Peter DeBoer and Poise Versus Strategy

But if I was to say I’ll forget it
Would it mean a thing?
‘Cause every time I think (I think) about it
Memories take me back to all of the wildest times

***

Right now, nobody wants to talk about how the Stars finished atop the Western Conference after 82 games. If anything, people might be tempted to bemoan that fact, given how the Stars are facing the defending and reinforced champs as a result of said placement. No one expected Dallas to sweep Vegas, but a series just feels different when your first loss comes in Game 1.

Naturally, that means fans have spent the last day or so contemplating what should have been done differently, and what that ought to mean for Game 2.

This is the nature of trauma, by the way. We want something to change in Game 2 because we’re unable to go back and change what happened in Game 1. We want to re-enact the story but have it end differently. Movies like Run Lola Run are really appealing for the same reason. We want to know that we have the power to change our story just by tweaking that one decision, by opening just one different door.

As one of my old professors always said (and he was probably quoting from Dan Siegel), “wounds that happened in relationship can only be healed in relationship.” In other words, the only way to feel better about losing Game 1 is for the Stars to win their next one.

So, is this just another way of saying, “I will feel better if my team wins”? Wow, that’s some profound stuff. Please click the “donate” button to keep these great nuggets comin’ [note to self: put a “donate” button somewhere for all these suckers to click, heh heh].

The way this instinct to re-write history works itself out is usually some combination of fantasizing about roster changes or tactical adjustments. The coaching staff will be considering these things as well, so hey, good thinking! Some of these recurring themes look something like this:

Use home ice advantage to start a scoring line against Vegas’s fourth line!

Move Joe Pavelski down the lineup for Johnston/Stankoven/Bourque/Aleš Hemský (the latter choice was submitted by one anonymous voter)!

Put Craig Smith in the lineup in exchange for Dadonov/Faksa/Lundkvist/the Linesmen!

Send Jani Hakanpää to Mark Stone’s doctor!

You get the idea. Any one of these decisions is tailor-made to retroactively prevent a Stars mistake from Monday night/Tuesday morning. It would be nice if we could change the past, so long as we use that power responsibly and with an abundance of prudence and wisdom. If only they would make a film about someone having that ability, then we could know how good of a thing that would be!

But the balance of a coach in these moments is exceedingly tricky, I think. Take Jim Montgomery in Boston right now. Last year, they abandoned their goalie rotation in order to roll with their ostensible best goaltender, and they got bounced in the first round. This year, Montgomery has rotated Swayman and Ullmark, and Boston just lost Game 2 to even the series.

Last year, in fact, you remember Dean Evason facing the goalie rotation quandary as well, making the ill-fated choice to rotate out Filip Gustavsson who had peformed marvelously in a double overtime victory in Game 1 in favor of the veteran Marc-Andre Fleury, who did not acquit himself well, giving up 7 goals to even the series at 1 game apiece.

DeBoer is not facing a goalie controversy, thank goodness. But he is stuck between the tension of projecting confidence and the appeal of making adjustments before things get out of hand.

That’s why coaches always talk about that first goal of a game. It doesn’t have to decide the team’s fate, but it does set the tone. And as the Stars learned on Monday, “fight back while losing” is a pretty rotten tone to hear for 59 minutes.

So, will DeBoer and his staff make big changes? I don’t think you can afford to, at least not yet. While you don’t want to brush off the things that weren’t working (Dallas had trouble generating high-quality scoring chances and getting to rebounds), there was a lot that seemed perfectly functional. How much of that was a result of Vegas playing more cautiously with a lead is tough to say, but on balance, I think Dallas will tend towards making small tweaks rather than reinventing the wheel, presuming there aren’t any new injuries.

Yes, Craig Smith probably finds his way back into the lineup. Yes, the coaches would surely love to swap out Nils Lundkvist the second Hakanpää gets healthy. In fact, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Derrick Pouliot draw in, if only to give the coaches a more consistent role for the third defense pairing.

But that’s all they should be talking about at this point. Making sweeping changes after a one-goal loss projects all the wrong sorts of things to your players, let alone the outside world. As every young player knows, you are at your best when you are feeling your best. Not every player thinks they’re as good as Wyatt Johnston, of course, but the collective confidence of a team is something that even role players can feel and draw upon.

Craig Ludwig talks about this a lot, if you’ve ever heard him on Spits and Suds. When a whole team feels confident, lower lineup players feel really proud of whatever role they’re asked to play. So even if you might appear to gain some small advantage by radically reorganizing your lineup, coaches like DeBoer generally prefer to let the game come to them and keep their hand steady on the wheel, rather than trying to frantically rearrange names on a wall like a mailroom clerk looking for Pepe Silvia. If the coach seems to be scrambling, the players are going to lose confidence, every time.

Of course, none of this matters when you lose. I believe that the very best coaches know how to do two things: Make incisive changes to improve winning chances, and sell the team on your approach such that those changes (or lack thereof) don’t affect chemistry or confidence.

That’s the balance we’re talking about, here. You can bet that Monday loss is stuck fast in the craws of the coaches, and you can double down on the bet that DeBoer has been reviewing every possible change in his mind since the final horn sounded. But every decision to hold, raise, or fold affects existing decisions, and coaches have to take all of these things into account.

I don’t think the Stars are going to make huge changes after one loss not from intransigence, but out of prudence. The cost of major disruption is very real and knowable, while the benefits at this point are nebulous at best. The bottom line here is that, say it with me, your best players have to be your best players.

Dallas, by all accounts, should win any game in which that’s the case. But if they lose again, don’t be surprised if bigger changes get made in a hurry. Not because the coaches arbitrarily decide to make them, but because the Stars players are effectively making those decisions with their play. Everyone can have an off game, and more than one Dallas player did on Monday. But Dallas has excelled at staving off losing streaks under DeBoer, and one bounce-back win can heal a whole host of wounds. Tonight, we’ll find out if the doctor is back in.