To paraphrase the great Robert Tiffin, I’m more annoyed than anything.
In Game 1 against the Vegas Golden Knights, there was a feeling of disappointment in the air, as well as a worry of, “Here we go again.” In Game 1 against the Colorado Avalanche, it was a feeling of emptiness after the Dallas Stars blew a 3-0 lead. And now, for Game 1 against the Edmonton Oilers, the feeling is somewhat in between: just annoyance, if not outright frustration
Because the Stars are the better team in this series, full stop. Heck, they looked like the better team in last night’s game, if you’re looking at things from a big picture perspective — they just didn’t play like it. Whether it was the large stretch without a single five-on-five shot on net in the first period (somewhat masked by the Oilers own inability to get the puck on net), looking completely lost and shut down to start the third, or their inability to get setup in the offensive zone, the Stars simply looked like they weren’t playing up to their talent and potential.
Then again, none of those are the reason why Dallas deserved to lose. No, that belongs to the powerless play, which went 0-5 for the evening. The first three were just sad, with the Oilers penalty kill putting on an masterclass performance of killing clock time by consistently winning faceoffs and killing zone entries, leading to clear after clear after clear. The Stars had, what, four shots on net total during those three opportunities? If even that?
But then there was the fourth and fifth, courtesy of a a double minor to start overtime. I mean, penalties in sudden-death pretty much never happen, and full credit to the referee crew for making the (late) call so that they could review it and quickly verify it — this is what replay reviews should be doing for the game. So to get a practically unheard of opportunity, all while taking the best player in the world in Connor McDavid off the ice for four minutes straight with the man advantage? That’s the sort of opportunity you feast on to win the game.
And to the Stars’ credit, they looked a lot better on the power play than they did the previous three (although it’s hard not to clear a bar that’s set below sea level). They got several quality chances, and Jason Robertson even hit the iron in back-to-back shifts. When the Stars needed to score a goal most, they were very, very close to doing so.
Of course, almost is not good enough — as the power play started, the thought on my mind (and I imagine many fans’) was, “If you don’t score here, you lose the game.” And, well, that’s exactly what happened, even if it took until the start of the next overtime period to get there. It was the result Dallas deserved, regardless of how well the Oilers’ penalty kill has been doing (nineteen(!!!) successful kills in a row) — you simply can’t go 0-5, including a double minor in overtime, and expect to win the hockey game.
So yeah, annoyed. Frustrated. One might even say miffed. Alas, such is the life of playoff hockey, a roller coaster of emotions no matter how well your team is (or isn’t) playing.
• If there’s a silver lining to the loss, it’s that Edmonton hit pretty much every checkbox they needed to beat the Stars — the top players showed up, they won the special teams battle, and Stuart Skinner played well, great even! — and they still needed double overtime in order to secure the win. To contrast it with the aforementioned Game 1s against Vegas and Colorado, I didn’t really come away from the game with a sense of, “yeah, the Oilers are going to be a problem.” If Dallas is able to make proper adjustments, as they’ve been able to all postseason, Game 2 should go much, much better in their favor.
Then again, I have tickets to Game 2, and the Stars got shutout the last two times I went to a Western Conference Final game, so…
• Lest David Castillo come and strangle me, I won’t touch on this too much, but I found it interesting that Connor McDavid, who had the game-winning goal and an assist, seemed to have an off-game (to the point that he himself said he needed to be better in his post-game interview), yet the #fancystats paint things in a very positive light for him:
Conversely, the Stars’ shutdown pairing of Esa Lindell and Chris Tanev had a very rough night, although that one isn’t as surprising to me:
What else isn’t surprising: Tyler Seguin grading out clearly as the Stars’ best player, followed by Jamie Benn and Evgenii Dadonov from an offensive perspective. They were buzzing last night, to the point where I was convinced that if Dallas was going to win in overtime, it had to be from one of those three players (especially after Robertson kept hitting the post). On the other hand, while you have to give credit to Stuart Skinner for putting in a great performance, it’s hard not to think that with literally any offense from the rest of the Stars, specifically the forwards who should be leading the way for Dallas, Skinner might have come out of the game worse for wear.
(Oh, and can we go back to the Edmonton chart real quick and just marvel at Evan Bouchard? He was already a good defenseman, but he has been downright elite if not better this year, and will be the number one reason as to why this year is different if the Oilers manage to win the whole damn thing).
• I thought Jake Oettinger had a great night, except for that second goal against:
Putting the defensive breakdown aside, my initial thought was that it was a soft five-hole goal to give to Zach Hyman. Then I listened to Sean Shapiro break it down from a goalie perspective on the Spits & Suds podcast — essentially, he pointed out that, as a goalie, you’re sometimes forced to choose between kicking out to stop the opposing player from taking the puck around you and staying put to keep the five-hole covered. He felt that Hyman’s stick work was indicative of trying to go around, hence Oettinger started to move, and then Hyman did what most players (who, not coincidentally, don’t score 50+ goals in a season) don’t and quickly bit back to punish Oettinger by aiming at the five-hole.
Watching the goal back with that analysis in mind… ehhh. Look, I’m not a goalie, and I don’t pretend to know the first thing about their thought process and technical work, but I think Oettinger still opens up the five-hole a bit too early. With two defensemen there (as ineffective as they were), it would be a lot harder I wager for Hyman to kick it outside and force Oettinger to move, so I would think he’d show a bit more patience. And I think if you were to ask Oettinger about the goal, he would want that back 10/10 times, even without the benefit of hindsight.
• Finally, plenty has been said about the Stars’ complete inability to win Game 1s, which was looking like a Dallas thing in general before the Mavericks actually won their own Game 1 the night before. But let me leave you off with my own, professional-grade analysis as to why the Stars keep going down 1-0 in every series they play: