It was 3-0.
You’re probably sick of hearing that, or saying it, or even thinking it. But it doesn’t change the reality: the Dallas Stars had a 3-0 lead last night. Before the end of the first period.
I mean seriously, think about that for a moment: the Stars were less than 48 hours removed from a tight Game 7 against the Vegas Golden Knights, a.k.a. the defending Stanley Cup Champions. The Colorado Avalanche meanwhile hadn’t played a hockey game since April. By all accounts, Dallas was coming into the game under less than ideal circumstances.
And yet they were able to secure an early 3-0 lead. Perhaps it was simply rust from the Avalanche. Or maybe slaying the dragon in Vegas had lit a fire in Dallas, to the point where no one could beat them now. That’s certainly what it felt like in that first period, with Dallas walking all over Colorado. It looked like we were going to get another Boston Bruins vs. Florida Panthers game, where the Bruins, also coming right off of a tight Game 7 (that went to overtime!) to face a well rested team (on the road!), absolutely crushed the competition.
But then the second period happened, and Dallas absolutely collapsed.
It would have been one thing had Colorado simply “woken up” and were playing at a high level again. Or another thing if their success was only coming on their two power play opportunities, which, let’s face it, they were always going to get after Dallas got three straight man advantages to start the game — as much as we complain about referees being inconsistent, they’re fairly predictable when it comes to how they try and keep playoff games called “equally,” as if that was the same as calling them “fairly:”
No, the issue was that Dallas absolutely got steamrolled in the second period by the Avalanche. After outshooting them 9-5 in the first, they were outdone 11-3 in the second, and honestly I’m surprised they managed even that many shots on net. Things were a tighter 6-4 in Colorado’s favor for the third, but the result was still that Dallas had managed only 7 shots on net in 40 minutes of play, less than what they had managed in the first 20.
And it was a damn shame too, because boy did Alexander Georgiev look full of holes. Dallas seemed to have his number, proving that the Avalanche’s biggest weakness as a contender laid between the pipes. But that’s the thing about facing a leaky goalie — it means absolutely nothing if you fail to pressure them whatsoever.
Now, to the Stars’ credit, they were finally able to do that once overtime came along. Suddenly, the Stars looked like they did the first period, and were relentlessly hounding the Colorado goaltender. But this time around, he stood tall, and as soon as Dallas managed to tie Colorado back up with 22 shots apiece, things swung back the other way. Then cue the fresh, lightly played Miles Wood able to zip past Miro Heiskanen and dosey doe the puck around Jake Oettinger for the win.
Thus Dallas lost in a game that should have never gone to overtime to begin with. They blew a 3-0 lead, which in hindsight, maybe shouldn’t have been too surprising. Yes, partially because the wear and tear from the Vegas series was going to show more as the game went further along, but mostly because blowing leads to Colorado is what Dallas has specialized in all year long:
The bad news is that the rest of the game was a case study on how to beat the Stars. And if I were an NHL head coach… well, my team would probably have just won the draft lottery and be about to draft Macklin Celebrini. But if I was for an NHL head coach for either Colorado or Dallas right now, I’d feel better about heading into Game 2 were I in the Avalanche’s shoes. And not just because they won Game 1.
• There’s no way that Roope Hintz isn’t dealing with an injury, perhaps a couple. It’s been a likely reason for his… let’s call it “subpar” performance all postseason long, but it felt like a certainty when he got his shorthanded “breakaway” last night on the Avalanche’s second power play. Whereas normally he’d be able to turn on the torches and get a Grade A scoring chance, he instead looked slow, and was forced to turn around and stall until he could find someone else to pass it off to. When that failed, he tried to cycle it back, and while it certainly wasn’t the reason for it, Colorado was able to score some ten odd seconds later.
Now, let me be clear about that sequence: that is absolutely the right thing to do if you can’t manage to pull away for the scoring opportunity. It’s much better to eat up time and let your teammates get a potential shift change than to just dump it away. So kudos to Hintz. But it still highlights how sorely the Stars are missing the best performance from a player who, when at said best, is arguably their best forward.
Furthermore, hurt or not, I think Hintz’s complete lack of impact on the ice is doing a number on his psyche. We saw it last series against Vegas, where he seemed to have no confidence in shooting the puck and would instead make one too many passes to give someone else the chance. We saw glimpses of that tonight, and then in the dying seconds of regulation, when he did make the shot to try and give Dallas the win, he missed. Badly. Which does absolutely nothing to help that confidence.
Injuries are a problem for every team every postseason, including those that come right off the bat. But when facing off teams with several elite forwards like Colorado, it sure as hell hurts when one of the elite forwards you have to match is more or less shelved.
• Stealing this from the Stars Discord (although it was a comment made only after the first two goals), but the three Colorado players who scored in regulation were absolutely the last people Stars fans wanted to see score, huh?
First you had Valeri Nichushkin, the first draft pick of the Victory Green era who fanned out in Dallas after a promising start before immediately becoming a top-end player in Colorado after leaving (not to mention the off-ice issues concerning his leave from last year’s postseason that has left a bad taste in many fans’ mouths). Then you had Cale Makar, who will forever be compared to Miro Heiskanen and yet seems to be in a class of his own as the nearly undisputed best defenseman in the world. (though I still maintain my long term stance that if the picks were reversed, so would the hockey world’s praises be).
And then it was Nathan MacKinnon, who, beyond being a really good hockey player on a rival team, has no real reason for dislike from the Stars fanbase outside of the fact that he’s an NHL golden boy who the talking heads won’t stop, well, talking about. Ever. I’ve actively avoided any media revolving the Colorado perspective, because I’m sure it’s heaped on praise for MacKinnon and his game-tying goal, not to mention his top line’s excellent performance all game long. I mean, he deserves the praise he gets, but it makes my eyes roll all the same.
• Wyatt Johnston. That’s it. That’s the bullet point.
• Okay but really, Johnston is making his early case for the favorite to win the Conn Smythe should Dallas end up lifting the Stanley Cup at the end of this, and if he were to keep playing at this level up until then, I’m not sure it’d be particularly close. His goal was a thing of absolute beauty, and for a moment there I could have sworn he was about to net the game-winner in overtime.
• I don’t really want to talk about the whole “five defensmen” thing at risk of sounding like a broken record, but between that, going to Game 7 against Vegas two days prior, and then having to play overtime, you could tell the Stars defensive corps was a little worn down. And yet, Pete DeBoer remains steadfast in believing there are no better options, to which I may have to begrudgingly concede at this point.
There is an asterisk to that though, which is Lian Bichsel. The Texas Stars play tonight, with a chance to complete a sweep against the Milwaukee Admirals. If they win, there’s little to no chance he gets called up and plays the next night in Game 2, but if they’re still in between rounds for Game 3 on Friday? I think you have to heavily consider it. I mean, even if they put him in for only four minutes a night as well, he has to be an upgrade over Nils Lundkvist during that small amount of time, right? And there’s a chance he breaks through and is just the breath of fresh air your blueline needs.
• I already touched on officiating and how those two Colorado power plays were inevitable, regardless of when they came, and how, wrong or wrong, that’s to be expected. But I did want to touch on the embellishment penalty briefly.
First of all, I’ve always been firmly on team “either/or,” meaning it should either be called for a penalty or embellishment, not either. Yes, I know that’s not how the rule works, but I just hate the idea of how someone could be, say, tripped and then get penalized for it, because what, he acted like he got tripped worse than he did? It’s nonsensical, and it completely undermines the whole point of the embellishment penalty: to stop players from doing it. I mean, if taking a dive either grants your team a power play or, at worst, keeps you at even-strength, just at 4-on-4, you’re still well motivated to dive, right?
Now, as far as this particular scenario, again, I get it: the referees don’t want to “influence” the outcome of the game, which, as per longstanding practice, means they want calls to be even, not fair, and will swallow their whistle more often than not, even though the act of not calling penalties influences the outcome of the game just as much as calling one does. But what I don’t get is this: why make the call in the first place if you’re just going to call embellishment to “make it fair?”
I mean, 4-on-4 is much different than 5-on-5, and while it didn’t result in anything, I’d argue that those two minutes favored Colorado, not Dallas. Which means, by calling two penalties in an attempt to not influence the game with just a single penalty, the refs arguably influenced it more than just calling zero penalties, which is something they’re totally fine with doing 90% of the time. Why not just let the call go and let play go on, and the fans boo and we all move on? Did you throw your hand up by reflex, only to think, “Oh crap, I cant’ give a team a power play?” Or was this some weird flex of, “See, we call late penalties in tied games, and we do it against both teams!”
Look, in a perfect world, refs would consistently call penalties regardless of the situation, and player behavior would change accordingly. But that’s never going to happen, at least not under Gary Bettman, so can we at least stay consistent when it comes to not calling penalties?
• Finally, I still think Dallas takes this series, all of my pessimism baked into the piece aside (I got to watch Dallas blow a 3-0 lead in person — sue me). But I think they really need to take Game 2 in order to do so. Yes, they just came back being down 2-0 against Vegas, but you can’t exactly make that a recurring habit if you want to actually go far this postseason.
Take care of business at home, then do your thing on the road. It’s as straightforward as that, even if actually accomplishing that goal is a bit more complicated.