Tuesday Morning Dallas Stars Roundup: Four Nations, Five Hundred Injuries

And a Tyler Seguin Teaser

First: don’t forget to check out my Tyler Seguin interview in D Magazine yesterday. It covers a lot of interesting ground in my opinion, including some of Seguin’s reflections on Jamie Benn, fatherhood, what makes this year’s Stars team special, and what Jamie Benn is going to be like as a father (really).

Even though it was a pretty wide-ranging piece, there’s even more from that conversation that didn’t make it into the story, so I’m putting that all together here at Stars Thoughts for y’all later this week. There’s lots more that I think is pretty interesting, such as what rules Seguin would change if he were commissioner for a day, so do keep an eye out for that.

All right, let’s move onto what happened to the various Dallas Stars at the Four Nations Face-Off on Monday.

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The Dallas Stars resume practicing Tuesday afternoon in Frisco, and I’ll be interested to see who’s there.

We know that Jim Nill, Peter DeBoer, Misha Donskov, Thomas Harley, and Jake Oettinger won’t be, as Teams USA and Canada are preparing for the final game of the Four Nations Face-Off on Thursday in Boston.

But with Team USA in particular getting hit hard by injuries and illness, I wonder if there’s any chance that Jason Robertson might end up making his way to Boston.

There probably isn’t, but I mention that only because the USA played a man short in a meaningless game against Sweden Monday night after three players weren’t able to go, and someone apparently forgot to tell the remaining players it was meaningless, because the pace was still insane, especially to start, and more folks went down with injuries as a result.

After starting with only 11 forwards and six defensemen to begin with, the US would end up playing the final two periods of the game with a mere 10 up-fronters when Brady Tkachuk was shut down for precautionary reasons after someone forgot to tell him “we aren’t still playing Canada, Brady,” and he came out like two Tkachuk brothers in a large trenchcoat trying to steamtoll the entire province of Ontario—until he got banged up and had to leave. He’s a crucial player for Team USA, so it was a scary moment for everyone when he began to test his leg after the fact.

Here’s the state of the USA infirmary right now:

• Auston Matthews missed the Sweden game with an upper-body issue, but the sense is that he’s possibly available for Thursday.

• Matthew Tkachuk left the Canada game with a lower-body injury and didn’t play in the Sweden game at all. His status is not certain at this time.

• Brady Tkachuk’s injury is not considered serious, so he should be available on Thursday.

• Vincent Trocheck left the ice for a bit on Monday with a hand injury of some kind, but he ended up returning to the game, thank goodness.

• And then, after USA lost to Sweden last night, Jim McBride reported that Charlie McAvoy had been admitted to the hospital while dealing with an upper-body injury. His availability is obviously unknown right now, but one would think “doubtful” is a good place to start, given he’s at the hospital.

Obviously, we hope McAvoy recovers, regardless of his availability for Thursday’s game. But it’s a fact that, for all the fire alarms Team Canada had to pull when one defenseman went down, the US is now in a situation where the rules (such as they are) have been bent enough so that Thomas Harley is now a Shea Theodore replacement in every regard, which wasn’t originally allowed. So it wouldn’t shock me to see the US look at getting McAvoy, Matthews, and/or Matthew Tkachuk replacement(s), depending on those players’ health.

Certainly the argument from USA would be that Canada got to bring Harley to practice before they even considered playing short, so why shoudn’t the USA be able to get some insurance after already having done so?

But of course, if any of the banged-up players can drag themselves onto the ice on Thursday, you can bet they'll be there regardless of any reinforcements. Because this tournament means a lot to these players. Maybe too much, actually, given what happened on Monday night. In your wildest dreams, did you ever think there would be a point where fans started wishing some of the players would care less about winning a game in this tournament?

Jake Oettinger had a front-row seat to that action, as he got the start in a game the US didn’t need to win. And in case you needed even further proof that even meaningless games hold a ton of meaning for these players, here’s what Oettinger said after a game in which he played quite well:

And you could see that appreciation for the moment, with Oettinger looking just as desperate (in his controlled sort of way) to make saves throughout the night as he would in any regular season or playoff game.

Oettinger allowed just two goals to Sweden, which is the lowest total Sweden was held to in their three games in the tournament. Unfortunately, the wounded remnant of Team USA scored just one (while they hit the iron roughly fifty-hundred-million times, or at least six times that the NHL officially recorded, as you can see below on the right side, underlined in green by me):

It’s funny how even in a game we knew was ultimately meaningless for the purposes of the tournament final, it was easy to get sucked into the contest by how much the players cared about winning. Nothing makes for more compelling television than watching highly skilled people try to do very difficult things.

The two goals Oettinger let in were hardly on him at all, in my view: a gorgeous reflex tip by Gutav Nyquist that he probably couldn’t do again in five tries, and a screened shot from Jesper Bratt that I’m not sure any goalie is ever going to stop. Otherwise, Oettinger was great, including some scrambly sequences with nice saves included to keep the game close later on.

Connor Hellebuyck will surely draw back in on Thursday, but I suppose it was pretty cool for Oettinger to get a chance to re-live that Calgary series from 2022 where his skaters couldn’t buy him any goal support most of the time, but for a much better team (or part of one).

Marty Turco from 2007 can commiserate with Oettinger about the result, if needed (or not, depending on whether USA beats Canada Thursday).

Overall, the fact that Oettinger got though a somewhat frantic game without anything more terrible than a loss happening is perfectly fine. Great, even, given how many of his teammates have suffered worse fates so far. And given that he only had three forward lines in front of him all night, it’s even more impressive. I can’t imagine he’ll forget that game for a long, long time.

As for the USA skaters, Bill Guerin’s pattern of team-building in Minnesota makes me think Jason Robertson isn’t the 1:1 Matthew Tkachuk replacement he’s looking for (if he needs one), so I wouldn’t get your hopes up just yet. But one never does know, does one? We’ll find out later this week. Certainly Robertson has been as hot as anyone since December, so I can think of a lot of worse choices than him if you have to go next man up.

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For Canada, the goaltending question looms much bigger than it did through 50 mintes, after Jordan Binnington turned a 4-0 shutout into a 4-3 nail-biter in the closing minutes of the third period (though not all the goals were on him, in fairness). Mikael Granlund and Esa Lindell activated SuperStars Comeback Mode™, which is a secret thing they’ve saving for the playoffs, you haven’t heard of it yet, don’t worry about it, as the two combined for three goals to make Canada sweat with over a minute to go, and it was awesome, for a brief moment.

Mikael Granlund finished the tournament with three goals, all of which came late in the third period or in overtime. He also had the primary assist on Henri Jokiharju’s goal (and Finland’s only tally) against the USA in Game 1. Again, I can’t help but feel like he’s going to score a massive goal in the spring for this team, because Granlund simply thrived as the stage got bigger over the past week. Do you think his price might have been even higher, had Jim Nill waited to trade for him until after the break? I wonder. I do wonder.

Of course, Sidney Crosby had to ruin the comeback fun for Finland by making an incredible play to seal the game away, but when you’re the tournament’s leading scorer and one of the best players in NHL history, I guess stamping out a brushfire before it turns into an inferno is your prerogative.

But back to the goaltending for a moment. Given that Canada managed to earn a 4-0, sorry, 4-1, wait now it’s 4-2, holy cow is that a replay or did Mikael Granlund just score again, what the actual- ok, Sid, thank you, phew 5-3 victory, I suppose you have to run Binnington back out on Thursday against the USA, lest you Grady Little yourself into the managerial twilight zone. Except, you know, Grady Little’s big mistake was leaving his guy in for too long, so maybe the lesson from that is: we are all sick of the Red Sox, and we have been for 20 years now, and anyway that was 2003, Robert, there is no way anyone reading this cares about that reference, let alone gets it.

Good point. So, Binnington or bust, it’s likely to be for Canada.

And speaking of roster decisions for our northern neighbors, I was mildly surprised that Thomas Harley didn’t draw into the lineup for Team Canada on Monday afternoon. Harley played a great game on Saturday with hardly any prep time, but I wonder if the principle here is that Jon Cooper & Co. didn’t want to disrespect any of their six other defensemen (i.e. Travis Sanheim) by taking them out when Cale Makar drew back in and essentially demoting them.

To frame it another way, immediately putting Harley in over Sanheim would be like telling your little brother at the park, “Yeah, you have to be the ref today, but hey, you can also be the backup player in case anyone has to go home early from our flag football game, unless any other friends of ours walk by, in which case you’re obviously no longer going to play, ever.”

This is not a real event that happened to me, to be clear, because my subconscious is fantastic at repressing stuff like that, so how would I know if it were? Let’s all give a round of applause for my subconscious, which will forget about your adulation immediately. Yep, there it goes.

So, we’ll see about Harley for Thursday. Even getting into one game feels like a bonus for him and Oettinger, so anything more would be gravy (or disaster for Hellebuyck, most likely, if Oettinger’s coming in on Thursday.) Do you think Harley will ever forget that game last Saturday? Given that most of the hockey world has declared it to be an instant classic, one would doubt it will fade any time soon from someone who got thrown out there in the midst of the fracas—and who did quite well.

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Congratulations to Finland, by the way, who had themselves a very admirable tournament, considering the injuries that decimated their already-slim selection pool on defense. They technically finished fourth in the tournament after Sweden picked up three points against the USA, but their overtime victory over Sweden will surely live larger and longer in both countries’ memories. Additionally, the fact that Finland put a real scare into Team Canada in a must-win game is downright impressive. Even moreso, considering they didn’t have Miro Heiskanen or Rasmus Ristolainen, who would presumably be their top two right-side defensemen.

Instead, Esa Lindell had to take that honor, and boy, did he ever go Full Esa Lindell in all the best ways. Lindell led all four teams in average time-on-ice through the round robin, averaging 26:44 per game. The next-closest player was Cale Makar, with 26:02 in just two games (one of which went deeper into overtime than Finland’s did). The closest runner-up to play all three of their team’s games was Victor Hedman, who averaged 25:19, nearly a minute-and-a-half less than Lindell.

Ten of the 14 goals Finland gave up in this tournament came with Lindell off the ice, by the way. That’s not too shabby considering Lindell was on the ice for almost half the time every game. In other words, Lindell wasn’t just eating minutes because somebody had to; he was turning those minutes into quality ones, usually all by himself (on the blue line, at least).

Oh, and Lindell was playing on his off-wing most of the time, too. Does anything faze Esa Lindell? I do not think anything fazes Esa Lindell.

Mikael Granlund also had a heck of a tournament, tying Jake Guentzel and Nathan MacKinnon for the most goals scored in the round robin, with three. He also had an assist, meaning that only two players scored more points than Granlund over the three-game cycle: Sidney Crosby (plays for a club in Pittsburgh, I think) and Zach Werenski, who tallied five assists, but who also couldn’t even score one lousy goal on Monday to give Jake Oettinger some more help, come on Zach.

Granlund was on a line with Roope Hintz, who moved back to center full-time with Granlund and Sebastian Aho on Monday. Hintz didn’t start off well, as he would give the puck right to Connor McDavid at the blue line to create Canada’s opening goal in a bit of an echo of the Stars’ go-routes they use to exit the defensive zone from time to time. It did not go well.

Hintz and Aho never seemed to find much chemistry together, and it had to be a bit frustrating for Hintz to ride home after this one, as Granlund and Lindell both scored in Finland’s last-gasp comeback attempt, while Hintz—who leads the Stars in scoring—didn’t have a point in the tournament.

All told, Hintz went scoreless with just two shots on goal in three games, putting up a -1 overall. He did well in the face-off circle (55%), but he wasn’t one of the impact players Finland needed to get that extra push on Monday, and that’s too bad, because he certainly can be that player, as we’ve all seen.

It’s not the end of the world or anything, as Hintz has proven a lot in his NHL career already. But it’ll be interesting to see how the Olympics shake out next year in terms of which line Hintz slots into. I can’t imagine he’ll be with Aho again, but then, Team Finland doesn’t play by my rules, nor should they. Or anyone, for that matter. My rules are boring; go play Calvinball instead. Then on Thursday, we’ll all get back together for what is sure to be something special, for at least half of the players.