Monday Rundown: League Leaders, Sleuth Work, and Vanishing Shots
It's a fun (short) week
It’s Christmas week, which means it’s going to be sunny and 75 for the next few days in Dallas. If nothing else, it’s a chance to work off a bit of that holiday jiggle that always seems to show up around this time. (I was told it was low-fat eggnog, but apparently when you have six tankards’ worth, the rules change.)
The schedule is crazy this year, which means the Stars will be playing on at least one or two Mondays every single month for the rest of the season. Nonetheless, we’re at the point of the year where I’m realizing that postgame stories are creeping closer to 3,000 words in spite of my best efforts, and I simply can’t pack everything into Roundups and Updates that I want to share. So for now, we’ll use Monday Rundowns as a bit of a notebook-emptier.
Two quick Christmas Takes before we get started:
White chocolate peppermint bark pretzels are one of the best Christmas snacks. The salty and sweet combo along with the silkiness of real white chocolate (not the fake stuff!)
Also, the best Christmas carol is probably the Huron Carol, whereas the best Christmas song to sing at a party is this one, specifically the version by the inimitable Angela Lansbury:
Yes, you have to do the voices and adjust your volume depending on who’s singing (or shouting) what line. This is why it’s the perfect Christmas party singalong.
(At least, I assume it’s great for parties. When I get invited to one, I’ll let you know.)
Okay, let’s do that hockey.
Team Leaderboard
We’re 37 games into the season. If you’re just now checking in to hockey after the Cowboys finally made it clear that, hey, maybe they shouldn’t have jettisoned the backbone of their defense, then this is a good place to catch up on What’s Going On.
Goals
Jason Robertson leads the Stars with 23 goals. He is also tied for 3rd in the NHL alongside some guy named Connor McDavid.
By the way, three of Nathan MacKinnon’s goals are empty-net tallies, which means they are fake. Robertson hasn’t messed with such nonsense this year, so really, he’s only four behind the unconscious and Very Normal Nate MacKinnon. And how do I know MacKinnon is normal? Why, because he said so himself!
If there’s anything more normal than declaring, on the record, that you are a regular guy who is not crazy, I’d like to see what it is!
Jason Robertson is also leading the Stars in even-strength goal-scoring this year. He is a veritable goal-scoring superstar who might even be deemed good enough to make Team USA, should Bill Guerin decide goals are better than Known Leader J.T. Miller’s defensive commitment.
Assists
Mikko Rantanen is leading the Stars in assists. He’s also tied for 3rd in the league, this time with some guy named Leon Draisaitl.
He also has four more assists than the Very Selfish Nathan MacKinnon this year, and many of them have been of the career-highlight variety. If you haven’t decided whether to watch this team regularly or not, Rantanen is the argument in favor of doing so. He is an elite talent who does things I don’t think I’ve seen another Stars player do before, ever.
Rantanen is spearheading Neil Graham’s power play that ranks 2nd in the league, more or less running it from near the goal line and racking up assists like crazy.
He’s also doing, ah, “something else.”
Penalties
Mikko Rantanen is tied for 2nd in the entire NHL in penalty minutes this year, after briefly leading the league outright in naughty naughty time, following two ejections in three games and an automatic one-game suspension.
Rantanen hasn’t made any friends around the league between those major penalties and a fine for embellishment, but you can’t say he’s a perimeter player. He is a moose in multiple senses, with all the danger and unpredictability that nickname implies.
Second on the team in penalties is Alex Petrovic, though two misconducts and a fighting major are kind of juicing those numbers. In fact, the actual second-place penalty-taker on the team is Lian Bichsel, who has 11 minor penalties despite missing nearly a third of the team’s games so far. Being big comes with a price.
Goaltending
Jake Oettinger is leading the league in wins, though I value goaltending wins in hockey about as much as I do pitcher wins in baseball, which is to say they’re admirable but not terribly revealing.
Among the 50 61 goalies to play at least 10 games this year, Casey DeSmith ranks 5th in save percentage, while Jake Oettinger ranks 17th. Both good numbers! And when you drill into the numbers a bit more, DeSmith’s workload has been a bit tougher, which makes his performance that much more remarkable.
Really, the Stars just need to keep Oettinger as fresh as possible for the playoffs. And DeSmith being one of the best goalies in the league is making that easier and easier to do.
Catching Up on Forward Lines
Okay, if you haven’t been following things terribly closely, here’s where the forward lines are at right now.
Wyatt Johnston and Mikko Rantanen are the top forward duo. Matt Duchene has recently played on their left wing, though Gulutzan moved him back to center in the third period last night, saying he thought it helped Duchene to get his feet moving a bit more. Sam Steel took Duchene’s place up top, scoring a huge goal after doing so.
Johnston and Rantanen have been the Stars’ best forward duo, but Gulutzan is trying to keep Robertson on a separate line, presumably to spread out the scoring. It’s working, obviously, but one suspects Jim Nill will bring in at least one more top-six winger before the trade deadline in March.
Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson are the second forward duo, and they’re also looking great this year. They also have sturdier defensive numbers than the top duo, which makes them easier to run out against any opposing line at any time. Finding a third member of that line has been a season-long pursuit.
Hintz began the season playing between Rantanen and Tyler Seguin, only to go down with an unspecified injury in the first month of the season. After his return, Hintz has played with Robertson full-time, along with first Tyler Seguin on the right side, then Jamie Benn taking over after Seguin’s ACL injury. In the last two games, Mavrik Bourque has been on Hintz’s right wing, and he’s looked good.
The third line was for a fair bit the QueBäck line, with Oskar Bäck on the left of Justin Hryckowian, and Mavrik Bourque on the right. Matt Duchene’s absence forced Hryckowian back to center, where he took major strides with two other younger players. With Duchene back, the QueBäck line has been dispersed, but Gulutzan says it’s something he may go back to at times, if needed.
Their underlying numbers show that line to be a defensively stout, low-event group that doesn’t score a ton, but that still outscored their opponents 8 to 6. It may not be a third line you want to throw into the fire of the playoffs, but man, those kids looked like they had something cooking together. In fact, that line has the most 5v5 ice time together of any Stars trio this year,
The fourth line has been Radek Faksa and Whoever Else Is Around, which means anyone from Colin Blackwell or Nate Bastian to Adam Erne or Oskar Bäck. For my money, Sam Steel would be the ideal left-wing player on that line, but the Stars’ paucity of left-wing depth makes that a luxury they probably can’t afford right now, so Steel is playing up the lineup.
Also, Radek Faksa still leads the team in primary assists at 5-on-5. Well, co-leads with Rantanen, but given how absurd this is, I’m not going to qualify it.)
Okay, that’s enough numbers for now, you nerds. Let’s move on to some story nuggets I don’t really have another place for.
Mr. Faksa’s Headwear
Before the game last night, I saw a Tweet from the Stars’ account that jumped out at me:
Look a bit more closely at Radek Faksa’s father, and you’ll notice he’s wearing a hat with the old Stars logo on it—and it doesn’t appear to be a recent throwback hat.
I didn’t get a chance to confirm this in the postgame madhouse that was the Stars’ packed dressing room—Gulutzan had all the fathers brought inside, which made it a delightful conglomeration of paternity—but I am 99.9% certain that the elder Mr. Faksa was sporting his son’s draft day hat:
That’s pretty cool stuff. Also, that was probably the last great draft day cap I can recall. Certainly it was better than the LOGO/logo hats the NHL used in 2013.
On second thought, maybe 2018’s were decent, if fairly unremarkable:
Sleuth Work
Last night, Glen Gulutzan gave the media permission to do “sleuth work” when it came to figuring out which of the Stars’ dads was leading tequila shots.
In the postgame craziness, there was no way any of us were going to be able to conduct anything like a comprehensive investigation, so no juicy revelations are forthcoming just yet. But one thing that strict observation did reinforce, for me, last night: Apples frequently do not fall terribly far from the tree. Look for the gregarious ringleaders and go back a generation. That’s as good a place to start as any, I think.
(Gulutzan also said of the spirited father that he wasn’t going to “sell him under the bus,” which is the sort of delightfully mixed metaphor that my mom occasionally employs.)
Speaking of Shots
After the second period last night, shots on goal were 20 to 8 in Toronto’s favor. Until the third period, that is, when that number was retroactively changed to 22 to 8.
This season, the league has been taking an aggressively precise approach to shots on goal. As a piece by Jesse Granger and James Mirtle in The Athletic today outlines, the NHL is using tracking technology to project the trajectory of a shot. Even if a goalie grabs the shot, it is only counted as a shot on goal if the puck would have hit the net otherwise.
In some cases, that review process leads to shots on goal being added, as happened last night, when I believe two Toronto shots were shown upon review to have been heading on goal before Jake Oettinger got just enough of a piece of them to send the puck aside.
But far more frequently, shots are being taken away after it’s shown that the puck “would have” gone wide, had the goalie let the puck go.
I’ve talked to the Stars’ goalies about this phenomenon this year, and as you’d imagine, they’re not thrilled with it, as their stats (like those of all goalies across the league) are taking a hit as a result of this. It’s not like goalies are now going to stop trying to save shots going an inch wide, after all. There are material benefits to snaring a puck or even knocking it aside to where the defense has a better chance of retrieving it. But now, fewer of those former saves will result in credit for the goaltender.
One analogy: Mavrik Bourque scored a goal last night that was called back after an offside review (and, by the way, I think he knew it immediately, as Bourque didn’t celebrate after the goal, but immediately turned back like someone waiting for the other shoe to drop). Sure Bourque might have made the play, but once that goal gets wiped off the stats sheet, it becomes zero consolation whatsoever. If anything, it can be draining, as it feels like all that effort was meaningless. Players care about these stats.
I’m not sure what the long-term effects of the stricter definition of shots on goal will be. But I do think that it remains the case that measuring a team strictly by shots on goal will remain a flawed lens through which to view them, as Gulutzan more or less said last week when we asked about it.
Okay, thanks for reading. We’ll have coverage tomorrow for the Stars’ game in Detroit, then we’ll take a day or two off for Christmas. I hope you do the same. Thank you for reading, and thank you especially for supporting my work. I am very grateful for you all. (Especially if you give me peppermint bark.)
Many thanks for the work you produce. My favorite read of the day.
You gave us all a gift with that bit about draft day hats. Enjoy your Christmas break, RT (and my fellow Stars Thoughts readers)!