable experience for Harley, but he doesn’t look back on the experience as a surreal one, necessarily.
“I mean, it was a team, like anything else,” Harley said. “There’s guys that talk in the room, and there’s guys that listen. That was normal, but I mean now, when I go and play guys that are on that team, I say ‘hey.’ Made some new friends.”
With all the talk about the facilities being put together at the last minute, you won’t be surprised to hear that the typically even-keeled Harley isn’t concerned about that part of things, either.
“We’ll see what the rink and everything looks like when we get there,” Harley said. “Will it be NHL-caliber? Probably not, but you know, life goes on.”
When you are Thomas Harley, “life goes on” also means being one of the best defensemen in Canada. That’s a pretty good life to lead, I’d say.
Wyatt Johnston, Steak Griller Extraordinaire
You may have seen this video from the team’s social media accounts last week:
Toward the end, Wyatt Johnston and Mavrik Bourque get into a little bit of a debate about just how good of a steak Johnston can grill. As you can see on the video, Bourque wasn’t terribly impressed.
So I asked both of them today exactly what the steak was, and Johnston said it was pretty straightforward: Get the barbecue hot, sear the steak, and aim for medium. Nothing fancy.
Here, Bourque interjects: Johnston cuts the steak in half to check whether it’s cooked, he says. And this seems to violate some kind of higher law about steak-griling protocol, which clearly is the basis for some of his light scoffing. Johnston maintains that this practice is worth it, just to make sure the steak is cooked right. He’s not picky, but he clearly takes pride in cooking a good steak, and if it ends up being good, why nitpick?
Not confirmed yet: Whether Wyatt Johnston can cook a steak better than Esa Lindell. I smell a game show opporunity.
It’s Pronounced “Petrovic”
I managed to clear up another thing I was confused about today: Alex Petrovic’s name is indeed pronounced “PEH-tro-vick.” Now, at least.
Petrovic confirmed today that his whole family pronounces it with the hard “C” at the end, rather than the original Serbian pronunciation of Петровић.
Back in Florida, Alex had requested the original pronunciation of “peh-TRO-vitch” for his grandfather’s sake, as he watched his grandson’s games from afar.
“My grandpa’s 96 years old living back at home, watching pretty much all the games I play,” Petrovic told the Florida Sun-Sentinal back in 2018. “It’ll be nice for him to hear it the right way.”
That article, by the way, is by Matt DeFranks, the former Stars beat writer (and now Blues writer) who wrote about Petrovic’s name and family history all the way back in 2018, when he was a Panthers beat writer. Check out that piece here, as it includes a lot more wonderful background details on Petrovic and his family. I’m only a tiny bit annoyed that Matt somehow beat me to this story by eight years, before he was even in Dallas.
A Jet on Connor’s Jets
Mark Scheifele is on pace for a career year right now. He’s racked up 27 goals and 38 assists in just 54 games, putting him on pace for 41 goals and 57 assists—nearly a 100-point season.
A big part of Scheifele’s success has been playing on a line with (primarily) Gabriel Vilardi and Kyle Connor. And much like any line chemistry, Scheifele says their success is a lot about how they anticipate each other:
“For the most part, it’s just kind of instinctual,” Scheifele said. “You kind of just know where other guys are. You know where to go. Guys get the puck in a certain position, a lot of it is very instinctual.”
Kyle Connor is a great example of how that works. Connor has blazing speed as a skater, but Scheifele says it’s more nuanced.
“Speed, for sure, is one of his greatest attributes,” Scheifele acknowledged. “But I think he just understands how to get open. I think it’s his darting speed that is kind of his biggest attribute. It’s not always busting down the wing and skating a million miles an hour. It’s almost the way that he can come out of a corner or get from point A to point B very quickly to get open or make a play himself. So I think it’s that darting speed that makes him dangerous.”
One other cool thing Scheifele shared: until Rick Bowness was hired by Columbus to return as a head coach, he would still be communicating with players like Scheifele pretty constantly, even after his retirement.
“I think you can tell early on how much he cares about the game, how much he cares about the players that he’s coaching,” Scheifele said. “Even to this day—well, not since he got the job [in Columbus]—but you know, a good game, bad game, he would always send a text,” Scheifele said of Bowness. “He was always a guy to check in. And that’s very special to me.”
Bowness has come into Columbus as a “fixer,” much like he did in Winnipeg years ago. And the Jackets’ current five-game winning streak began a little while back with a 1-0 victory over, of course, the Dallas Stars.
Jonathan Toews Returns to Dallas
Lastly, Jonathan Toews will play in Dallas tonight for the first time since November 23, 2022.
It was a fascinating moment today to walk into the Jets’ locker room and see a crowd of reporters around another player, with Toews sitting by himself at his dressing room stall, being his typically quiet, serious self.
For nearly all of last decade, Toews and Patrick Kane were up there with Evgenii Malkin and Sidney Crosby—and Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn—as competitors for the title of the superstar duo in the NHL. A whole lot has happened to Toews since then, but one of the cool things about his return this year, he said, was getting to see his old buddy again.
As you may have heard, Kane broke Mike Modano’s record for points scored by a U.S.-born NHL player last week. Toews said he both texted Kane the day of his achievement, but also had a chance to talk about it with him before it even happened, when Detroit came to Winnipeg on January 24.
“Kind of congratulated him in advance, too,” Toews said. “Him and Alex DeBrincat came over for dinner when Detroit was in town, so it was really cool to see them. I hadn’t seen them in a long time. Obviously knew it was coming, was just a matter of time. So, pretty cool to see him get that last one and take over number one all time for a U.S.-born player.”
Toews’ time away from the game gave him a chance to reflect on a lot of things, but NHL history is still a very big deal for the player who was an alternate captain the last time NHL players competed for an Olympic gold medal, in Sochi back in 2014.
So yes, Kane’s accomplishment clearly means a lot to his old teammate, given that they both debuted together in the 2007-08 season, nearly two full decades ago.
“I texted him,” Toews said, “I was like, never did I think…obviously we had high hopes coming into the league together and had a lot of success together, but pretty amazing to see him reach the heights he’s gotten to in his career. So, pretty happy for him.”
As for Dallas, Toews said it was unfortunate that Dallas and Chicago never met in the playoffs, but he has a lot of memories from their matchups during the season.
“Obviously, Dallas has had a good team for a number of years, and guys like Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin have been at the center of that for a long time,” Toews said. “I’m sure they’re bringing a lot of leadership in that locker room, too. Definitely some tough games against them over the years.”
You can pick your favorite Chicago/Dallas matchup from that time period, but there are a lot to choose from. That matchup always felt a bit “extra,” not least because of all the invading Chicago fans that would fill the seats in Dallas with a large (and loud) amount of red jerseys.
“When you have a history with some of those division rivals, there’s a lot of respect,” Toews said. “But you’re ready for the games when they come around.”
If you watched any of those Dallas/Chicago games in that 2013-2016 window in particular, you’ll remember just how fun (and terrifying) they could be. Toews was an elite player whose name was occasionally mentioned as one of the best players in the entire league, winning a Conn Smythe Trophy in Chicago’s first Stanley Cup of the era in 2010, as well as a Selke Trophy a few years later.
Kane, of course, won the Calder Trophy during their rookie year, later adding a Hart Trophy, an Art Ross, and a Conn Smythe of his own in 2013.
This Stars/Hawks matchup from January 2015 still sticks out in my memory, so maybe it will in yours, too. For a while there, the Benn/Seguin vs. Toews/Kane matchup was as good as it got in the Central Division. The time really does fly.
"Aim for medium" is disqualifying. Sorry Wyatt.
There's a reason god invented meat thermometers.
I'm with Bouque....if you cut your steak to determine the doneness you've messed up.