Maybe it’s the “lifelong Dallas Cowboys” fan in me, but I often default to being a sports pessimist.
Case and point: this is a text I sent to my dad and brother last night when watching on a major tape delay (they had finished as soon as I started):
I also want to point out that while I sent that after the second period, I was thinking it as soon as the Edmonton Oilers went up 3-1. In fact, my comment then was that the game was starting to go exactly how I feared after the first period, a world where Edmonton began to run away with things while the Stars, much like last year, just couldn’t put points on the board. So yeah, I wasn’t exactly optimistic.
Luckily for all of us, I think my complaints transcended space and time, as the Dallas Stars retroactively heard me and immediately made me eat crow — just minutes after sending that text, I watched as Miro Heiskanen cut the lead in half as he beat Stuart Skinner, who was being screened by Mason Marchment and the entirety of the Oilers’ penalty kill. A few minutes after that, I watched as Corey Perry, the lovable guy he is, take a dumb high-sticking penalty against Sam Steel, which led to Mikael Granlund (who has been outproducing the other Finn recently) to snipe another past Skinner.
Then a couple minutes after that, I watched as Evander Kane, the lovably guy he is, take a dumb high-sticking penalty against Matt Duchene, who then proceeded to score his first of the playoffs (finally) almost immediately, although I imagine Roope Hintz wished he had scored on his first shot.
Six minutes: that’s all it took from the start of the period for the Stars to go from a 3-1 deficit to a 4-3 lead, less than the length of an episode of Bluey. That’s all it took for me to go from writing the eulogy early to knowing that the Stars were going to win without a doubt. Heck, I felt that before the game-winning goal — my text to my family right after I saw the Kane penalty was, “No chance we don’t score here.”
Now, you might say that after watching Edmonton squandering a two-goal lead in such a short time frame that I shouldn’t have been so confident. After all, if you had to pick a single team to score (eventually) five goals in a third period to complete a comeback, I think everyone would pick the Oilers for Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl alone. But that’s harder to do when you get soul crushed right off the bat in the final frame, as what happened to the Oilers. It wasn’t the biggest choke of the playoffs (shout out to the Colorado Avalanche and St. Louis Blues), or heck, even the biggest choke of the evening (shout out to the New York Knicks), but it was up there, and it felt like there was no bouncing back from that.
So, what does it all mean going forward? Well first of all, Dallas somehow won a Game 1 again, not to mention their first at home since 2016. That guarantees I get to watch another playoff game in person (I have tickets for Game 5) unless the Stars sweep the Oilers, which I would take as an acceptable consolation prize.
As far as things that actually matter, however, it puts Dallas up one win over Edmonton, not to mention it alleviates a lot of the concerns they had going into the series. 0-for-14 on the power play last year? 3-for-4 last night. Secondary/depth scoring starting to fade? Five non-empty net goals, with only one (Granlund) coming from one of the usual suspects. Stuart Skinner building off of his back-to-back shutouts to close Round 2? You saw the part about five goals, right?
Of course, not all was sunshine and roses — the only reason the Stars were able to flip the script for a stellar third period comeback is because they were, uhh, not great up until then. They seemed to be letting McDavid and Draisaitl skate all over them at the start of the first, although things got better after Edmonton took the early lead. But then the second… well, the less said about that better. And, of course, we can’t expect the Stars to win solely on special teams with three back-to-back-to-back power plays in the third period every game (although considering a large reason for the Stars losing last year was due to the lack of special teams success…).
But not every game is perfect, and sometimes you win games you should have lost. And since this was not one of those games considering how the third went down, Stars fans should feel pretty good about the team heading into Game 2.
• While the focus of the evening was (rightfully) on the extremely successful power play, it’s not as if the Stars couldn’t score at even strength. Or, more aptly, it’s not as if Tyler Seguin couldn’t score at even strength. After watching a completely ineffective first power play followed by Leon Draisaitl immediately scoring a very pretty goal on Jake Oettinger, Stars fans were admittedly a bit dejected. But then came Seguin, picking the puck away from Draisaitl and earning himself his own pretty goal on a breakaway. That right there was vintage Seguin, the types of plays that were commonplace far too long ago at the start of the Victory Green era.
Of course, Seguin has been no slouch this season when healthy, as evidenced by his second of the evening, also known as the dagger that sealed the Oilers’ fate. That was just a beautiful tip off of an absolute dazzling deke and backhander by Sam Steel. Last night, I thought that maybe the puck would have gone in anyways, but looking at it again this morning and I’m pretty sure it was going to sail over the crossbar, so full credit to Seguin for getting that done.
• Linemate Matt Duchene was also no doubt glad to get the monkey off of his back as he ended his goal-scoring drought this postseason. He was one of the Stars’ three 30-goal scorers this season and first in points (four and second respectively if you count Mikko Rantanen), and he looked due in those last few games of the Winnipeg Jets series. If they monkey stays gone and Duchene is able to shake off his postseason struggles in Dallas, then that’s a very good thing for the Stars and a very bad thing for three other teams.
Speaking of players looking to get going again, Jason Robertson picked up a secondary assist and a good screen on Mikael Granlund’s game-tying goal, but he’s still without a goal (and just two points) across seven playoff games. That’s not what you’d love to see from your leading goal scorer in the regular season who was just shy of a point-per-game place.
…except whenever people bring up that criticism of Robertson, it seems like they fail to mention how he missed the entire first round due to injury and (in my opinion) looks like he’s still not 100% and is just playing through it, cause that’s what you do in the playoffs. So maybe it’s a cop out, but I’m not placing top line scoring expectations on Robertson, especially since the Finns are doing a quality job of that already. I still would like to see him get on the board more, of course, but let’s just say I’m not putting his face on a milk carton anytime soon.
• No surprise here, but Jake Oettinger played really well last night. Out of the three goals he gave up, I think he would probably only want Draisaitl’s back, as pretty as it was. The other two goals, like the first, were the result of Dallas letting an Oiler get all alone for an uncontested shot, but were different in that they came from high danger locations. Granted, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins only got in such a position due to a very unfortunate bounce, but this is about goaltending, not puck luck.
(Side note: I thought Nugent-Hopkins had a very good game. But it also made me think: is he the most milquetoast No. 1 overall draft pick of all time? Outside of hitting the century mark the same season McDavid managed 153 points, he’s been consistently good, but not great, and nowhere near a bust. He’s just a guy out there playing well and producing, and that’s about it.)
Stuart Skinner, on the other hand… I mean on one hand, it’s tough to bash on a goalie when they’re mostly surrendering power play goals, given the inherent disadvantage. But on the other hand, 1) he still let in five total, and 2) you can hardly hold him blameless for the three power play goals. The one that sticks out to me most Heiskanen’s, in which Skinner was screened by no less than four players. That usually gives you a free pass… except the puck was clearly on his right, and then when it cycled up to Heiskanen (still on his right), he tried looking past Marchment to his left, while standing up(!). Not to mention immediately to the left of Marchment was the first Oilers defender blocking his view, so it’s not like it even gave him a better viewpoint!
So yeah, not a pretty game from Skinner. Were Calvin Pickard healthy, there’s a good chance Skinner would have gotten chased from the net, and would almost certainly not be playing for Game 2. But he isn’t healthy, and is in fact not even with the team in Dallas, so the Oilers just have to hope he rights the ship again.
• Finally, I haven’t had much to say about the broadcasts this postseason, but something that ground my gears last night: when talking about how the Stars had two No. 1 defenders thanks to Thomas Harley’s play (yay!), they talked about how Heiskanen had already been the first… for the past “few years.”
I mean, what? In what world has Heiskanen — who was arguably the Stars’ best player as of his first NHL shift, who earned Norris Trophy votes his second season, who scored 26 points in 27 playoff games at 20 years old and was potentially two wins from a Conn Smythe, who has routinely been brought up every offseason as a potential Norris finalist if not winner were it not due to his “low” point totals — only been a No. 1 defenseman for a “few years?”
Am I irrationally angry about this? Maybe. Should this side comment made while singing the praises of another Stars player be living rent free in my head twelve hours later? Of course not. But it is, and so I will remain bitter.