(2024 Playoffs, Round 3) Game 6 Stray Observations: Edmonton eliminates Dallas in six

That's -- unfortunately -- all, folks.

This was supposed to be Dallas’ “easiest” test. That wasn’t to insult the Oilers, so much as it was to credit Vegas and Colorado, two former Cup winners in the last few years. Surely a team that just got taken to seven games by Vancouver (maybe the biggest paper tiger of the tournament) would be — if not easy — then easier?

Nope. Dallas is done, in a year that felt like “the one.”

We talked about why Edmonton deserved to be taken seriously. And I think there’s an entire separate story about what the data was seeing that maybe we missed, but my first instinct is that the data only identified a superior opponent than the one most of us gave them credit for: not that they were better than Dallas. But that was my takeaway coming out of this series. Edmonton looked, played, and executed like the superior team.

This is where I feel like the attention now turns to Dallas management. Any fantasy trade deadline had the Stars trying to upgrade the top four, as well as upgrading their bottom pairing. That didn’t happen. Not only did it not happen, it turned out to be critical, as Pete DeBoer intentionally went with five defensemen despite dressing six when Jani Hakanpaa was injured. No team has ever tried that, and the Stars seemed to provide proof of concept: it should never be tried. We could go on and on, especially with regard to special teams.

But let’s give credit where credit is due on Dallas’ end too. They knocked out two elite teams on route to the Western Conference Finals. They had Edmonton on the ropes even when players like Roope Hintz and Chris Tanev were out of the lineup. A team doesn’t just magically wind up in the Conference Finals twice in a row, with serious potential to do it again. That’s where the Stars will find themselves next year. Again, this is not to deflect from the very real concerns that warrant reflection. But if you had told me that Dallas would need to beat — not knowing the order — Vegas, Edmonton, and Colorado in order to get to the Cup Finals, how would confidently say they could? Especially when you account for the Stanley Cup Playoffs being such an endurance test.

It’s the end of the road for the 2023-2024 Stars squad, but not the journey. (Or so we hope)

Mavrik Bourque draws in

I thought Bourque looked solid. I didn’t care for where they put him, mainly because Joe Pavelski had been such an anchor for so long, but it wasn’t a reason to go ham. Oddly enough they both looked good. Bourque did what he’s done all year: getting to the net in layered ways, and generating chances off the forecheck. I didn’t think he looked out of place at all. Beyond that, he’s earned a spot in next year’s lineup as far as I’m concerned; might as well get a head start.

I made a crack about the circular logic of NHL readiness on Twitter. “Prospects are good enough when you need them, but not when you don't.” That probably came off as more argumentative than I intended, but Bourque and Philip Broberg were two players who had earned their stripes well before their coaches leveraged them for a last resort. Maybe let’s stop waiting until then, huh?

Joe Pavelski and Ryan Suter’s last game?

It was kind of bittersweet seeing Pavelski, who has struggled all playoffs, put in what I thought was his best game of the playoffs. For one game, his body reminded him of who he used to be, and while it wasn’t always perfect — a lot of bobbled pucks and blown passes to go with the shots he got off — it still probably put a smile on most people’s faces.

However, losing to Edmonton is a fresh wound, so I can’t ignore the negative side. Pavelski’s presence punted entire shifts for Dallas. He really was that bad. One of the biggest criticisms of Pete DeBoer is Steve Spott (which we’ll get to) is that they gave all the rope he could never handle. Pavelski was the fourth-most used forward in the playoffs. That simply can’t happen, and it’s probably the reason I get so prickly about prospects not getting a shot — Pavelski was awful, but still got a tone of icetime, including the third-most minutes on the power play. “But he’s good at deflections.” You can’t score in other ways on the power play?

As for Suter, he had a good run, and looked like a player with a second wind; at least until the Edmonton series. Then he became a liability up and down the ice. There’s a human element to all of this, and I appreciate it, and I hope fans do too. But when the good stories are this bad on ice, then you’ve gotta decide — do you want to win the Cup or do you want to go home?

Special teams

There’s plenty of time to talk about this, and I know people are rightfully upset. If you didn’t see the tweet from Sin Bin Vegas, here it is:

• 2019 SJS: 2 for 13

• 2020 VGK: 3 for 22

• 2021 VGK: 0 for 15

• 2023 DAL: 3 for 11

• 2024 DAL: 0 for 14

• Total: 8 for 75 (10.7%)

That’s ghastly, and it’s a pattern. If you saw the story on Steve Spott and Pete DeBoer’s relationship then you know they’re a package deal. But let’s face it. If you can expect this team to throw away opportunities like this when it matters most, then you’re gonna start asking what that package is worth. This is not a Fire DeBoer thing. We’re not there, and we’re talking about two WC Finals appearances in consecutive seasons. But some of this was preventable. Some of it — Edmonton was really really good on the penalty kill (genuinely the stuff of legend — was not. All the same, the buck stops with them.

A word about the veterans and UFAs

Except for Chris Tanev, it’s hard to imagine any of them coming back. We’ll dig deep into their seasons in the offseason (I’m not slowing down), but for now, there are a lot of players who played their last game for Dallas. The big one is Matt Duchene, who went from contending for Dallas’ best forward on some nights to being simply an afterthought. His Game 6 for the Avalanche was great, but beyond that he played too many shifts where he was stuck in regular season Extra Dangles mode.

Edmonton’s perspective

The Oilers did some great work in this series. While it stings to lose Roope Hintz and Tanev for stretches, Edmonton and Kris Knoblauch deserve a lot of credit. They did their homework, they made the right adjustments, and when it got down to the marrow, their best players were their best players. You can make your cracks all you want about officiating, or McDavid getting calls (he should; a lot of players commit penalties struggling to defend him) and yes that glove on the puck in the third should have been called (!), but Edmonton really was the better team in this series.

Programming Note

We’ll focus more on the series as a whole later. For now this is the summer plan:

• Autopsy report

• 2024 NHL Draft

• Free agency

• Report cards

I’ll have multiple posts dedicated to each, but I haven’t finished the Excel sheet, so calm down! Needless to say, I still plan on three posts a week (two free, one paid).

Also, thanks again to paid and nonpaid subscribers.

Spits and Suds

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