Wild vs. Stars Game 6 AfterThoughts: A Long Summer Arrives

And much too soon, for this group

Song of the Game

The world won't turn until something breaks
Who will make the first last mistake
They say that good things come
To those who wait

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This was a series where Minnesota punished Dallas for its mistakes more than the Stars could do to the Wild. It was always going to be that series, really.

These two teams are even, and this game pretty much showed why. After a dominant first period that Minnesota could’ve used to put the game to bed 20 minutes in, Dallas ended up hanging around and striking back, even taking a 2-1 lead in the game, much as they took a 2-1 lead in the series.

And unfortunately, the rest of the game played out pretty much the same way. When Minnesota made it 4-2 into the empty net, the series was concretized in the Wild’s favor. They will have the privilege of facing a well-rested Colorado Avalanche team with no discernible weaknesses.

Was this Jamie Benn’s last game as a Dallas Star? If so, it ended with Glen Gulutzan giving him a chance to do one last bit of heroism. Instead, Benn ended the night by losing a puck under extreme pressure, with sticks battering his body high and low until he went down to a knee, unable to stay on his feet under the onslaught. It might be a metaphor, but it’s certainly a reality: Jamie Benn and the Dallas Stars simply couldn’t match what Minnesota brought to these six games.

Part of that, and perhaps a large part, was due to injuries. Dallas was on the other end of it last year against Winnipeg, but this time they were just too shorthanded to get that goal at that time. And even the players they did have didn’t always look as healthy as they could have been .

Jake Oettinger only truly got beaten for one goal in this game, and letting Quinn Hughes get one past you from the front porch is hardly shameful. Still, the Stars just couldn’t generate the sorts of looks against Wallstedt that you need to beat a confident young goalie, and that’s an indictment of everyone and no one at the same time.

As Gulutzan said after Game 5, the Stars needed more from everyone, top to bottom. They got a five-on-five goal from Mavrik Bourque tonight, and that should’ve been huge. Instead, Minnesota countered quickly with a Tarasenko goal, and that was probably the last sniff the Stars had.

And as Gulutzan said after tonight’s game: On balance, Dallas just allowed too many of the better-quality chances than they were able to generate.

“With the territory that we had, and the territory they had, we didn’t make them work hard enough for their Grade-A’s.” Gulutzan said. “And they’ve got great players. They capitalized.”

Gulutzan reiterated that point later in his presser tonight: the Stars simply gave Minnesota too much, and the Wild’s top guys were too good not to make something of those opportunities. To put it another way: Dallas made more mistakes, and the Wild capitalized on them efficiently. That’s how you get to that five-on-five scoring disparity.

You don’t get to 112 points in a season without being good, and really good. Just because the second-best team in the West loses a series to the third-best team in the West doesn’t invalidate that fact, and given how this series shook out, I’m hard-pressed to say Dallas needs to tear stuff down. I’m sure some hurting fans want to see big changes, and surely there will be changes of some sort before September. But given all the contracts in place right now, it’s hard to see the team looking terribly different from this one, other than being a lot healthier, and either a more or a lot less Jason Roberton-er.

The more you go back and look at this series, I think the more you’d have to acknowledge that the Wild probably deserved to win it. Dallas had a path to victory, but it required some circumspection on their part that a beaten and battered group just couldn’t manage. A couple of sloppy penalties, a bad goal or two, and a few too many defensive breakdowns were clear evidence of that fact. The Wild were just better-positioned to win this series, for factors in and out of either team’s control.

Again, these were two of the best teams in the NHL. Winning a fight like that is as much about who can stay standing as it is about landing punches. And the Wild were all about landing as many punches as they could in this one, by which I mean Marcus Foligno.

There’s a melancholy feeling any time a season ends, but especially when it feels like it could have gone another way without too many bounces going the other way. I’m always hesitant to overemphasize one team’s shortcomings as a whole because the other team won four games in a six-game set.

Still and all, Tyler Myers wasn’t able to fill in for Nils Lundkvist, but then he really wasn’t ever supposed to, it turns out. Michael Bunting was decent tonight, and perhaps he could have done something earlier in this series, had he drawn in for someone. But for whom? If Bäck scores that shorthanded chance, there could be a whole paean to his spot in the lineup, and how the penalty kill foursome of Steel, Blackwell, Bäck, and Faksa kept the Stars in this series long enough for a hero to emerge in its latter stages. It wouldn’t have taken much for that to be the case: just one degree of separation between that outcome and the one we got.

We’ll dissect things more tomorrow and in the coming days. The Texas Stars lost in overtime tonight as well to even their playoff series 1-1, so at least the misery has been spread around the state tonight. Commiseration is some consolation, and that’s something like comfort.

Highlights and the Lowdown

The game would not start well, and Quinn Hughes would Make a Play against the fourth line to get the all-important (except when it’s not) first goal. Hughes came in late on a zone entry, got a pass as the trailer, and wafted his way to the inner slot, firing a puck home to make it 1-0.

The fourth line would be caught out on the ice for another shift not too long after the goal, and they and the third defense pair had to shelter in place for nearly 90 seconds. No goal was scored, but one ought to have been when Marcus Foligno got this pass on a rush, only to mystifying decide to deke it back into Jake Oettinger’s pad on this look, letting Dallas off the hook:

Dallas’s injury woes got even worse after a Marcus Foligno stick caught Rantanen after follow-through. Rantanen’s head hit the ice, and he would be taken down the tunnel for what seemed like a concussion protocol necessity, and Dallas finished the first period without him.

There were bright spots, albeit small ones. A good Lindell pinch & keep would lead to an Ilya Lyubushkin slapper for Dallas’s third shot on goal of the period, but that came after almost 18 minutes into the contest. A nice Duchene move at the top of the circles would set up a Lian Bichsel one-timer through traffic, but Wallstedt’s left pad kicked the puck out smoothly.

Dallas would dish out a bit of its own pain with an Alex Petrovic hit on Nick Foligno at the bench, putting the elder brother in some pain after what looked like his hip and/or ripcage hit the edge of the boards. But Nick Foligno would end up dishing out a hit of his own later on.

All told, a 1-0 first period deficit was almost a gift for the Stars, given how heavily Minnesota had been outskating them in the period, as you can see:

Rantanen would indeed return for the second period, as would the Steel-Duchene-Benn line. Unfortunately, that line would take a penalty on a play where Duchene got whistled for cross-checking by the referee in the neutral zone:

It ended up helping Dallas more than anyone, however, as Minnesota’s power play gave up more shorthanded looks than they generated themselves, and Dallas got through it with ease.

Second period lines were shaken up for the top nine thus:

Robertson-Johnston-Rantanen
Steel-Duchene-Benn
Bunting/Bäck-Hryckowian-Bourque

Dallas would get their own power play when Trenin interfered with Bunting off a faceoff, and the Stars would score on the power play, by which we mean Wyatt Johnston would score from his office on a razor-thin margin of passing lanes from Mikko Rantanen:

Suddenly, the game was tied, and Dallas had life. The loaded-up Roberton-Johnston-Rantanen line got a full shift in the offensive zone, but stop me if you’ve heard this one: they didn’t score. A later shift in the second with multiple great plays to keep the puck in likewise resulted in everything but a goal or a penalty.

We also got the QueBäck line back in action, and they likewise generated some good pressure. In other words, everyone but Blackwell and Faksa was getting some chemistry-based reunions in the second period, and when Faksa did get a shift, he got tagged for holding Jake Middleton, sending Minnesota back to the power play.

Bäck would make a big block on the kill, and a weird Heiskanen fall opened a shot lane that Oettinger narrowly closed down at the last minute, with the crossbar perhaps getting a piece of the puck as well. This power play looked much more dangerous, but looks aren’t everything (as my friends frequently remind me).

Mavrik Bourque and Michael Bunting would combine to do the impossible late in the second period and score a five-on-five goal. I am not making this up:

It was simple stuff, but sometimes that’s what you need in the playoffs. (First NHL playoff goal for Bourque, too.)

Minnesota would get their own good bounce a minute later, however. A point shot got 99% of the way to the net, where Vladimir Tarasenko had a lot of net to shoot at after taking it with a sly little collection, and the right angle victimized Jake Oettinger a foot in front of his crease:

Yes, McCarron is holding Heiskanen’s stick here, and it wasn’t called. But also, Heiskanen probably could’ve helped himself out by not gesticulating for the call, and instead getting his stick back into position a moment earlier.

Dallas probably could have scored more than two in the period, but after the way the first 20 minutes went, taking a 2-2 tie to the final period of Game 6 was a perfectly cromulent result.

Joel Eriksson Ek went down the tunnel early in the third period after losing an edge and going feet-first into the boards:

Quinn Hughes nearly punished the Stars’ fourth line again, but Oettinger this time was able to make the stop. Unfortunately, Mikko Rantanen took a retaliatory cross check on the next shift after not getting a call when his stick was ripped from his hands, and Dallas would have its third kill of the game to do.

But Oskar Bäck and the penalty kill took care of Rantanen’s error, and a great rush by Bäck that nearly got through Hughes for a shorthanded goal at least led to a slashing penalty on Steel to get Dallas to 4-on-4, and an eventual power play.

Dallas wouldn’t score on the residual power play time, but escaping the initial penalty kill still felt like a win, considering how foolish Rantanen’s penalty had been.

But this series has been one with bounces going Minnesota’s way, and that trend held true on a Quinn Hughes shot that looked designed to backboard off Ilya Lyubushkin, which it did:

That shot came after Dallas didn’t manage the puck well themselves, and a failed clearance ended up making them pay dearly with nine minutes to play in their season.

The top guys came out for Dallas and hemmed Minnesota in, but as has been the case all series, Dallas couldn’t punish Minnesota in any meaningful way. Mavrik Bourque pulled off some more of his excellent work shortly thereafter, but with similarly little to show for it.

Lian Bichsel went down the tunnel after taking a big hit from Nick Foligno along the boards, and then Mikko Rantanen laid out Jared Spurgeon behind the Wild’s net. Both plays were legal, and no penalties resulted.

Dallas got an offensive-zone faceoff with 3:16 to go, and Oettinger was pulled. Nothing much happened, and a minute later, Dallas got another one. Mavrik Bourque was brought on for this one, and his play to that point deserved it.

But Dallas couldn’t get that chance. Jason Robertson outmuscled Kirill Kaprizov on one of a few clearances Minnesota got with the puck begging to be put into the net. For the moment, the game was still in play. It was the latest moment of outstanding effort from the Stars winger, and Kaprizov lost position under Robertson’s wonderful pressure, keeping the game alive for a few seconds more.

So Dallas got one last chance, and a Matt Boldy turnover inside the blue line looked like A Moment, as Jamie Benn got the puck and curled toward the point. But he would get his arms and legs hooked sufficiently enough to turn the puck over, and that would be that.

The Stars were never getting that hooking call at that point in the game (colloquially referred to as “Prison Rules Time”), as the referees were making it clear that Dallas would have to fight through it to equalize. Instead, Benn stumbled, and Matt Boldy easily stashed the turned-over puck to ice the game. A second Boldy empty-netter from distance in garbage time would be added on later.

There is much to be said about the Stars’ season, and we will do in the coming days. Tonight, all you can really say is this: Minnesota got one more bounce, but they also made one more play and got one more save. In this series, it was always going to come down to precisely that.

Lineups

Dallas started with this lineup:

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

Harley-Heiskanen
Lindell-Lyubushkin
Bichsel-Petrovic

Oettinger

Minnesota tried this:

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

Hughes-Faber
Middleton-Spurgeon
Bogosian-Petry

Wallstedt

After-AfterThoughts

• Marcus Foligno was Doing Things in this game, by which I mean a lot of this:

• Colin Blackwell didn’t play hardly any 5-on-5 time in the second period, but this play in the third period nearly put him in the “hero” column for the night:

• Lian Bichsel went down the tunnel after this hit by Nick Foligno late in the third period:

• Matt Boldy played over 24 minutes. Quinn Hughes and Brock Faber both just shy of 30. I’m not sure that’s going to go as well against Colorado, but credit to the Wild’s top D-pairing: they were incredible in this series.

• Thomas Harley led the Stars in ice time tonight. The Heiskanen-Harley pairing looked good, but the Stars’ top D-men weren’t able to do what the Wild’s top pairing did in this series. Heiskanen was on the ice for all three Wild goals past a goaltender.

• That Tarasenko goal was just cruel stuff. A stick-hold on Heiskanen that the officials decided was legal in a Game 6 (as often happens, in fairness), and a perfect sequence of a point shot that gives Tarasenko an easy duck. The first goal by Hughes was a great play, but other than that, Minnesota simply didn’t have to work hard enough for the goals they got, and that’s a tough thing for Dallas to reckon with.

• Obviously doesn’t matter now, but Harley (or whoever that is at the right point) also got high-sticked right before Benn lost the puck that led to that empty-net goal:

  • But again, Chris Rooney and Peter MacDougall weren’t going to call anything short of a gunshot wound in the final ten minutes of that game. And officiating wasn’t what lost Dallas this series anyhow.

• That hit to Lian Bichsel was concerning in the third. I suppose he has all summer to recover, but the way he was holding his arm wasn’t good. (EDIT: it was pointed out to me in the comments that Bichsel played at the very end of the game, so he was at least ambulatory.)

• Getting outscored 14-4 at 5-on-5 is going to lose you a lot of playoff series. The how and why of that margin has been and will continue to be discussed, but it’s a fact that will linger for a while.

• Genuinely curious: Do you think Minnesota rides this momentum to a thrilling, competitive series against Colorado, or do the rested Avalanche pretty much run roughshod over the Wild’s bottom half of the lineup? The depth is pretty clearly in Colorado’s favor, even if Josh Manson isn’t healthy by Game 1.

• Then again, maybe you have no desire to talk about that series, which I can understand. Get some sleep tonight and eat a healthy breakfast tomorrow. We’ll talk later.