Let’s talk about the Stars’ best free-agent signing in a long time.
Last night’s win was all about Matt Duchene.
The Dallas Stars’ prized free-agent signing opened the scoring just over a minute into the game. When the Stars drew their first penalty of the game in the second period, they didn’t even need to go on the power play as Duchene found twine. And when it came to 3-on-3 overtime, an area Dallas hasn’t exactly been great at the past two seasons, Duchene essentially used Thomas Harley’s stick as a backboard to secure the second point.
Duchene’s three-point performance moved him up to 3rd on the team in scoring, just two points behind Joe Pavelski. He is now one of five(!) Stars players to have scored at least 10 goals this season, five(!) of which are game winning goals — only two other players have even two. Oh, and only six of his points have been on the powerplay; he leads the team in even strength points at 21 and is tied for the lead in even strength goals at 9.
All of this from a man earning “just” $3,000,000 this season and is set to be a Free Agent again on July 1st.
Matt Duchene has already cemented himself as the steal of the NHL offseason, a move that, honestly, most people expected when he signed this contract. So the fact that he has somehow surpassed expectations is nothing short of incredible. He has been one of the Stars’ best players this season, and is a big reason why Mason Marchment — who also has 10(!) goals for the season and is tied for sixth on the team in points (21) — looks more like the player Dallas thought they were getting from Florida compared to last year’s version.
It’s been clear all season long that Duchene is going to make bank this offseason. But I think it was last night’s performance that firmly cemented me in the opinion that Dallas should be the one fitting the bill. Yes, he’s about to turn 33. Sure, Dallas would have to work to make the salary cap work (although maybe not as much as you think). But I’m not sure I’ve seen a new player click this well with Dallas since Mats Zuccarello, and we already have a large sample size to back it up.
Extending Duchene will warrant it’s own piece to go into the details, and I plan on writing one before the year’s end. For now, let’s just bask in this incredible play we’re getting from a longtime division rival who’s finally terrorizing for us.
• Jumping back to that second goal, I think delayed penalties are one of the most mesmerizing sequences in hockey that we are too often robbed from seeing. Although it’s also 6-on-5, it’s fundamentally different from pulling your goalie late in the game — there, like with a standard 5-on-4 power play, you have the clock working against you. That forces you to speed things up a bit, which can lead to errors in which the defense can get their stick on the puck and send it down the ice.
But on a delayed penalty? Time has no meaning. You can afford to be “ticky tacky” and wait for the perfect shot. In fact, you kind of have to because, as mentioned above, a single error could lead the defense to get the puck, only in this case that immediately ends the 6-on-5 and the power play goes underway. So when you’re able to set up in the offensive zone, you get a rare case of man advantage where fans aren’t yelling at the players to “shoot!” and can instead just lean forward and appreciate proper setup.
And boy was that 6-on-5 a thing of beauty. I wish I had the means to clip the whole thing, but it was textbook from start to finish. It would have been amazing even if Dallas hadn’t scored, which they thankfully did, because Matt Duchene is amazing. Still get some goosebumps thinking about it.
• Scott Wedgewood had a solid night. He was by no means perfect — the first goal trickled past him, and I think he could have been a little faster on the second, not to mention several other times he seemed to be sprawling out of position — but he was good enough to get Dallas an overtime win. Given the lack of depth in the Stars’ crease, Dallas will need Wedgewood to continue putting in solid work until Oettinger comes back… and even then, given Oettinger’s worrying level of play before the injury…
• Players who didn’t have a solid night? The Stars’ defense as a whole:
Ryan Suter passed the puck straight to Matty Beniers, which directly led to their first goal. Jani Hakanpää completely failed to secure the puck on a dump in by Seattle, directly leading to their second goal. Shortly thereafter, Miro Heiskanen of all players took a needless delay of game penalty, putting the Stars’ lead at risk. And then after the game, it turns out that Thomas Harley, who I thought had a solid night, graded out the worst of the entire team when it comes to #fancystats.
All in all, I think this tweet of mine sums it up pretty nicely:
• Back to positives: I thought Jamie Benn did fantastic on the penalty kill last night. Specifically, there were two moments that stood out to me. The second, and more noticeable, was towards the end of I believe the Kraken’s final power play of the evening. The puck ended up loose in Seattle’s own zone near the boards, and Benn pounced towards it. But rather than try and pass it back to one of his players to maybe get a shorthanded opportunity, Benn just planted his skates and ate up the remaining 20 seconds or so of the power play, the puck only leaving his presence when Pavelski was out of the box and the Stars were ready for a proper offensive zone possession.
The first was a lot more subtle, coming during the second period penalty kill. Benn found himself with the puck in the neutral zone with a Seattle defender right ahead of him. First instinct is to get rid of the puck by shooting it down the endboards, then go change. Instead, Benn waited just a bit, performing a slight juke to the side until he had no more room to go forward before sending it down. It ate up maybe only a second of time, but those little moments add up when trying to kill off a penalty. Veteran skills right there.
• Speaking of penalties, can we just take a moment to acknowledge that less than half of the third period was played at 5-on-5? We had either 5-on-4 or 4-on-4 for 10:40 in the third, and then the 6-on-5 when Seattle pulled their goalie to boot. It was a strange sight to see given that, up until then, the game had been relatively tame as far as penalties were concerned.
• Finally, some good news: this game snapped a five game losing streak when I was in attendance dating back to last year’s postseason. Granted, four of those five games were against Vegas, and the other was against Toronto, but I’m going to tell myself the real reason Dallas won this time is because I wore a different shirt underneath my jersey, because sports superstitions are real (except when they aren’t).