Postgame Beats: Stars Up 1-0 After Mikko Rantanen's Latest Legendary Playoff Game

Or period, even

Heads up: I’m going to be splitting the big postgame story into two shorter posts. There will be a recap with beat-by-beat commentary (the Postgame Beats) that will go up with a few minutes of the final horn, and the later, more reflective AfterThoughts post that will come a few hours after the game ends.

Hopefully this won't be too much spam for y'all's inboxes, but the playoffs AfterThoughts pieces were approaching the actual equivalent of a 15-page research paper with everything combined, so I think it makes sense to split them up. Please let me know if you hate getting two shorter stories instead of one big one, however, and our feedback committee will review this process.)

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The Stars began the game with this lineup, which included the return of Jason Robertson, as we kind of thought it might even before practice yesterday:

Granlund-Hintz-Rantanen
Benn-Duchene-Seguin
Marchment-Johnston-Robertson
Bäck-Steel-Dadonov

Lindell-Ceci
Harley-Lyubushkin
Bichsel-Petrovic

Oettinger in goal

Miro Heiskanen participated in the morning skate today, but he remains out, and I don’t know that one more day would necessarily make a huge difference in his return.

Here’s what the Jets rolled, to start:

Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Ehlers-Namestnikov-Perfetti
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Tanev-Barron-Iafallo

Samberg-Pionk
Fleury-DeMelo
Miller-Schenn

Hellebuyck

Mark Scheifele returned to the lineup for Winnipeg, but Josh Morrissey and Logan Stanley remained out.

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The puck was dropped at 8:52 CDT in both Winnipeg and Dallas, which share a time zone that has the misfortune of not being on either coastline.

John Buccigross was calling the game as the play-by-play announcer, with Cassie Campbell-Pascal as the color commentator, which is a thing that ESPN is legally allowed to do. I will always be grateful to Buccigross for pointing me toward Jack Falla’s excellent book, Home Ice. I read it during the 2013 lockout, and it was a very welcome bit of hockey in the midst of a tough time. This is a nice thing I have just said.

DeBoer started the 30-somethings line of Benn, Duchene, and Seguin, but it was the Finnish line that created a chance early, with some great possession down low along with a really slick bit of work from Harley at the blue line to begin the sequence. But Hellebuyck wasn’t forced to make an actual save during the solid shift.

Duchene would get a chance after a blocked shot from the wall rebounded right to him, but this chance wouldn’t find the net.

And an even more dangerous chance came later after a great shift by Mikko Rantanen set up a beautiful saucer pass from Mikael Granlund over the back corner of the net (you can just see the puck passing over the back apron in the below screen cap), which Rantanen one-timed high inside the near post, but Hellebuyck got his shoulder over just in time.

The fourth line generated a great chance later on when Steel slid a pass toward the crease that just got deflected wide, and shots on goal piled up to 6-0 early. The Stars were defending their blue line beautifully, and the Jets hadn’t even sniffed a chance.

Jamie Benn nearly scored his most recent deflection goal, bouncing this Ceci shot in on Hellebuyck, who simply sat deep in the crease and managed to be in the right spot.

The Jets finally got their first shot seven minutes in, after Dallas had already piled up nine. One began to thing that there might be something to DeBoer’s talk of how having a Game 1 on the road might be the best sort of way to break the streak of eight straight losses to open a playoff series.

The Jets would finally establish some offensive-zone possession after that, and Oettinger had to come up huge on a Kyle Connor one-timer that ricocheted up off Lyubushkin’s skate and into his armpit. But the Stars goalie nevertheless found and held the puck.

Leah Hextall educated us all about Jim Nill’s nickname during his couple of seasons in Winnipeg as a player: Goose. I am beginning to wonder if Leah Hextall has a wiretap on Jim Nill’s phone.

Mikko Rantanen was feeling it in this game, and his passing in the first period showed that, with his Colorado Penchant for making scary-but-effective passes creating some good looks for Dallas. He even got double-shifted on the fourth line once or twice early, which was a sign that the coaches saw how much he was humming, too.

But the first penalty of the game was always going to be huge, given the power plays of these two teams, and who else would take the first penalty but Mason Marchment, who reached his stick in on Neal Pionk, who promptly clamped down on Marchment’s stick and made sure the referee saw it.

With that said, Sam Steel could’ve gotten tagged for high sticking on Mark Scheifele off a face-off later in the power play, so all told, the Stars didn’t have anything to complain about.

The Jets clearly saw the space down low that Dallas’s penalty kill is okay with allowing, and Gabe Vilardi got a couple of good looks as a result, including this one, which he wasn’t quite able to tuck inside Oettinger’s pad at the near post despite some ridiculous stickhandling that Oettinger somehow kept up with.

Anyway, Dallas made it through the first penalty, but only just. One wonders if we’ll see some adjustments from Alain Nasredinne if Winnipeg keeps looking to exploit that spot low at the near post.

Jake Oettinger had to make two big stops late in the first, with a glove save on Connor off a faceoff and a pad stop on Vilardi off the rush after a cross got through a trailing Granlund at the end of his shift.

Hellebuyck equaled his counterpart with a blocker save on Wyatt Johnston off a 2-on-1 rush with Robertson, and I have to say, I was really hoping to see Robertson capitalize on playing on his off-wing here. But I’m never going to begrudge Wyatt Johnston this shot.

Unfortunately, Dallas would have another penalty to kill after Cody Ceci took a high-sticking penalty on Nino Niederreiter behind the play with mere seconds to go after Niederreiter bumped into him and Ceci got thrown off-balance, after which stick caught Niederreiter’s visor, which is quite an accomplishment, given the NHL allows him to wear it like it’s protecting him from raindrops.

The Stars would have work to do to start the second period, as Winnipeg had well and truly recovered from their early-period malaise, with shots on goal ending 13-12 for the Jets, but with Dallas getting some good looks from in tight:

Second Period

With Ceci in the box, Harley was asked to start on the kill with Esa Lindell. It went well, although the pairing never got to change (if they even planned to), despite a couple of attempted 2-on-1 shorthanded rushes from Johnston and Hintz that couldn’t materialize in the neutral zone, with old friend Colin Miller proving he has no lingering loyalties to the coach who chose Joel Hanley over him two playoff runs ago.

It was an important kill, as so many of the Stars’ kills have been this year, but it would be a broken play that broke through Oettinger, because it’s a Game 1, and that’s how Game 1 goes.

After a quick Haydn Fleury up to Masel Appleton, he got a puck dribbling through Harley’s legs that Niederreiter immediately flicked back against the grain on Oettinger, and it wobbled perfectly off the far post and in for the game’s first goal.

Dallas nearly equalized right afterward on a try from distance got deflected in on Hellebuyck with the DadBod Squad lurking (Fetch is going to happen, folks), but it fortunately didn’t bounce right for anyone to put it behind him, and the Jets’ lead got past its infancy.

The most amusing part of the middle period might have been Niederretier’s attempt to dive back onside, which is not how onside works at all, as it’s where your skates are, not your stick, big guy.

Another double shift from Mikko Rantanen ended even better than the first one did, when a one-timer from Dadonov on a great feed from Steel dribbled through Hellebuyck. It would take a large human being to barge through the Winnipeg defense to find the rebound, but Rantanen’s nickname is “Moose” for a reason.

It was a big road goal, and a big goal in general, as all playoff game-tying goals tend to be. But man, how satisfying must it be, as a coach, to see a superstar score a goal when you throw him out there with your fourth line? I don’t suppose Deboer will ever tell us, but I would imagine it feels pretty good.

What felt less great was Jamie Benn taking a pretty unnecessary hooking penalty on Scheifele for the third straight Dallas penalty of the game.

Despite the rather negative commentary from the broadcast, it was really just the sort of tit-for-tat battle you see all the time as the two forwards jostled up the ice. But when the puck got sent toward the net, the referee finally called a penalty, given that Benn’s stick was now potentially impeding Scheifele from getting to a scoring opportunity. Ah, well.

Thankfully, the Stars killed their third straight penalty thanks to a couple of really nice plays by Oskar Bäck (whose name I give Buccigross credit for pronouncing correctly), as well as a couple of sharp saves from Oettinger to keep the game level as the game passed its midpoint.

Lian Bichsel made a couple of very nice, incisive passes on back-to-back shifts with seven minutes to go in the second period, and man, how many times have we talked about his confidence in these playoffs? The kid is bigger than any moment he’s faced so far.

Speaking of big, there is nobody bigger than Mikko Rantanen right now, as he tipped in a brilliant Thomas Harley point shot (on yet another double shift with the fourth line) for yet another goal to make it 2-1.

That made it 11 straight Stars goals that had either been scored or assisted by Rantanen, going all the way back to the empty-netter in Game 5 against Colorado. This is the point where the five people left in the hockey universe who hadn’t been aware of Rantanen’s superpowers finally got wise. I do not think I have ever seen a Stars player look this unstoppable in the playoffs, but before I finished writing this paragraph, do you know what happened?

Well, two more great looks with Rantanen on the ice happened, that’s what. And also a penalty on Fleury for a vicious cross-check on Tyler Seguin (that line was also very good), and an immediate Mikko Rantanen power play goal to complete the natural hat trick in preposterous fashion to make it 3-1.

What might have been a dunk for Hintz alone on the back post turned into a deflection off Samberg that went back to the right, catching Hellebuyck pushing away from the very place he would end up needing to be.

It was unreal, absurd stuff. But then again, with Mikko Rantanen, we’re kind of used to it by now. I mean, given that Rantanen ended the period with “only” three points, is it fair to call that a slump for him? (It is not fair.)

Unfortunately, the party was spoiled a bit when Benn tried a reverse play that only gave a puck away below his own goal line, leading to a wide-open shot from the front stoop for the Jets’ top center, and Scheifele would not miss it, cutting the Dallas lead back to 3-2.

In the final bit of the second period, Harley made a huge defensive play on Scheifele to smother a one-on-one chance. Nikolaj Ehlers also tried a similar move around Bichsel that wasn’t called tripping despite Bichsel’s skate catching Ehlers as he attempted to jump past him, but Bichsel is going for the puck here too, I think, so perhaps that’s what gave the referees pause.

Dylan DeMelo also found himself looking for a call as the period ended, collapsing with Steel’s stick in his midsection.

However, no call was made, and referee Jean Hebert came over to him after the period ended to say something, and I wonder if Hebert might just have been cautioning the Winnipeg defenseman against further optimism with regard to drawing power plays in that fashion. That’s purely a guess, though. Time and situation might also has led to the lack of any call, and it’s dangerous to speculate too aggressively when I am not on the ice listening firsthand to what was being said.

This is the best shot I could find, sorry. That’s DeMelo behind the giant puck, though.

So it was that the Stars had a 3-2 lead with 20 minutes to go in Game 1.

Also, there was this:

Third Period

The Stars did not begin the third period convincingly, as they allowed a 2-on-1 to the Jets’ top line immediately when Harley overskated a puck at his own blue line.

Mercifully, the puck slid off Scheifele’s blade just as Harley got back with a stick check, and Oettinger didn’t have to make a save.

Mikko Rantanen then fed Hintz for two great chances, one from below the goal line and another cross-ice to send Hintz flying in transition. But neither puck actually got put on Hellebuyck, with Neal Pionk and the side of the net, respectively, foiling the Stars’ center on two great chances.

Ehlers got another great chance three minutes in as he bulled his way across the netfront and tried to beat Oettinger, but his shot got sent just wide of the net.

Jason Robertson then got subjected to what looked like a pick play where he went down a bit easily, but was actually an elbow square in the face, which would send any human being reeling, as it did Robertson.

The Dallas power play got back to work, but the first half of the power play got derailed when Hintz and DeMelo got into it in the corner, with DeMelo ripping off Hintz’s helmet as the two jostled and grabbed each other’s sticks. And predictably, both players were sent for matching minors, rather than giving Dallas a 5-on-3.

Dallas wouldn’t get much going on the rest of the power play, and in fact would cancel out the last bit of it when Seguin’s stick just caught Pionk, who was bending over during a face-off scramble, in the side of the helmet for penalty to make it 4-on-4 for 19 seconds before Winnipeg got their fourth chance of the game to score a power play goal, still trailing 3-2.

Oettinger had to make a great blocker save on Kyle Connor right after the Jets got five men out there, and you could feel the desperation from Winnipeg. But their desperation didn’t have enough perspiration underneath it, and Dallas efficiently killed yet another chance.

The final ten minutes of regulation came, and you could see Dallas’s plan: defend the blue line aggressively, but look primarily for counterattack chances. Hintz, for example, got just such a chance when the Jets lost track of a puck in the neutral zone, and Hintz sped in and ripped a puck on Hellebuyck that bounced off for one of many rebounds of a far better quality than a goalie like Hellebuyck is supposed to allow, though it wasn’t collected by Dallas for anything further.

After a 3-on-2 chance for the fourth line went wide, the puck got sent back the other way, the Jets’ top line finally got a wrist shot off with 7:40 to go. Nothing doing, said Oettinger (who also had to make a couple of sharp saves after the ensuing faceoff).

Alex Petrovic decided to give Oettinger some help after some dangerous passing from Winnipeg generated a one-timer chance for Demelo that had a lot of net awaiting it, only for the Stars’ sixth defenseman to be in the right spot at the right time.

Mason Marchment got into a deeply personal battle with Neal Pionk for a shift around the five-minute mark, as Marchment tracked him from across the red line all the way back to below the Stars’ goal line in an attempt to win the puck off him. He never quite did, but it all ended with a clearance in the end, so we’ll call it a draw.

Vladislav Namestnikov tried to buy a call by grabbing Lindell’s stick and falling down with just over three minutes to go, but without any luck. And frankly, I couldn’t help but think that, given the crazy embellishment call on Evan Rodrigues in the earlier game, that was the time to call embellishment. But a no-call was better than a bad one, and the Stars had three minutes of work to do.

Mikael Granlund nearly iced the game after a great shift by the Finnish line gave him this fadeaway backhand chance, but there just wasn’t room to beat Hellebuyck.

After the Jets pulled Hellebuyck, the Stars had a mad scramble at the net front after a couple of Oettinger saves, but his teammates arrived to help him out, as you can see here, after Esa Lindell kicked a puck out with his skates and fell to the ice to become a goaltender for any subsequent chances.

Oettinger then made perhaps the most low-key fantastic save of the game, when he perfectly tracked a Scheifele between-the-legs tip and gloved it down like he knew where it was going the entire time.

The last glimpse of the game for Winnipeg came after Roope Hintz wasn’t given the call for beating out this icing, despite appearing to get to the face-off dot first. You be the judge, because to my eyes, the player in white is clearly in front of the player in blue, which is the determining factor.

Nevertheless, the Stars would bow up in the end, and the Jets wouldn’t get anything off a final couple of faceoffs in the Stars’ zone. That meant that we didn’t have to talk about icing calls any more, which is a nice narrative to bury right away, rather than having to wait seven games.

Game 1 losing streak? Snapped. Winnipeg’s three-game home winning streak in the playoffs? Gone. Mikko Rantanen? Here to stay, for this and eight more incredible years.

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The Dallas Stars, for the first time in half a decade, are up 1-0 in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. We’ll have AfterThoughts for you by tomorrow morning/late tonight. Cheers!