For most years in the Victory Green era, I would say the Dallas Stars would have been considered to be a “One Line Team.” At first it was Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, and whoever they slapped net to their wing. Then it became a “superline” team when they threw in Jason Spezza into the trio, followed by Alexander Radulov. And who could forget the “Minutemen,” Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz, and Joe Pavelski?
That narrative has died down in recent years thanks to the Stars developing some stronger scoring depth (at least in theory). So last night was a throwback of sorts where, due to a plague of injuries forcing the Stars to go 7-11 with many key forwards out of the lineup, the Stars decided that their game was going to revolve entirely around three players: Robertson, Wyatt Johnston, and Mikko Rantanen.
It’s not as if the rest of the lineup played poorly or anything — in fact, they did an admirable job against the Edmonton Oilers team. But from my point of view, the Stars’ gameplan was to put the heat on Edmonton whenever their top line was on the ice and to “punt” whenever they weren’t. That is, they were okay with three forward lines not doing much on the ice, so long as it meant the Oilers were similarly quiet at the same time.
And… it worked? I mean, the Stars entered a 2-0 hole early on (big surprise there), and they never held a lead the entire game, but they still managed to win 4-3 in the shootout, with every single goal (shootout included) being powered by their top trio — two goals and an assist for Rantanen, an assist and shootout goal for Robertson, and three assists and the shootout game winner for Johnston.
It wasn’t just a scoresheet thing either — looking at the entire game, there was a pretty clear drop off after the Stars’ top skaters and the rest of the squad:
(Yes, I know I’m purposefully glossing over a certain defenseman. Patience, young padawan).
Now, is this a winning strategy long term speaking? Of course not, especially not against teams with deeper forward depth than the Oilers. But when you’re dealing with injuries, you sort of have to make do with what you’ve got. The Stars did just that and better — I was happily surprised that the Stars even made it to overtime, let alone walk away with two points, but the #fancystats paint a picture of a team that got their well earned win, not a team that “stole” one. From Money Puck:
So you should feel good about last night’s win, and I’m sure the Stars do too. And you should also feel really good about how that top trio looked together — I know they’ll probably be broken up once Roope Hintz returns, but personally, I’m not so sure I would…
• While the focus here is (rightfully) on the top line, there were still a couple noteworthy performances from other Stars forwards. And when I mean a couple, I literally mean a couple. Again, from Money Puck:
Tyler Seguin, who was honored last night for hitting the 1000 games mark on Saturday, continues to put in quality work night in and night out, even though he’s a long time removed from the point-per-game player he was in his prime. You can tell how much he (and the Stars) miss Matt Duchene, as having another quality scoring forward on a line with him would skyrocket his point production.
Mavrik Bourque, meanwhile, was very noticeable, even though that wasn’t always a good thing — the turnover before the Oilers’ third goal sticks out in my mind, but that was a sour ending to what was otherwise a very good shift by the Stars’ sophomore. All of the pieces are there for Bourque, he just needs to piece them together and the point production will follow, which would be a huge boost for Dallas. Unfortunately, the more and more time goes on, the more and more I worry about whether we’ll get to see that “click”.
• The true highlight skater of the evening (outside of the top line), however, was Miro Heiskanen, who put in arguably his best performance of the season. My brother, who was still watching the first period on tape, texted me about how the broadcast characterized Heiskanen as one of the “Top 3 defensemen in the league” — not even a minute later, in real-time, Heiskanen scored the game-tying goal.
But the real highlight of his performance was when he took Connor McDavid to the cleaners in overtime, effortlessly stripping him of the puck and to start a rush going the other way. And it wasn’t the only time he shut down McDavid last night. Ever since his debut, Heiskanen has been one of the (very) few players on the planet who seems to be able to consistently defend the best hockey player in the world. That’s not to say he hasn’t lost those battles with McDavid before, just that his defensive skills might be second to none, even if he doesn’t always get credit for it.
I guess what I’m really saying is that NHL Awards voters better start turning out for Heiskanen every season, regardless of his point totals, because I am dreadful of a day where Heiskanen’s Hall of Fame candidacy is sold short because, “wHy DoEsN’t He HaVe A nOrRis?”
• Speaking of overtime, I 100% expected Dallas to get smacked by the Oilers at 3-on-3, and I think Glen Gulutzan might have as well — when the Oilers led off with McDavid, Draisaitl, and Bouchard, he countered with essentially a penalty killing unity of Heiskanen, Esa Lindell, and Sam Steel. But the Stars played really well across the whole five minutes, with both teams looking evenly matched.
• Speaking of Gulutzan, remember earlier this season when I talked about how he had gotten the Stars scoring early again, instead of team constantly giving up the first goal(s) and having to play from behind? Good times, good times.
• None of those goals, by the way, were the fault of Casey Desmith, who started a little shaky but quickly locked in and performed well the rest of the evening. Both the first and the third goals were direct results of bad decisions by the Stars’ skaters, namely Ilya Lybushkin abandoned his man to give Vasily Podkolzin and easy first goal and the aforementioned Bourque turnover to allow Edmonton to set up McDavid to do McDavid things.
Heck, even the second goal could be directly linked to the cross-checking penalty by Esa Lindell (which, hot take, I don’t think was as soft as others complained) fifteen seconds prior. Also, it can be directly linked to Leon Draisaitl being an absolute maniac of a goal scorer, somehow capable of scoring from that angle, not to mention his absolutely filthy shootout goal.
• Meanwhile on the other side of the ice, I can say with confidence that Stuart Skinner is the absolute worst goalie I have ever seen at rebound control in my life. How the Stars failed to punish him for it for two straight years is truly mind boggling.
• Finally, it was Mikko Rantanen bobblehead night, so it was fitting that Rantanen scored his 300th career goal as part of his three point performance. But lesser known was that it was also apparently “free mullet hats night,” and we were absolutely robbed of Rantanen scoring a hat trick and watching all of those hats get immediately returned to the AAC.
Maybe he’s just saving the hat tricks for the playoffs.