Preseason Game 2 AfterThoughts: Extra Time, Extra Tyler Seguin

The Dallas Globetrotters narrowly defeated the Minnesota Generals on Tuesday night

Preseason games are never great for projecting a team’s regular season fortunes. Good seasons can follow winless preseasons (like 2015-16), and contrariwise. These games are about tuning things up, not grabbing two points.

In a game almost diametrically opposed to Saturday’s tilt, a lineup full of the Stars’ top offensive weapons wound up once again going down 1-0 before needing extra time to pull out a victory in dramatic fashion.

“A lot of good, some bad. Eventful, for sure,” Tyler Seguin said afterward. “Early on, preseason especially, you wanna just create. Get some opportunities, learn the systems and details of the game that the coaches want us to play. So, work in progress.”

If you were trying to build a narrative around what we’re seeing in these games, it would be easy to find cause for concern. Jake Oettinger had to face multiple odd-man rushes, including a breakaway in overtime right before the game-winning goal, and he also let in two shots from distance (both of which may have been deflected on the way in).

Cal Petersen also played an outstanding game, facing a veritable barrage of shots from some of the more dangerous offensive players in the NHL, and keeping his team in the game. If you wanted to be pessimistic, you could say that’s trouble brewing.

Gulutzan was frank after the game about that, though.

“We didn’t finish a lot,” Gulutzan said, “But that’s why you play these exhibition games, to get dialed in a little bit.”

The coach went on to say that the Stars’ bench was full of positive chatter, and that he’s confident that’s what you want to see in the preseason in order to plant the seeds for offensive production moving forward.

Jason Robertson gave a wry smile after the game when answering a question about whether the chippiness made the game feel more like a regular season contest.

“Well, you definitely see Mikko going at it,” he chuckled. “We’re ramping it up. No one gets hurt, no foul, no problem.”

That’s a more realistic way to view these sorts of things. Exhibition is the right word, because that’s what a mismatch is. It’s not like we watched the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals, but it’s also not not like that, either.

Put it this way: Natural Stat Trick had high-danger shots at 20-2 for the Stars. So, credit to Cal Petersen and David Jiříček and Ben Gleason (Ben Gleason!) for keeping the game dramatic, but if you put together a highlight package and said this was all B-roll for a TV movie about a David vs. Goliath hockey story, it would be pretty believable.

So enough about the context and the mismatch and the result. Let’s talk about the moments in this game, for isn’t that what life is made up of, after all? Moments, like these?

“Is that just Miro?” was the question Seguin was asked after the game, knowing how quick he would be to compliment his teammate.

“Yeah, it’s Miro. I was yelling at him to keep it,” Seguin smiled afterward. “I don’t know who was more straight-legged, me or him going up the ice. Great pass.”

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The Stars began the game with this lineup:

Robertson-Hintz-Rantanen
Benn-Duchene-Seguin
Erne-Scott-Lind
Ertel-Shlaine-Hanas

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Taylor-Lyubushkin

Oettinger played the whole game in net.

Minnesota, meanwhile, rolled with this:

Ohgren-Yurov-Hinostroza
Trenin-Jones-Pitlick
Heidt-Bankier-Leason
Kumpulainen/Marek/Aube-Kubel

Johnson-Jiříček
Lambos-Kiersted
Peart-Gleason

Petersen

(Are any of these names made up? Well, all names are made up, actually. Why would you even ask a question like that?)

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• Jake Oettinger shook off the rust with some nice saves, including a great push late in the second to make a big stop on Tyler Pitlick. The two shots from distance were annoying, but like we said, they both may have been tipped, and also it’s the preseason. Overall, Oettinger got a tuneup, and the franchise goaltender is still the franchise goaltender. Good news!

• Tyler Seguin nicked the post on the first shot of the game (though it technically isn’t a shot on goal, blah blah blah) with a sly little backhand off the rush, which turned out to be a poetic setup for how the game would end. Seguin was really good tonight in the way he needs to be these days. Look at his getting to the net and testing the goaltender with what has always been a top-class shot. This is the weapons-grade Tyler Seguin the Stars would love to have all season after missing him for much of last year.

  

• Justin Ertel just did manage to prevent a Grade-A scoring chance for Bankier with some last-ditch backchecking in the slot after Thomas Harley had pinched shortly beforehand in the other zone. I feel like you don’t give Justin Ertel enough credit. Yes, you reading this. Give him more credit. Okay, that’s good.

• Vinnie Hinostroza got the Wild’s first great look about eight minutes into the first, after Harrison Scott wound up a step behind him, but instead of shooting on this chance, he pulled it to the backhand, giving Scott room to hook his arm to prevent the chance in exchange for a penalty. That is a good penalty in that situation, but I think you’d prefer Hinostroza not to have been open.

• Dallas’s penalty-killing forward pairs were a bit different without Dallas’s usual complement of Steel, Blackwell, Bäck, and Johnston. The Stars rolled out Hintz with Erne, then Ertel with Shlaine, and some other folks along the way. The preseason makes for interesting things like that.

• On the power play, the Stars’ first unit was Harley, Rantanen, Hintz, Robertson, and Kole Lind, who was the right-hand shot in lieu of Wyatt Johnston.

  On the second unit were Heiskanen, Duchene, Benn, Seguin, and……Lundkvist. But the Stars still rolled a pretty standard 1-3-1 sort of look, which meant Lundkvist (one of the only other right-hand shots in the lineup) was down by the net a couple of times. I wouldn’t expect that to be anything the Stars try with their full NHL lineup, though. But kudos for creativity, I’d say.

• Ben Gleason rang the outside of the post after stepping down into the circle, ripping a shot short side that clanked away. If only that were all the noise Ben Gleason made this game.

• The first goal of the game was scored by David Jiříček, who fired a one-timer high from the point that sailed under Oettinger’s left pad after possibly ticking off Lyubushkin’s skate in front. You be the judge of how this found its way through.

• The main thing about preseason games is that you want players to get some reps, but you want to avoid the avoidable disasters. And this collision between Duchene and Tyler Pitlick looked pretty avoidable in the first.

• Duchene would get right back out there on his next shift, however, so here’s hoping he escaped disaster long-term as well as short. Unfortunately, Dallas product Cross Hanas also suffered an injury in his first game in an NHL Stars sweater. From the looks of it, he tried to throw a hit in the first period and tweaked something upon or right after contact.

• Hanas would get to the bench in what looked like some real pain, but he would return in the third period, nearly scoring a goal on a nice setup from Artem Shlaine in the process.
  

  I asked Gulutzan a very mundane question about Hanas’s status after the game, but before answering it, the head coach took a moment to point out how cool of a moment we nearly witnessed.
  

  “Wouldn’t it have been nice for a guy who sat out a period and a half to come in,” Gulutzan said, “And he had a chance there—and score? Wouldn’t that have been great?”
  

  It was another one of the small moments that have stuck out since Gulutzan’s return, moments where he shares some of what he’s thinking and feeling before getting down to the brass tacks of the question, just taking a moment to revel in something neat.

  
  “It’s a good thing they have some bikes back there,” Gulutzan said about Hanas’s absence. “I wasn’t sure how he was gonna be, and then he waited forever to get out there, with the power plays. I thought he did a really good job, but that’s what adrenaline can do, playing in front of a bunch of your family in your hometown.”

• Jamie Benn hit the post after an egregious turnover by Minnesota that left them facing a 4-on-1. And in the preseason, the captain is allowed to keep these chances. Ka-ting.

• Mikko Rantanen was in more of a passing mood early tonight, choosing to dish two great chances, both of which got miraculously deflected by the defenseman. One 2-on-1 pass to Hintz got marvelously knocked into Petersen by Kierstad rather than getting over to Hintz for the dunk.

• But Rantanen nearly earned the Primary Assist of the Preseason Award on this shift, where he played the breakout perfectly before hustling down to receive a slick Robertson return, only to have the dagger pass to Harrison Scott get tipped away at the last moment.

• Presumably, those instances dissuaded Rantanen from any further passing, as he kicked off the third period by firing a shot over Cal Petersen’s shoulder to quickly tie things up.

• Rantanen would finish with six shots on goal, second only to Seguin’s seven (presuming the NHL doesn’t change these post facto). Shooting—it’s good to do, in hockey!

• Jason Robertson got a breakaway right after Tyler Seguin left the penalty box, and while he missed high far-side, the Stars collected the puck and tried again.
  
  Robertson said afterward that he ought to have scored a couple more goals than he did, and it’s hard to argue with that assessment, given the quality of chances the dominant Stars were producing. But sometimes the hands just need a couple games to wake up, I suppose.

• Or perhaps you just have to hit them against someone else. Because after some persistent work with the ol’ hockey scalpel (or some out-and-out lumberjacking), Robertson poked the puck out of Cal Petersen’s skate and into the net for his least-pretty shot of the game, and the most beneficial.

• The third period featured plenty of disgusting passing sequences from Dallas against a worn-out Minnesota group, with the duos of Hintz/Rantanen and Duchene/Seguin enjoying themselves immensely on a mid-period power play that featured all the chances and none of the goals. Personally, I love watching players snap the puck around (and Gulutzan used the same “snap it around” description when asked about the power play after the game), even if the results don’t come immediately. It is an exhibition, after all.

• The Wild tied the game back up thanks to the other former Star haunting them in this one: Ben Gleason.

• My lasting memory of Ben Gleason as a Dallas Star is his getting into a game against Nashville in the 2018-19 season when Klingberg was injured, and the Stars had to roll out a blue line with Gleason, Dillon Heatherington, Julius Honka, and Joel Hanley behind Heiskanen and Lindell. Gleason had a primary assist on a Denis Gurianov goal in that game, and personally, I enjoyed that point more than his goal tonight. But I am admittedly biased in favor of the prior decade, on account of I was younger, and Gleason probably prefers goals. Most people do, I think.

• Rantanen then went back on his intermission decision to shoot, passing on a 2-on-1 with Hintz midway through the third. But yet again, it didn’t connect, and the game stayed tied as time ticked away. Kids, always keep your resolutions, even if you’re trying to spread the wealth.

• The Kole Lind vs. Bradley Marek fight (Lind is known for mixing things up, as Milwaukee knows well) looked like the big altercation of the game, but it turns out Mikko Rantanen doesn’t know how to waltz through the preseason. I’ll include both angles here of his mixup with Hinostroza at the end of regulation.

• For my money, Hinostroza was making the most of some pretty standard stuff, but I have to say, I think this is a good trait for Dallas to have in their superstar. Rantanen is not a guff-taker, and he doesn’t care what time it is. If you need to have your goat gotten, then he will get it. Goats and guffs, he’ll get or not-take them all. For a team that felt a little bit defined by their lack of response to the slash that broke Roope Hintz’s foot last spring, I think developing more of an edge as a team ethos can only be a good thing—especially if it’s done with purpose to send a message, rather than in a flailing, penalty-taking sense.

• Gulutzan said after the game that he liked Nils Lundkvist’s game with the puck and his passing. Really, it’s hard to find too much to criticize in any serious sense for Dallas, because they so handily outplayed the Minnesota lineup (such as it was) for long stretches. Practically every player in the lineup had a nice moment to take from this game.

  
  Still, Lundkvist should benefit from even that moderately positive boost after a less-gleaming first game on Saturday. Good days on good days, as his coach says.

• Finally, if you’re not watching Tyler Seguin’s postgame pressers every chance you get, let me once again commend this one to you. As always, he is a delight.