Monday Rundown: Pete DeBoer Returns, Toby Petersen's First Year, Wyatt vs. Nate, and the No Reverse Card

As well as some Lauri Korpikoski trivia, sort of

Toby Petersen promotes an event for JDRF Dallas

Welcome to the first Monday Rundown of April! It’s the month of fools, showers, and microwaved Peeps, but do you know where the word “April” comes from? No, you do not.

Oh sure, you probably think you do, because you once heard a theory espoused in the student union building by a confident sophomore who was passingly familiar with the Latin word “aperire,” meaning “to open.” But any theory about it is only that, as we moderns did not quite get a clean etymological baton handoff from the fifth century AD folks who came up with the name to begin with. That means the goddess Aphrodite is also a candidate for this month’s derivation, among others.

More importantly, April is the month when playoff hockey arrives. And that’s a phrase in need of no explanation whatsoever.

Pete DeBoer, Come on O’er

Another week, another coaching shocker. Pete DeBoer is no longer being paid by the Dallas Stars, as DeBoer was hired by the Islanders on Easter Sunday in a move that probably got his name taken off yet another goalie’s Christmas card list—though in fairness, Patrick Roy strikes me as not really the card-sending type to begin with. Call it a hunch.

If you’re DeBoer, it’s kind of a win-win proposition. He got a four-year deal beyond this one and (surely) good money from the Isles to come aboard now, and the playoffs are still a possibility, albeit less so than they were before Roy’s group dropped four in a row in regulation.

If the Isles make the playoffs, DeBoer is the coach who turned things around just in time, however far they make it. And if they don’t, DeBoer has all the excuses in the world, as well as a full offseason to really get things on track.

It’s not a bad roster to start with, either. Matt Schaefer is Matt Schaefer, and they also have Vezina candidate Ilya Sorokin in goal, as well as Mat Barzal up front. There are good pieces to be getting on with, is what we’re saying.

I can’t help but wonder if the firing of Bruce Cassidy might have influenced DeBoer’s taking this job now, rather than waiting for the offseason when more teams might be looking for a new bench boss. Rather than waiting to compete with Cassidy for jobs in places like Los Angeles or Toronto, DeBoer went with a decent situation right now, with a possible playoff run right around the corner.

Interestingly enough, the Islanders are competing for said playoff spot with (among others) a Detroit team coached by DeBoer’s good friend Todd McClellan, as well as another team that made a mid-year change in Columbus, coached by Rick Bowness.

Right now, all three of those clubs are on the outside looking in, with Philadelphia and Ottawa clinging to spots, while the Isles have played one more game than everyone they’re competing with.

One thing DeBoer has going for him is that the Isles don’t have another game until Thursday, which gives DeBoer a few days of practice with this team before they hit the ice. How many changes he can actually make in that time is an interesting question, but one suspects he’ll start with breakouts (a DeBoer hallmark) and defensive structure (a known weakness for New York this year).

No word on whether Steve Spott helped DeBoer buy a new suit this time around, but I’m guessing he didn’t have time. Because for the first time in 11 years, Spott and DeBoer will find themselves on different NHL benches.

How Texas returned to the Calder Cup Playoffs

Nicholas Kingman has a good piece at 100 Degree Hockey about how the AHL’s Texas Stars got their season back on track under first-year head coach Toby Petersen. Go read that if you haven’t yet.

It’s always worth remembering just how much head coaches have to deal with in the course of a professional hockey season. For goodness’ sake, Petersen was hearing “Fire Toby!” chants early in the season when a Texas team woefully thin on AHL bodies was struggling to find offense. He had to weather those for what I’m sure felt like a very long first couple months of the season, but weather them he has, as Texas has clinched their playoff spot.

How have they done it? Well, Cameron Hughes has been in incredible form, Matthew Seminoff has taken a step forward, and goaltender Rémi Poirier was named the AHL’s goalie of the month for March. Texas also added key defenseman Jeremie Poirier in trade, as well as college ATOs Dylan Hryckowian, Aram Minnetian, and Jack Anderson. They also (after a brief hiatus in Boston) got Vladislav Kolyachonok back again, while Trey Taylor and Luke Krys (back from his own major injury) have been a dynamite top defense pairing.

Luke Krys on His Recovery from a Gruesome Injury and the Road Back to Excellence for the Texas Stars

Arttu Hyry is still in the NHL (along with leading scorer Cameron Hughes at the moment), but there’s no doubt that Petersen has a much fuller squad to work with than he did at the start of the year. Still, the way Texas has weathered all the adversity early in the year is a testament to Petersen as a coach. It can’t be easy to shrug off your own internal doubts, let alone those of thousands of people chanting them after a 10-1 loss. But Petersen has the confidence bars full up right now, and he deserves all the credit in the world for that. Wherever Texas’s playoff run ends up going this spring, Toby Petersen’s team has thoroughly earned their shot at making one.

(By the way, you can watch Aram Minnetian in the below highlights from Saturday. He’s #15 in black, and he made a nice play along the wall to help Texas create the game-winning goal. But don’t miss the incredible Michael Karow diving backcheck to stop a breakaway, either.)

Wyatt Johnston and Nathan MacKinnon

I wanted to take a moment to revisit a play from the first minute of the game against Colorado on Saturday.

It’s a pretty little give-and-go between Johnston and Robertson, where Robertson expertly judges a soft flip-in, putting it past Brent Burns at the blue line, into an area where Johnston will have a 1-on-1 battle with Nathan MacKinnon for the puck.

And not only does Johnston win it, but he wins it cleanly, executing a great stick lift right at the moment MacKinnon is going to bat the puck out of the air and throw a hip, which ends up throwing MacKinnon off-balance enough to give Johnston both the puck and a red carpet to the net for one of the very best scoring chances Dallas would get all night.

I believe Johnston tried to go high-glove here, and the ESPN broadcast even said he may have caught the crossbar, though I’m not sure about that. Either way, he couldn’t beat Wedgewood, and nobody else would, either.

But that wasn’t the only nice play the 22-year-old Johnston would make that day, or even on that very shift, as you might recall. Here’s what he did at the other end with Artturi Lehkonen looking to bury a rebound past Casey DeSmith:

Once again, Johnston’s quick hands are able to disrupt an opponent’s stick at a crucial time, and his team benefits immensely as a result, with Lehkonen overskating the puck.

Look, Nate MacKinnon will surely be a Hart Trophy finalist this year, as well he should be. But there was a reason DeBoer’s Stars hard-matched Wyatt Johnston on MacKinnon in last year’s series: Johnston is simply a better defensive center than MacKinnon.

That was borne out in last year’s first round, when Johnston played 40:31 of 5v5 time against MacKinnon, only to have the teams saw off at one goal apiece in that ice time. It was an enormous thing to ask of such a young player, but the trust that Johnston keeps earning from his coaches is a testament to just how special the Stars’ youngest forward is. Nathan MacKinnon knows that as well as anyone, by now.

In summary: judgment

Last week’s pretrial victories for the Mavericks aren’t anywhere near the final word on all this mess, but man, it was a downer to read about the judge’s ruling.

I’ve been pretty clear about how depressing I find the whole Adelson family takeover attempt in the Mavericks/Stars/AAC situation. Mark Cuban sold the team to a family with no interest in Texas other than what they could get out of it, and they poured millions upon millions into lobbying attempts to get casino gambling legalized, only to find the Texas legislature even more difficult to change than Luka Dončić.

To think that this family can waltz into town, pour over hundreds of millions of dollars into lobbying for political candidates to aid their efforts at changing laws in order to get a casino empire started in our back yards, and then pivot from a failure to accomplish that goal to exploiting a technicality in the AAC agreement in order to attempt a hostile takeover from the Stars? Well, it’s not a pleasant thing, no matter how you slice it. The good news for Dallas is that a jury trial is still on the books in the coming months, when one hopes the most just outcome for the city will ultimately prevail.

Still, it’s depressing for now how the city has continued to side with an Adelson family so manifestly out for their own ends, and not the city’s. Does anyone really believe that driving the Stars out to the suburbs is going to benefit the city in the long run, when the Mavericks will be the only team left in town, and the city will be that much more desperate to keep them? I have a hard time seeing it, to put it mildly.

For a city in which so many other parts of its downtown are struggling to reflect its grand ambitions, you’d think the leadership would shrink from driving out yet another big resident. But hey, that is Dallas.

Strike that; reverse it

Jason Robertson’s reversal hit on Elias Salomonsson the other night against Winnipeg was discussed after the game, with Jets’ head coach Scott Arniel going so far as to call reversal hits in general “dirty,” licit though they may be. But given that Salomonsson had to enter concussion protocol as a result of the hit, you can understand his frustration, particularly after a loss.

One thing Arniel mentioned was that as a younger player, Salomonsson probably wasn’t expecting such a hit—which was likely true. Still, such hits have been in the league for a long time, as Stars fans from the Brenden Morrow years know well:

Bonus question: Many of y’all will remember that Lauri Korpikoski—the above recipient of said reverse hit—would later play a season for the Stars. I’d guess that a good chunk of that same segment of people will likewise recall that Korpikoski was traded to Columbus that year in exchange for defenseman Dillon Heatherington. But my question for today is this: in what playoff series would Heatherington later play his one and only Stanley Cup Playoff game?

Personally, I don’t have an issue with the reverse hits, so long as elbows aren’t thrown into faces. Robertson’s hit, from every angle I’ve seen, was primarily to the chest of Salomonsson, and clearly the officials agreed, since no penalty was assessed. Besides, reverse hits have been in the game for a long time, as Cam Neely and Wendel Clark could tell you:

And if you missed it, I’ll insert the clip that jumped out at me from that montage, featuring a certain Stars defenseman running into Gabriel Bourque:

Julius Honka played 87 games for Dallas, but he never did get into a playoff game during his relatively short time in the NHL. Instead, he was passed over for the opportunity to fill in for an injured Jamie Oleksiak, and the 6D role was given to folks such as Taylor Fedun, Joel Hanley, and even (yes) Dillon Heatherington.