Wild vs. Stars Game 4 AfterThoughts: Parity and Disparity

Special teams dominance wasn't enough tonight

Song of the Game

I haven’t felt this way I feel
Since many a years ago
But in those years and the lifetimes past
I did not deal with the road

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The last time Dallas lost a playoff game in overtime, it was to Connor McDavid and Glen Gulutzan, in May of 2024. Since then, the Stars had come up with the overtime heroics four times in a row between last year and this.

But alas, they play the games for a reason, and this time things fell the other way. Minnesota couldn’t score from the most dangerous areas, but two point shots and one bounce from below the goal line were enough to win the game.

Minnesota will make much of the fact that they once again outscored Dallas handily at even-strength. Goals at 5v5 are 9-3 to the Wild so far in the series, and while Dallas once again didn’t get outplayed at evens tonight—shots were 45-43 for the Stars, and xG/scoring chances were similarly close—they did once again get outscored. Eventually, the results start to speak more loudly than the process, and Dallas is facing the reality of those results with the series tied 2-2.

“Both teams can defend,” Mikko Rantanen said postgame. “Both teams can play offense. We gotta find a couple bounces in [our] five-on-five game. Go to the net and get lucky.”

That’s the right mantra, if you’re Dallas. The Stars are getting close, and they’re getting good looks. There’s a reason both of these road games went to overtime, and it wasn’t because Oettinger was having to stand on his head (though he did come up with some enormous saves when called upon). It’s been a pretty even series, with Dallas’s special teams dominance being now equaled out by Minnesota’s even-strength goal-scoring.

The luck was on Minnesota’s side in this one, no question, but they didn’t win it on that account. Sure, they got two goals off some good fortune—one bounce off Heiskanen’s glove, and Foligno’s off the side of the net—but they also got the game winner on a prototypical “playoff goal” process: Boldy sneaked to the netfront behind Lindell and Myers (who was busy giving the business to Eriksson Ek), and Boldy had complete liberty to reach out and tip a shot going wide back in behind Oetinger.

“When you look at their goals, they got some sticks on pucks,” Glen Gulutzan said. “And just kind of the same way, we just couldn’t. We hit a post there on the wraparound, and we just couldn’t get any puck luck. So we’re going to have to start to finish off some, get some sticks on some of those pucks.”

Going down to five defensemen halfway through the game could’ve been a galvanizing moment, had the Stars hung onto their 2-1 lead in the third period. Instead, the cost of asking players to play higher in the lineup became more apparent as the game wore on. The Stars’ third pairing was asked to play a ton, and their struggles to beat the Minnesota pressure led to tons of momentum in the wrong direction. Nils Lundkvist has become very important, but it’s unfortunate that it took this game to demonstrate just how important.

Here’s what that overtime looked like, by the way (ignore the ice time totals at the right, which hadn’t updated as of this screenshot). You can see the 3:30 shift for Myers (and nearly as much for Bichsel) pretty plainly.

Yes, the Stars had their chances, especially early in overtime. Shots on goal were only 11-9 for Minnesota in the fourth period. But the Wild’s dominance of the puck felt much more dangerous, particularly whenever Heiskanen or Harley wasn’t on the ice. That’s what happens when you’re playing shorthanded, and Nils Lundkvist’s absence was very painfully felt—though likely not as painful as the cause of his absence.

Gulutzan said Lundkvist had a “deep facial laceration,” and said he didn’t know if a hospital visit had been required or not. With two more off-days, Lundkvist could either have time to get stitched up and ensconced in a bubble, or else the injury will prove bad enough to make the requirements of playoff hockey a non-starter. The Stars will miss him dearly, if so.

It was painful to watch a couple of those failed clearances by the third defense pairing tonight. You almost begin to feel it coming when the puck falls off a stick, not quite getting elevated on its way out of the zone. I’d imagine the players themselves felt the same.

Still and all, the Stars had the game there for the taking, with Johnston’s wrap attempt going off both posts and getting eventually cleared by Hartman in the paint with his glove, narrowly avoiding a penalty, to his credit. Hartman had also, much less to his credit, just laid a pretty targeted hit on Justin Hryckowian into the end boards, which you can watch way down below if you want. It wasn’t a penalty, but it was the type of player Hartman is, just like his goaltender interference on Jake Oettinger earlier in the game. Sometimes, a team benefits from players like that, and tonight was that night.

Miro Heiskanen looked as good as he has since returning tonight, and that’s no small boon to Dallas. Thomas Harley likewise had a couple of chances to do something special, but just couldn’t quite do so. The most frustrating thing about this game for Dallas will be not just the loss, but how close they came to taking a 3-1 lead back to Texas. They’ve been on the side of a Game 4 that swings momentum the other way, and this game wound up feeling like one that could certainly prove to be that. But then again, this series has been tight enough to where any momentum outside of an individual game is likely more narrative than experience, for the players.

Jake Oettinger was outstanding tonight, full stop. He gave his team four periods’ worth of chances to win this game with just a single 5v5 goal, but for over 140 minutes now, Dallas hasn’t been able to find one. That’s not a fun feeling for a team, though I can’t imagine Minnesota’s reflections on the special teams situation are all that sunny either.

Sam Steel and Arttu Hyry looked very good on the third line tonight, though Jamie Benn didn’t quite have the pace to match them, at times. He wound up playing the fewest minutes of all 12 forwards, and there were times you might have found yourself wondering if Blackwell or another winger might get a spell up there. Then again, Benn did feed Hyry for three gilt-edged chances to win it in overtime, so maybe we’re just reasoning after the fact here. Benn did draw a penalty as well, though I’m sure Wild fans might have a different idea about what should have resulted from that incident, where Benn’s own stick was lifted into his face.

Jason Robertson and Matt Duchene continue to look dangerous, but they need to be dangerous at 5-on-5, too. Tonight, they weren’t quite as scary at evens as they might have been, and you’d like to have seen them punish Minnesota during one of those extended offensive-zone stretches. Instead, none of them resulted in goals or power plays. It’s tough to win when your best moments don’t bear fruit.

If Lundkvist can’t return for Game 5, the Stars have two more right-hand shots: Alex Petrovic and Ilya Lyubushkin. I think Lyubushkin is probably a tick higher on the depth chart right now, and he’s got chemistry with Harley. Then again, the Stars could also move Myers up with Harley and slot Petrovic in with Bichsel, his familiar D partner from last year’s playoffs. Both of those options speak to the fact that the Stars would probably just be better off getting Lundkvist back, though.

My last real bit of noodling tonight is about the five-on-five offense. Gulutzan has said all year that the idea is for this team to be better at creating in-zone offense. Last year’s team was rush-offense dependent, as Edmonton showed, and Dallas is supposed to be more capable of grinding teams down with O-zone pressure.

Tonight, they got the pressure, but they weren’t able to thread any of their most dangerous chances off that pressure past the goaltender. Most of them didn’t even create scrambles for rebounds, either. That’s a credit to the Wild’s defending, but it’s also a bit of an indictment of the Stars’ shot selection.

5-on-5 shots, Game 4 - HockeyViz.com

Regardless, it’s not like the Stars are going to radically redesign anything after that game. It wound up being a coin flip, and Minnesota got three tails-up before Dallas could land three heads-up. It was close, but the odds of Marcus Foligno scoring another clutch goal like that one are probably not the sort of odds you count on. The Stars would be better off not relying on coin flips in Game 5, however. And if they can find a bit more even-strength offense to complement their special teams domination, they probably won’t have to.

“Where the heck is the TURN ON FIVE ON FIVE GOALS button on this thing?”

Highlights and the Lowdown

John Hynes started the game by matching the Eriksson Ek line against the Duchene trio (rather than waiting for the Johnston/Rantanen duo), and the ice was initially tilted the other way. Jason Robertson took eight seconds to put a shot on Wallstedt, who easily gloved it down, and the Stars won the next faceoff to create some pressure as well.

Minnesota laid a few hits on Dallas, as Marcus Foligno and Matt Boldy stepped up with clean hits. But Ryan Hartman would end up causing issues for his own team by plowing into Jake Oettinger after getting in behind Heiskanen with a break. After the Stars’ goalie made the save, Hartman didn’t divert his pathway, and he got two minutes for goaltender interference.

And from there, the Stars power play did what it does, creating a couple of good looks before Robertson got the one he needed to score his fourth in four games, making it 1-0 early:

Marcus Foligno dealt two more hits on Esa Lindell shortly after the goal in an effort to invigorate his team. The Wild continued to look to agitate things as Boldy and Eriksson Ek came in to stand in Oettinger’s grill, and Mavrik Bourque took exception to that. He went after Matt Boldy, and he sat for two minutes as a result.

After a good kill with some especially nice work by Faksa/Back and Tyler Myers, the Wild got a second power play at the very end of the set after a stick-lift by Lian Bichsel apparently caught a glove, and he was given two minutes as well:

But the penalty kill once again bowed up, and the Wild power play would wind up getting booed as it went 0-for-2 in the meekest way.

Jason Robertson nearly scored again when a Jared Spurgeon pinch got caught by a bouncing puck that led to a 2-on-1, but Wallstedt’s glove caught up to Robertson this time. And in true hockey fashion, a save at one end would lead to a goal at the other.

Or at least, it sort of did. The primary cause of the goal was not Brock Faber’s shot, or even Wallstedt’s save, but Miro Heiskanen’s questionable decision to play goaltender a few feet in front of an otherwise un-screened Jake Oettinger. It didn’t go well, and he caught the wrong piece of the puck to deflect it past his goaltender. Thus, the game was tied.

Kirill Kaprizov and Quinn Hughes nearly grabbed the lead on successive plays, shortly after that, but Oettinger did the job both times, and Dallas survived long enough for Steel to get a Grade-A himself after a Wild turnover. Faksa bumped the puck over, but Steel couldn’t find net with his chance under pressure from the netfront.

The Stars would finish the period by getting whistled for their third penalty in 18 minutes when Wyatt Johnston’s stick got up and hit Middleton’s face. And this time, the Wild would manage to put the puck into the net on the power play, but only after Eriksson Ek launched Heiskanen into Oettinger from behind, and the goal was immediately waved off.

Minnesota had the option of challenging the call, but given how clear it was (and how unlikely goaltender interference getting overturned seems to be these days), they opted not to do so. Dallas would kill the rest of the penalty, thanks to Oettinger and a heroic Oskar Bäck block, and the Wild had a tie game but an 0-for-3 power play after 20 minutes.

The second period opened with both teams spending well over a minute in the other team’s zone, but with neither goaltender quite being asked to do anything spectacular. With the long change, Dallas was able to get the Duchene line out against a gassed Minnesota line following great work from Faksa and company, but the dagger was not able to be found.

It looked certain to come on the next shift, however, when the Johnston line outworked Eriksson Ek in the offensive zone, leading to a second straight hem-in with the Stars able to get fresh bodies on the ice with the bench right at-hand. This time, Harley would sizzle a puck after 3:13 of trapping the Wild’s best line on the ice, but despite some traffic, Wallstedt was able to collect and freeze it fairly easily to bail out his team.

Gulutzan put Harley out with Heiskanen and the Johnston line off a Minnesota icing halfway through the game, and you wondered if we might see more of that as the game progressed. This time, it didn’t result in anything.

After another great shift by the Kaprizov line in Dallas’s zone for the better part of a minute, Oettinger was called upon to make a huge save on Ryan Hartman all alone, and he did just that. Wallstedt would match him shortly afterward with a massive let-off for Hughes and Faber after Robertson picked the puck off both their sticks and tested Wallstedt.

Nils Lundkvist nearly caught Michael McCarron’s skate in the worst part of his face, as he got whistled for tripping the big center only to catch McCarron’s skate blade in the cheek for his troubles in a scary moment.

Lundkvist was listed by the team as questionable to return in the third period, but the Stars played most of the second half of the game with five defensemen, as you could understand when seeing close-up replays of the injury.

(Fair warning: it’s a painful watch.)

The Wild’s fourth power play had some dangerous moments, but the booing crowd would end up watching the 10th straight Dallas penalty kill, and the Stars got things going after that, including a Mavrik Bourque hit on Jake Middleton into the bench.

After that, Brock Faber lifted Jamie Benn’s stick into Benn’s own face in front of the Minnesota net with just over two minutes left in the second period to give Dallas their second power play of the game. It wasn’t a penalty, but because it was only a two-minute minor, the call couldn’t be reviewed, and Dallas got its second power play of the night.

And once again, the Stars would do what the Wild couldn’t, as Duchene found Heiskanen in the slot with a no-look pass from below the goal line. And Heiskanen redeemed his error on the Faber goal in style, whipping a puck past Wallstedt’s glove hand to give Dallas a 2-1 lead right before the end of the second period.

It wound up being an utterly dominant second period for Dallas, outshooting the Wild 17-4. And after going 2-for-2 on the power play, Dallas put Minnesota in the unenviable position of having just 20 minutes in which to erase a deficit, lest they go down 3-1 in the series.

Jake Oettinger had to make a huge save on Marcus Johansson after a Lian Bichsel turnover at the blue line, and he did just that, flashing the blocker arm after Johansson got a Boldy feed right on the doorstep off the break:

Jason Robertson and the Stars could feel the Wild’s nerves, and Minnesota put Kaprizov up with Boldy and Eriksson Ek in a load-up effort with desperation being required.

With that said, Robertson ought to have drawn another power play when Robertson was chopped down in transition, but given the Benn penalty shouldn’t have been called, you could say things evened out.

Oettinger continued to be tested as we got down to the final ten minutes of regulation. After making an important save under pressure, Bobby Brink deflected a point shot off the post that Oettinger never saw. But then Dallas got their own look, though it nearly cost Justin Hryckowian his life, as he got hit into the boards right before a scramble at the goal line that somehow didn’t get put away:

And once again, a just-about chance by Dallas was followed by a fortunate bounce for Minnesota at the other, as Marcus Foligno found a lively puck off the end boards that he shot off the net, off Oettinger, and was tapped in by Foligno to make it 2-2 with five minutes to go.

Hryckowian fed Rantanen off an entry play with a diagonal pass just after the goal, but the puck was just too far ahead for the Stars to complete the counterpunch.

As it would happen, Dallas’s best chance to avoid overtime came when Heiskanen picked off a Johansson clearance with six seconds to go and ripped it into Wallstedt’s glove from distance in a moment that quickly quieted the crowd.

But quiet or otherwise, the crowd would once again be treated to some bonus hockey, and the teams went to overtime with Dallas still down to five defensemen.

Overtime

Johnston led the Stars into the Wild zone with a good rush that looked dangerous, but didn’t wind up being so. But Dallas kept coming with shots from distance, and then when Minnesota finally looked like clearing the puck, Tarasenko got his pocket picked at the blue line, leading to an extended pressure sequence that saw Bogosian make a very painful shot block. Thomas Harley would also test Wallstedt after the Stars got a look off a break as well.

Lian Bichsel and Tyler Myers then found themselves witnessing Minnesota’s heavy pressure, and neither defensemen could cleanly flip a puck out, turning it over time after time. And even when the Stars were able to get the puck out, Myers wasn’t able to change. When the dust settled, Tyler Myers had gutted out a 3:30 shift, but the Stars had somehow survived it.

Kaprizov nearly ended it after a Harley turnover, but Harley also came up with a big block or two to clean things up. Foligno and Bichsel then collided when Marcus tried to turn the corner on Bichsel, only to find no corner awaiting him other than Bichsel’s check.

It was an overtime that then tilted entirely to Minnesota, but Jake Oettinger refused to cede the game in spite of what his teammates were doing (or not doing) in front of him. This save on Eriksson Ek was yet another sign that the Stars’ goaltender was giving them every chance to Do Something.

Arttu Hyry nearly did, as he got what looked like a Colin Blackwell moment, or maybe three of them, firing puck after puck after puck at the net from in tight. But with none of them getting past Wallstedt and his teammates at a crowded netfront, the Stars wouldn’t get many other looks.

Oettinger would come up with another critical save on Boldy after a puck went around the net and popped right out to the Wild’s winger, only to have Oettinger stretch and seal the ice.

The Wild looked to have won it when a rebound popped out to Boldy, but he put it in with a distinct kicking motion, and he knew it. (Nice play in soccer, though.)

Bichsel and Myers fouled up an exchange in their own end, and that meant Oettinger had to once again bailed out his third defense pairing with a glove save on Johansson to pause things. But Dallas continued to struggle to exit their zone, and a Faber shot later into another failed breakout forced Oettinger to lean back and fall onto a puck that looked like squeaking through.

As the first overtime was about to end, the Stars allowed one too many point shots, and a wide-open Matt Boldy easily reached out and tipped one in with 29 seconds left to give Oettinger, at least, a defeat he absolutely did not deserve.

With two more off-days, the Stars will have to prove that they can let this game vanish from their psyches before Tuesday.

Lineups

Dallas stuck with what worked in Game 3:

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

Lindell-Heiskanen
Harley-Lundkvist
Bichsel-Myers

Oettinger

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Minnesota:

Kaprizov-Hartman-Brink
Johansson-Eriksson Ek-Boldy
N. Foligno-Yurov-Tarasenko
Sturm-McCarron-M. Foligno

Hughes-Faber
Brodin-Spurgeon
Middleton-Bogosian

Wallstedt

After-AfterThoughts

• Zach Bogosian reportedly left warmups early for Minnesota, but he nevertheless ended up taking that sixth spot on the blue line in place of Jeff Petry, who would be next up. Bogosian only played about 11 minutes in that marathon Game 3 on a pairing with Middleton (who played similarly few minutes at 5v5).

  • (When you’ve got Hughes and Faber though, why wouldn’t you lean on them?)

• I liked this pair of stick checks by Tyler Myers on the penalty kill early:

• How about this block from Oskar Bäck? (And how about Quinn Hughes opting not to shoot on this chance to begin with?)

• In the first period, Dallas created as much pressure in one minute of power play time as Minnesota was able to do in six minutes:

  

  HockeyViz.com - First period PP shots

• How scary was that skate blade on Lundkvist? Genuinely one of the sharp-intake-of-breath moments.

  

• Matt Duchene has had himself the best playoff series of his time in Dallas, and particularly on the power play:

  

• I’m sure Wild fans will use Benn’s getting hit with his own stick as an example of diving by Dallas. I’m equally sure that Stars fans will respond by pointing to power plays being 4-2 in Minnesota’s favor at that point. Physician, heal thyself?

• Anson Carter and Paul Bissonette both said they didn’t love the Hartman hit on Hryckowian as he was already engaged with a Wild skater here. Thankfully, it didn’t go any worse for Hryckowian.

• Here are some final time-on-ice totals for you:

  • Lindell 34:17

  • Heiskanen 33:33

  • Harley 28:49

  • Myers 27:25

  • Bichsel 21:36

    • Quinn Hughes 37:21

    • Brock Faber 35:47

    • Matt Boldy 29:52

    • Eriksson Ek 28:44

• Minnesota leaned on their top guys a tad more than Dallas did tonight. One would expect they’ll continue to do so.