There are many reasons why I wanted to write about last night’s 7-2 win over the Edmonton Oilers, not the least of which is that I 1) was able to watch the night of and 2) actually had time to write the morning after. But the main reason was shamelessly stolen is summed up easily by Robert’s tagline for his AfterThoughts: These Dallas Stars Are Different.
Flash back to last year’s Western Conference Final, the one that cost Pete DeBoer his head coaching job. Yes, throwing Jake Oettinger under the bus was evidently the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it was reported that the locker room’s biggest gripe was the total lack of response to Roope Hintz’s injury. That, evidently, DeBoer specifically told them not to escalate, retaliate, muck it up, however you want to phrase it. That they were to just keep playing their style of game, and the results would speak for themselves. Which, in a way, they kind of did.
As I wrote at the start of the season, once you lose the locker room, you’re essentially done and it’s time to move on. And when hiring a replacement for such a coach, you better be darn sure that he doesn’t lose the locker room for the same reason. So when Glen Gulutzan, assistant coach to those dastardly Oilers, was brought on board and started talking about the team needing to be tougher, there wasn’t any real surprise.
Granted, I kind of rolled my eyes at those quotes, given my long-held skepticism about the important of “toughness” and its actual impact on the game, even at the playoff level (which, if anything, is a self-fulfilling prophecy — if everyone thinks they need to toughen up and referees decide to gradually swallow their whistles, of course it’s going to be tougher — but that’s another story). But perhaps, like always, I should have listened to David:
“I don’t believe for one second that Gulutzan is talking about Dallas needing to hit more and up their scrum counter in order to win. He’s talking about an element of Deep Playoff Run Hockey that needs to be honed before the playoffs ever begin.”
Well there were plenty of scrums last night, but not because Dallas was trying to be some something they’re not and out bully their opponents like the Florida Panthers do. Rather, they played their game, began to quickly laugh the Oilers out of the building, and when the Oilers (as most blown-out teams tend to do) started getting scrappy and aggressive out of frustration, they matched it. They brought the heat, stood up for their teammates, all while staying relatively disciplined, no matter how many times Trent Frederic tried to sucker punch them.
It was exactly the kind of game that Pete DeBoer would have hated, or at least had a very, very stern face about. But not Glen Gulutzan:
Nothing will take back the sting of the Conference Final losses over the last two (technically three) years, especially that 2023-24 team that I am still convinced should have won it all as a team of destiny to send Joe Pavelski off into the proverbial sunset. But sweeping the Oilers this year, outscoring them 19-8 with two five-game blowouts, and finishing it off by showing the very tenacity they were lacking those last two years? Yeah, that makes little fuzzies in my heart.
• The bad man is finally gone, as Stuart Skinner’s replacement in Tristan Jarry is not exactly the franchise savior that no Oilers fan was expecting, but was certainly hoping he would be. Yes, there were various circumstances (primarily the back-to-back) that kept him in the game for the full 60 minutes.. but come on. That was just painful to watch, even as a fan of the opposing team.
Of course, that also made those last two final losses sting even more, because in theory, this is what Dallas should have been doing to Skinner. Alas, there is no changing the past. Although if I could, maybe I’d have made Neil Graham the power play coach under Pete DeBoer — in that timeline, we might be watching a Stars team that is fresh off a three-peat. And before non-Stars fans complain about that, keep in mind Florida would have also been three-in-a-row-losers in this dream scenario. Everyone wins!
• While you certainly never expect seven(!) goals in a game, many of them perhaps shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, Jason Robertson is Mr. Automatic this season, Wyatt Johnston is essentially guaranteed on the power play, and you can always count on Matt Duchene to pull out the dekes and do… whatever the hell this goal was:
Dare I saw we need to consider adding Jamie Benn to that list, at least for the short term? The captain scored twice last night, giving him five goals in his past five games, and seven in his last nine. It reminds me a lot of that 2023-24 squad (I know, I know, I need to get over it) in which, starting mid-March, he scored ten goals in ten games before being held off the board for the last four games of the season. He scored 60 points that season, which was down from his 78 point campaign the year before.
Now, I’m under no delusions of a return to such glory from Benn. But I’ve always liked Benn, both as a player and as a captain, and I’m happy to see him hit a hot streak. And at the end of the day, even without all of the injuries in the lineup, the Stars are going to need all of their forwards to step up and score if they want to make another deep run this year. If this is a sign of things to come, even if not as frequently, that can only be a good thing.
• I mentioned Trent Frederic and his sucker punches earlier. I’m going to try and stay off the soap box, but I was absolutely not surprised that all he got was two minutes for roughing as part of offsetting minors with Justin Hryckowian.
Was it the right call? Absolutely not — evidently, even Dave Jackson had trouble defending the referees on the broadcast (a rarity if not a first) as they essentially punished Hryckowian for making his face available for punching, even after the referees had separated them. But it was still expected, because that’s the reality of NHL officiating: if you get into a scrum, but not a full on “fight,” then you’re getting offsetting roughing minors, pretty much no matter what happens.
So for someone like Frederic, why wouldn’t you keep punching (outside of basic decency)? You know you’re not going to get any additional punishment, plus you already know you’re taking the guy to the box with you. And everyone knows DoPS if a joke, so you won’t get even a finger wag or a sternly written letter from George Parros (who, let’s be honest, probably liked what he saw from Frederic). And so we get crap calls like that, and such behavior is only encouraged in the future. Bringing us back to my views on toughness and-
Okay, okay, I know, I know: no soap box. But still, the point stands: if the NHL had any interest in cleaning up their game, they would have thrown Frederic out of the game and given Dallas a power play at the very least. And to their credit, they eventually did throw him out in the final minute of the game… as part of an offsetting minor with Lian Bichsel, who drew an Unsportsmanlike Conduct for slashing at Frederic in retaliation.
Which, I’m sure, Bichsel and his teammates knew was totally worth it, scoreboard aside.
• Finally, the other reasons I wanted to write about this game were two-fold. First, I actually got to watch this game in a suite(!) along with my parents. We had the good fortune of being brought along by a die-hard Stars fan who actually reads this site (hi Christopher!), and it was an amazing experience with a great view.
But what made it extra special was that I also brought along my 2.5 year old son along for his third hockey game. The only game I regret never getting to write an Afterwords on was his first, which was against the Pittsburgh Penguins last year in which Sidney Crosby and Evgenii Dadanov both scored hat tricks. Which, given their nicknames are literally “the Kid” and “Daddy”… yeah, the Matrix was pushing the whole “realism” thing a bit too far there.
Anyways, that game was magical in that my son went from being scared of the loud noises (even with headphones on) to confused by all the cheering and clapping to pumping his arm forward and back as everyone around him celebrated a goal. Honestly, at the time I didn’t think he would take much of it in… but that entire next week, that 18 month old was still pumping his arm, shouting “Go Stars!” as he ran around, and bringing me his little Zamboni book for Dada to read to him. Every. Day.
Fast forward a year and that kid has now been to two more games, still runs around shouting “Dallas Stars!”, and loves finding “hockey sticks” (tree branches) in the backyard so he can “get the puck out” (the dog’s tennis ball). With apologies to my non-sports fan wife, I think I’ve addicted him beyond recovery.
(I might also add that the other game he went to this year was the Stars’ last (home game) blowout: the 6-1 win over the Boston Bruins. Depending on how the Stars’ matinee game against the Colorado Avalanche goes this April, I will consider petitioning the Stars’ front office for tickets to every home playoff game.)