Wild vs. Stars Game 1 AfterThoughts: Outmanned, to a Man

Dallas did not defend home ice

Song of the Game

What's going on
Same ol' thing just a different season

---

The good news is this: Dallas have been down 1-0 in a lot of playoff series recently, and it often hasn’t been the determining factor. But as Gulutzan said tonight, I don’t really view what happened tonight as a trend that continued from those games. This game was its own ugly animal, and the Stars can flush it away for good so long as they take care of business on Monday.

That’s either good or bad, depending on your perspective. For Dallas, they’ve had a couple of stinkers this year that they showed the ability to put behind them quickly, so you’d think they’ll look to do the same thing again. One day at a time and all that jazz.

But man, if you’re the Minnesota Wild? Well, then tonight was picture perfect.

Two power play goals to win the special teams battle? Check. A confidence-boosting win for a young goalie in his first playoff game? Bingo. Signs that your best players are better than the other team’s top dogs? Oh, you betcha.

To rub salt in the wound, Quinn Hughes more or less said after the game that he wasn’t even fully healthy, having not skated in a week while recovering from an illness of some kind that he declined to specify. And yet, Hughes played almost 25 minutes, made multiple jaw-dropping plays, and finished the night with a sweet assist and a +3 on the scoreline. Not bad for a player who had to be ushered into the building by his GM after not even skating at practice yesterday.

Kirill Kaprizov also scored a gorgeous goal from a sharp angle to kick off a run of three goals in the first seven minutes of the second period that put the game out of reach before the halfway point. It was a stunning performance from the visiting team, and Dallas only managed a lone Jason Robertson power play goal in response before what wound up being a more energetic but ultimately perfunctory third period.

Yes, if you’re the Minnesota Wild, tonight was indeed the best-case scenario.

Which means that, if you’re the Dallas Stars, tonight was, ah, the opposite of that. An early Tyler Myers elbow into the face of Mats Zuccarello was immediately cashed in, which meant that an otherwise even first period still ended with Dallas trailing 1-0. And instead of coming out in the second with a statement, as Dallas has done quite a few times this year, the Stars saw the game slip away before they could do all that much about it.

“The first period was tight,” Gulutzan said. “They executed on the power play. But we couldn’t get our game going at all in the second. I thought that they certainly, to a man, were better than us, which leaves me…”

Here Gulutzan paused to choose his words carefully, before continuing with a very sobering sentence.

“That hasn’t happened to us a lot during the year,” Gulutzan stated. “And it was to a man, so there’s certainly room for growth, for our team. But you can’t get your game going if you’re not gonna win battles. You can take any metric, and if you lose skating battles and puck battles, you’re always on the receiving end of everything negative.”

Hearing Gulutzan acknowledge what was plain to see in the second is either comforting or sobering, depending on how you view it.

Yes, the Stars were getting outworked, pulled out of position, and beaten to loose pucks in that determining second period, so it’s good the head coach isn’t treating this one as bad luck. He saw flaws in the process, too.

On the other hand, hearing Gulutzan agree with the fact that the Stars kinda wound up getting waxed in this one? That’s not exactly a fun thing to admit, even if it might be true.

“When you’re not winning anything, and you’re not winning races, and you’re not winning your 50-50s, you put yourself at risk for what happens: Deflections, a shot from the half-wall that goes off a guy and goes in, one kind of from behind the net. You’re in vulnerable spots because you’re not winning battles.”

As for the Stars’ top guys, Miro Heiskanen returned, and both he and Gulutzan said that he was good to go. He wasn’t the gamebreaker that Quinn Hughes was, but neither coach nor player was chalking that up to whatever happened to him after getting tied up with Ryan Hartman a couple weeks ago.

“Felt pretty good,” Heiskanen said of getting back on the ice. “Legs were good, body felt good. Not fun, obviously, but body felt pretty good.”

Gulutzan likewise said that he saw a player who hadn’t played in a while, but he didn’t see anything that was “a big hitch,” to use Gulutzan’s words.

“Moving forward, I think Miro,” Gulutzan said, "With his injury, it’s just one of those things that’s gonna get better and better with time. I thought he was fine tonight. But like everybody else, I think we all have a little bit more.”

Speaking of more, Gulutzan was asked about whether he might consider putting Michael Bunting back into the lineup, and he was a bit diplomatic.

“We’ve got lots of guys that have played lots of good hockey for us,” Gulutzan said. “So if you look at the analytics, and you look at a little recency of the games, we’ve got lots of guys that have done a really good job for us. We’re not afraid to put anybody in. We have Arty, who’s played great hockey for us. We’ve got Bunts, who’s played good hockey for us. Everybody that we’ve put in has contributed this year. So, someone’s got to sit when you’ve got guys that contribute.”

With that said, one would expect changes of some kind, given the 6-1 result tonight.

One change that wasn’t made tonight was in goal, where Oettinger allowed five. But Gulutzan was clear that he didn’t see this game as one to lay at Oettinger’s feet, pointing to the Hartman goal and one or two others as examples of breakdowns that simply couldn’t be allowed.

“Nothing for me was on our goaltending,” Gulutzan said when asked if he’d considered pulling Oettinger. “For me…certainly our specialty teams need to be better, and our 5-on-5 play wasn’t good enough.”

Oettinger was, as you’d expect, harder on himself, saying he would have liked to make more saves, particularly on the penalty kill, but the 5-1 Eriksson Ek goal was the main one he called “bad,” while pointing to some bounces on other goals.

Still, the goalie was quick to point to himself when asked what the team needed to do better.

“I think I can make more saves,” Oettinger said. “That’s the only thing I can focus on. I can’t control what’s going on in front of me.”

In fairness to Oettinger, however, this really was a case of one team simply being definitively better than the other when it counted. And as much as Oettinger has shown himself capable of keeping a Stars team in games they didn’t deserve to be in, the Wild and a bounce or two ensured this one was never going to stay within reach.

“The goalie can be the difference-maker on the penalty kill, and I wasn’t that tonight,” Oettinger said. “I need to be better on the penalty kill, and we’ll all look at the goals they scored, and all their opportunities, and what we need to get better at, and we’ll do it.”

One thing that the Stars could obviously improve would be not to give Minnesota three power plays early, as they did with Myers’s elbow and two stick fouls from Mikko Rantanen.

“Just gotta be a little careful with my stick,” Rantanen said. “Work less hard sometimes, and just be smart.”

Shots on goal ended 29-28 after a flurry in the third for Dallas, but with Minnesota sitting back into a trap formation with a big lead, the hole was far too large for even Rantanen’s comeback magic. Instead, he and other Stars players gave Minnesota opportunities they cashed in on, either with goals or momentum that would turn into goals later on.

“I myself had two O-zone penalties,” Rantanen said, “One high stick and one tripping. You gotta stay out of the box. Those ones got killed, but still the momentum goes their way. That’s how it goes in hockey. We got a power play in the second, we score. And momentum, we had a couple of chances after.”

They certainly did have chances, including Bichsel’s shot in the second that rang the crossbar. Had any of those looks gone in the way the puck off Hartman did, maybe it’s a different story in the third. Likewise if Benn or Johnston’s 1v1 clean looks in the second had beaten Wallstedt to make it 4-2.

But alas, they didn’t. And a second Eriksson Ek power play goal in the third just drove home the point in this one: Dallas was beaten by a team that outplayed them, from their top forwards to their top defenseman and their goaltender. You can focus on any one of those areas, if you like, but the truth of the matter is that the game was won (and lost) in the second period, when Minnesota outscored Dallas 3-1.

Gulutzan said the good news in this one is that it’s not been a common thing for them to get outplayed to the degree they did tonight, so it’s not like there was some inherent character flaw that tripped them up. Of course, the bad news is that Minnesota was able to come into Dallas and turn a defensively stingy team into a scattered and generous one.

And if the Stars want to make this the competitive, exciting series it was supposed to be, that means playing better hockey on Monday, from top to bottom. If they do that, then suddenly they’ve got a brand new series, but one that starts in Game 3 instead of Game 1. For Dallas in recent years, that’s proven to be a very good thing indeed.

Highlights and the Lowdown

Minnesota’s forecheck put Dallas under pressure early, but the Stars looked capable of dealing with it, and they were able to get up the ice with space a couple of times after strong work defending their blue line, but Jesper Wallstedt wasn’t tested overmuch.

On the other side, Oettinger dealt with his first two shots with ease, but Tyler Myers got an elbow up on Mats Zuccarello after the second one, putting the Wild on the power play five minutes into the game.

After 60 seconds of efficient killing, Joel Eriksson Ek would one-time a shot from between the circles after a bit of overaggressive work opened up the middle of the ice, which led to an easy one-two from below the goal line to give Minnesota the lead.

Dallas got its own power play when Marcus Johansson got whistled for a slash that looked pretty soft, in all honesty. Johansson’s stick did graze Lindell’s chin after it whacked the stick, but that was all.

Duchene nearly sneaked a puck between Wallstedt’s back and the post, but the power play was otherwise repelled, and the special teams battle was officially 1-0 for the Wild after 10 minutes of play.

Dallas probably got lucky to avoid a Too Many Men call with 6:30 to go, but the 5v5 play was otherwise pretty even. Oettinger then had to make his best stop of the game with just over two minutes left when Danila Yurov got the puck all alone, and Oettinger had to come out and make a big left pad stop to avert disaster.

Mikko Rantanen then got a chance off the rush at the other end, and he put a wobbling puck on net that Wallstedt reached back to make sure he had. He made the save, however, and then Rantanen cost his team a penalty with a stick check that rode up and caught Zach Bogosian up high, putting Dallas back on the penalty kill late in the opening period.

Oettinger made a save on Boldy through traffic early, and then an even bigger one off an entry play and a pass across from Kaprizov that required a fantastic stop by Oettinger, which he came up with, and the Stars went to the first intermission with 11 seconds left to kill in a 1-0 game.

Dallas would do just that, and Sam Steel and Nils Lundkvist both carried pucks behind Wallstedt’s net with space when it looked like Dallas had a push mounting. Unfortunately, Kirill Kaprizov came down the weak side and got a puck with acres of space, and he ripped a shot over Oettinger’s short-side shoulder to make it 2-0.

It was a play where Harley kind of got caught between the netfront and telescoping out to Kaprizov, and he opted to stay home and wait for Johnston to recover and apply pressure rather than doing so himself. It was an understandable decision, but giving Kaprizov that much time and space to work with is a dangerous game, and the Wild benefited from what looked more like indecision than anything else.

In watching the broadcast at intermission, they also called out Rantanen for a less-than-110% backcheck, so I suppose you’re welcome to put the blame where you feel inclined to do so. Great shot, though.

The deficit became 3-0 shortly afterward, thanks to yet another of the Wild’s top guys. Quinn Hughes made a gorgeous backhand pass at the blue line to Faber, and suddenly the Wild had a 2-on-1 back in the zone, and Faber shot a puck across the crease that hit Hartman and went in to make it 3-0.

To make matters worse, Rantanen tripped up Spurgeon behind the Wild’s net for an offensive-zone penalty, and the Stars had to kill a third penalty after already being down three goals.

Oettinger would have to work to keep it “only” 3-0, making a glove stop on Tarasenko on a 2-on-1 after Dallas tried to win a puck in the corner but got outnumbered above the goal line after losing it. The Stars would technically kill the penalty, but the adverb up there probably tells the story. Boldy got some good fortune when a puck into a pile bounced off toward Harley above the goal line, and Harley’s swing at the puck didn’t do enough to overpower Boldy, who did enough to slide the puck in behind Oettinger, making it 4-0.

Dallas hit the crossbar on the very next shift when he whipped a puck on goal from the point, but when things are rolling the wrong way, they tend to keep doing so rather than reversing course. This was a game where Dallas would have to make their own breaks, and they couldn’t seem to do so.

Gulutzan went to the lever out of pure necessity midway through the second, swapping Hryckowian onto the top line to add some juice, and moving Faksa up with Benn and Steel. It worked a little, and Dallas got another rush chance that fizzled after a late-coming Bichsel tried a dagger pass across to Lundkvist rather than firing with players at the net, only to have the pass poked away.

Duchene drew a penalty with six minutes to go in the second period when Yurov cross-checked him pretty needlessly at the Wild blue line. And Jason Robertson would capitalize, reaching across with a sneaky backhand that Wallstedt never flinched on to make it 4-1.

Wallstedt would come up huge right after allowing his first goal, however. First, on Jamie Benn, who got a puck all alone on the doorstep and tried to snap it five-hole, and then later on Johnston, who collected a missed shot by Minnesota at one end that turned into a 2-on-1 rush at the other. But Johnston’s shot ticked off Wallstedt’s glove, and the Wild escaped any serious harm.

The rookie goaltender would remain fired up late in the second. After he made a save off a deflected Johnston shot from a Rantanen rush entry, Wallstedt then gave a bit of a blocker hand shot to Rantanen in a pile, and another scrum kicked off. But after everything settled down, Dallas was down behind 4-1 with just 20 minutes left to play.

Duchene got a great look early on, but ended up waiting a bit and missing far side after his angle decreased. He was one of a handful of Stars who were creating chances consistently, but one team was finishing and the other was not.

Rantanen then decided to draw a penalty rather than take one, going 1-on-2 in the defensive zone and making Brodin do things illegal. Rantanen put a one-timer on Wallstedt during the set, and Duchene created more danger down low off a Johnston shot that led to a rebound, but a massive Spurgeon block killed the rest of the power play, and a Matt Boldy shot a minute later went off the post, signaling that Minnesota’s momentum had recovered from the penalty kill.

Esa Lindell would get whistled for what he viewed as an odd tripping penalty (which it was—his stick wound up wedged between two Wild players, but wouldn’t have tripped either one on their own), and another Eriksson Ek power play goal would salt the game away at 5-1 when he got a second low-to-doorstep pass that he put inside the near post for a goal that nobody on earth cares about analyzing, but that your seat neighbor probably used as evidence for why Jake Oettinger should be traded for like, Carlos Baerga or someone.

The 4-on-4 play was interesting, but Dallas would get a 5-on-4 chance later on when Lindell drew a penalty off some good offensive-zone work. Duchene put another good chance on Wallstedt that didn’t go through, and then Gulutzan pulled Oettinger for the remainder of the power play, given the four-goal deficit and just four minutes left in regulation.

The game was over with, but a Rantanen entry got picked off by Boldy at the blue line, and he sailed a puck down into the empty net to make it 6-1.

Dallas will have a 1-0 series deficit to consider until Game 2 begins at 8:30pm on Monday.

Lineups

Dallas groups:

Steel-Johnston-Rantanen
Robertson-Duchene-Bourque
Bäck-Hryckowian-Benn
Erne-Faksa-Blackwell

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lunkdvist
Bichsel-Myers

Oettinger

---

Minnesota lines:

Kaprizov-Hartman-Zuccarello
Johansson-Eriksson Ek-Boldy
Tarasenko-Yurov-Trenin
M. Foligno-McCarron-N. Foligno

Hughes-Faber
Brodin-Spurgeon
Middleton-Bogosian

Wallstedt

After-AfterThoughts

• Michael Bunting being a healthy scratch was a very interesting choice by Glen Gulutzan, though you’d be hard-pressed to disagree with it, given the time Bunting missed, and his struggles to fit into the lineup when he was healthy. He helps the forward depth, and it wouldn’t shock me to see him draw back in later in the series, but I can understand the decision.

• With that said, you pretty much have to put Bunting back in on Monday if he’s healthy, right? The degree to which Minnesota tilted the ice in the second period simply isn’t something you’d think they can just shrug off.

• On the other end of things, the Stars had used the Bäck-Hryckowian-Benn line just twice before tonight, but it was good both times.

  • 6-2 win over Boston on 1/20

    1-0 loss to Columbus on 1/22

    • In those two games, the line was dominant, with the below numbers:

      14-4 in shots on goal

      81% expected goals share

      2-0 goals scored

• Nils Lundkvist was fired up in this game, and he was also involved in the altercation after the final whistle. His playoff mode was activated for much of the night, and it wasn’t insignificant. He looked like a player eager to vindicate the trust he’d earned this year, and it was refreshing to see him thriving (as much as anyone thrived tonight, at least).

• The Robertson-Duchene-Bourque line deserved better tonight, out-chancing Minnesota 7-1 with a 78% expected goals share, too.

• Conversely, the Johnston/Rantanen line (mostly with Steel but a bit with Hryckowian later in the game) was heavily outplayed, primarily by the Harman/Kaprizov/Zuccarello trio and Hughes/Faber on the back end. Two of the Wild’s three 5v5 goals came against Johnston’s line, and the run of play very much supports those sorts of results.

• Without Hintz, the Stars didn’t have a third line to drive play, and that showed tonight. The Hryckowian/Benn/Bäck line couldn’t generate a sniff of offense in their minutes. All this to say: I think we’ll be seeing some different line combinations on Monday.

• Kirill Kaprizov, on his goal tonight:

  • “I had a little more time than I usually have in playoffs,” Kaprizov said. “I saw Zuccy, I just wanted to try to pass to him. Then at the last moment, just shooting on net. A lucky shot.”

    • Forgive me, Kirill, but that was anything but lucky.