I’m not sure I’ve ever been as frustrated about having a lot of high danger scoring chances as I was last night.
Over and over again, it felt like the Dallas Stars were able to turn the heat on Logan Thompson and the Vegas Golden Knights. And over and over again, Thompson seemed to be vulnerable, unable to control rebounds and putting him in positions where Dallas could capitalize.
Yet time and time again, nothing came from it. Unlucky bounces? Maybe. Vegas clogging up in front of the crease? Perhaps. Whatever the reason may be, the Stars’ goal scorers seemed to always be the bridesmaid, never the bride, as shots were either narrowly saved or the puck never quite found its way on the right stick, save for Jason Robertson’s lone power play goal.
And then, even those opportunities began to dry up. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come when Dallas went ten minutes without a shot on net after five in the first five minutes, but the bounce back to life gave me hope that Dallas would continue to pressure Thompson all night. Instead, it mostly died down, especially in the third period where Vegas did what it does best: defending a lead not by turtling, but absolutely suffocating the opposition.
The result was just that singular goal for Dallas, in contrast to the two (non empty-netters) against. A terrible turnover and perhaps poor defensive positioning gave Jack Eichel and Jonathan Marchessault a two-on-none which ended up exactly how you would expect. And, of course, in a night where Dallas couldn’t secure a rebound to save their life, Noah Hanifin was able to pounce on one perfectly to snipe one past Jake Oettinger.
You for sure can’t blame Oettinger for the first goal against, and the second wasn’t really his fault. Maybe you could argue that it was the sort of save he needs to make, except that he was already making those saves last night. When Vegas dominated Dallas at 4-on-4, Oettinger was there. When Dallas lost the war of attrition and looked lost throughout the final period, Oettinger was there. He did everything you could reasonably ask of him, and he was rewarded by getting just a single goal from arguably the deepest forward group of the postseason.
It was a night where you expected Dallas to storm back and show everyone why they were the top seed in the West and nearly the President’s Trophy winner. And they did just that… for the first five minutes. Otherwise, the game ended with a whimper, and the Stars are now looking at a 2-0 hole to Vegas, just like last year. Only this time around, they’re now heading to Vegas instead of coming back to their comfort of their own home.
Then again, Dallas had the best record in the NHL on the road this season, and it’s not like heading back home helped them much last year. But at the end of the day, this is a team Dallas has lost to each of the five times they’ve played this season, having gone 2-9 dating back to last postseason. The Stars are good enough to storm back and make this an even series, but the question is whether they can actually do it. And quite frankly, I have my doubts.
• The sad truth about playing Vegas in the first round was that it was essentially unavoidable, even in alternate realities. 1-8 conference seeding? Dallas plays Vegas round one. 3-point system? Dallas plays Vegas round one. The only world in which Dallas could have feasibly avoided them is one in which the top seeds are allowed to “draft” their playoff opponents, in which case Dallas would have snapped up Los Angeles immediately.
It’s an idea that has gotten traction as of late, especially since the PWHL adopted it for its inaugural season. Cynics will (perhaps rightfully) argue it wouldn’t do much in the NHL, as NHL owners and GMs are cowards who would just pick the lowest seed anyways, but this is one of the few cases where an NHL team would absolutely not have done that and gotten zero blame or criticism for it. I mean, who wants to play the defending champions in Round 1 when they’re getting everyone back from injuries, especially when you personally match up poorly against them?
While the Stars were never going to get a cupcake matchup like the New York Rangers (or the Carolina Hurricanes, for that matter) due to how brutal the West was this year, it still feels like they should have been rewarded for getting the top seed, instead of punished. This is the one system where winning the conference can’t come back to bite you (picking an opponent and then losing doesn’t count), making it a sensible change for the NHL to at least consider.
This, of course, being the NHL, means that this will never happen. Unless we all reverse psychology Gary Bettman into thinking fans would absolutely hate this change, and oh please keep things the exact same way I’m begging you.
• Okay, I supposed there’s one other way in which this could have been avoided: a play-in round, in which Vegas might have been elevated to the first Wild Card or been knocked out entirely. But I’m a grumpy guy who thinks 16 playoffs teams out of a 32 team league is plenty, thank you very much — if you can’t even crack the top half of your conference, you don’t deserve a playoff spot.
• It’s funny: last year, everyone was worried about Jason Robertson being invisible to start the playoffs. This year, he’s been the Stars’ best player by far, scoring two goals, making good off-puck moves, and absolutely leveling Mark Stone to the amusement of Stars fans:
Dallas has the roster of a Stanley Cup favorite, and despite matching up poorly against Vegas, they’re still the better team and should be winning this series (or at least be tied). But unless everyone steps up and reaches that next level, this may go down in Stars history as their best team ever to do go absolutely nowhere in the postseason.
• Back to the Stone hit for a second: I can’t remember if it was before or after the hit, but the ESPN broadcast commented on the boos every time Stone touched the puck. They claimed he was “public enemy number 1” for Dallas fans because… he scored the first goal of the series.
Hilarious, right? I mean, I’m sure the NHL has put a gag order on openly talking about the LTIR circumvention, but to say something so ridiculous is just laughable. Just give a vague reasoning like, “He’s unpopular this time of year,” or just don’t provide one at all. Don’t insult the intelligence of your viewers.
That all being said, I’m officially over LTIR complaints/discussions, which will by far be the most annoying thing to endure if/when Vegas wins this series. Yes, Vegas is over the cap. Yes, it’s loophole abuse, meaning it’s legal but unfair. But Dallas is still the better team on paper, and they have the results to back it up. If Dallas loses this series, it’s not because Vegas “cheated” — with the way they’ve played so far, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.
• Finally, I want to do a stick-tap over to Robert Tiffin, the original purveyor of Afterwords, who recently launched a new website. If you want a more classic Afterwords feel (complete with opening song lyrics), I highly recommend you check out his “AfterThoughts” from last night’s game. Robert has such a way with words and analysis that I could never capture in my own postgame pieces, and it’s never a bad thing to have more Stars content to read… especially since I’m not sure how much Stars news we’ll be getting for the foreseeable future.