Yes, I watched Game 1 between the Minnesota Wild and the Dallas Stars. No, I didn’t have time to write about it. So let’s just all agree that it never happened and that the Stars gave the Wild a 1-0 series handicap because they’re nice like that, okay?
Of course, we can’t actually do that. Not because we necessarily need (or want) to rehash Game 1, but because we do need the context of it in order to appreciate Game 2. The Wild’s 6-1 drubbing of the Stars was essentially the perfect game for the visitors, where everything that went right did and everything that went wrong for the other team did. Win the special teams battle? Check. Win the 5-on-5 battle? Check. Have a great performance from your rookie goalie making his playoff debut? Check. Get a bad performance from your opponent’s veteran, franchise goalie making his umpteenth playoff game? Check.
But here’s the thing about perfect games — you don’t get them often. Yes, there were (and still are) plenty of reasons to be concerned about how the Stars would fare against the Wild heading into Round 1. But I’m not sure you could walk away from that game feeling that’s how the entire series was going to go, unless you were just embracing the doomerism early. And that has nothing to do with last year’s Colorado Avalanche series, or the Stars’ horrible performance in Game 1s the past several years — it wasn’t time to panic because odds were, the Wild wouldn’t get another game like that.
And sure enough, the pendulum swung back for Game 2. It didn’t swing all the way to the point that the Stars were drubbing the Wild, but rather returned to the baseline expectation most of the NHL expected from this series: a tight, physical, back-and-forth game. And that’s the kind of series where I give Dallas the edge over the long term, which is why I predicted Dallas to win it in six.1
In fact, if there’s one big takeaway from the game, it’s that Dallas managed to win decisively while not playing their best hockey. This was a team that got outshot 22-16 over the first forty minutes, and yet they held a 2-1 lead. Granted, they looked a lot better in the third, when they inexplicably did not turtle and ended up more than doubling the Wild’s shots on goal, but there was still plenty to be desired (and look forward to) from the team’s overall play.
What gave Dallas the edge (and therefore the win) was twofold. First of all, the Stars’ special teams bounced back after a rough first game — they went 2-for-5 on the power play (although if you cut out those cut short and/or the empty netter, it’s more like 1-for-2 or 2-for-3) while going a perfect 0-4 on the penalty kill. Yes, the Wild were sorely missing Mats Zuccarello (who missed the game due to injury) on their No. 3 unit, but it’s not as if they were lacking firepower. Dallas just a really good job containing them.
But more importantly was that the Stars got an even bigger bounce back performance from Jake Oettinger. The Stars’ starter was, erhm, not very good in Game 1 to put it lightly. But this time around, he looked every bit like the franchise goaltender that Dallas pays him to be2, making some beautiful saves over and over again as he kept every Wild player sans Brock Faber off the scoreboard. Jesper Wallstedt was once again solid, but Oettinger definitively won the goaltender battle by making those key saves when it mattered.
Put that all together and we have a 1-1 series as the teams head to St. Paul, as opposed to a 2-0 deficit that would have Dallas in crisis mode. Yes, they’ve ceded home ice advantage (I’ve spent far too many Afterwords complaining about the 2-2-1-1-1 system given the Stars’ horrible Game 1 performances, so I won’t rehash here), but honestly, is a tied series that surprising after two games? Heck, how many of us expect it to be 3-1 after four (either direction)? There’s a decent chance that home ice swings back in the Stars’ favor, and there’s also a decent chance it ultimately won’t really matter.
At the end of the day, it’s just two really good teams trying to kill each other and emerge from the heap. It’s not really worth it to try and think too far ahead into the series — better to just take things one game at a time.
• Speaking trying to kill each other, boy were there a lot of penalties this game. For what it’s worth, I’m not too upset about the Marcus Foligno penalty getting downgraded to a double minor. I don’t think he was trying to purposefully hurt Thomas Harley (and yes, I know this is Foligno who we’re talking about), and I see why Harley himself got called for interference. So I didn’t really expect the major to stand, all things considered.
That being said, I’m speaking about this in context of my expectations of NHL officiating and concern for player safety. Should that penalty be a major, regardless of intent? Absolutely. If you want to get dangerous plays out of the game, you have to call them, no matter the time or situation, which includes playoffs, the other player also committing a penalty, etc. But as George Parros and the NHL Department of Player Safety have proven time and time again, the NHL doesn’t really care about player safety.
So me not being “upset” is more so to do with me being dead inside when it comes to those kinds of plays as opposed to actually thinking it was just “playoff hockey, baby!” You want playoff hockey? This is playoff hockey:
• Out of all the penalties, though, the most amusing was by far the Wild’s last. The Stars’ too-many-men penalty was just mortifying, given it was a one-goal game with only a few minutes remaining. But the Wilds’? I mean, all I can say is how? You have all the time in the world to get set up for the extra attacker, and you just.. do it before your goaltender even leaves the net? Heck, why hadn’t Wallstedt left the net yet? Just a weird yet hilarious sequence all around.
And yet, somehow, that wasn’t even the funniest part — that belongs to the goal itself, which gave us this sequence from Quinn Hughes:
In every sport, you’re taught to not give up until the whistle/the play is over, and this is a textbook example of why. Would Hughes have been able to catch the puck had he not let off the gas right before it veered left? Honestly, I think so if he was willing to dive for it. But even if not, the optics on that are just bad — it’s not as if he was hesitating before booking it, but rather he made the active decision to let it go, even though the puck was going to be dangerously close to the net. I think the only fans who enjoyed watching that clip more than the Stars’ were Vancouver Canucks’.
Oh, and the cherry on top was that the empty netter was technically a power play goal, and so of course Wyatt Johnston score it. Like I said: very funny.
• Finally, Wyatt Johnston’s other goal of the evening, the first of the night, was also a bit fluky. But you can’t say the same about Matt Duchene’s tally, and definitely not about Jason Robertson’s. The Olympic snub (yes, I’m still bitter) isn’t exactly scoring a hat trick every game like I would have hoped, but he is continuing to do what he always does: score goals (yes, even in the postseason). I mean just watch it again — what an absolute beauty, a perfect tip from a stellar shot by Nils Lundkvist.
- I also had the Pittsburgh Penguins (currently down 2-0 to the Philadelphia Flyers) winning the East. So, uhh, take my predictions with a grain of salt. ↩︎
- Are we sure it’s coincidence that I, a very proud and vocal Jake Oettinger supporter and fan, just so happened to be too busy to write about his Game 1 disaster but could write about his Game 2 triumph? ↩︎