Game 2 Stray Observations (WC Finals): Edmonton shuts out Dallas to even the series

1-1 with Dallas heading into Edmonton Sunday, and question marks surrounding a Star.

Going into Game 1, the question would also be whether or not Dallas could sustain some of their playoff magic. After all, it’s those moments that have defined the Stars run: Mikko Rantanen’s double hat trick versus Colorado and Winnipeg, Mikael Granlund’s hat trick, and well…the power play’s hat trick versus Edmonton on Wednesday night. The Stars can obviously win as a team. They did that versus the Jets. But can they do it consistently, against hockey’s best players in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl?

Friday night decided to prompt another question: what if it was Dallas’ turn to take all the penalties? Because of that, it’s hard to say. Which is odd because, broadly speaking, I thought the Stars played a solid game at even strength. They outshot the Oilers, and once again did a solid job of limiting the twins to outside chances. It’s not a plan that will work every game, or even every shift. There’s simply no ironclad method of defense versus McDavid. But the Stars have done a solid job for the most part. Especially when you consider how the blueline is commonly perceived.

However, this is all second-fiddle to the outcome. Dallas lost, and they lost big on the scoresheet. Shut out by Stuart Skinner, there are a lot of questions that remain about whether it not anyone beyond Team Finland can contribute. This is not even about goals. The only line above 50 percent in expected goal share is the Matt Duchene line. Unfortunately they’re shooting just four percent. Normally that would be a good thing: regression to the mean and all that. But they have a small window to do so.

Again, I think Dallas was pretty good overall — and I think splitting up Thomas Harley and Miro Heiskanen paid early, if small, dividends. It’s the kind of performance they can leverage heading into Edmonton as long as they stay disciplined. Skinner looked good, but he didn’t look shutout good. Dallas just didn’t generate as many high quality chances as they should have. Nonetheless, it’s 1-1 in a series most of us probably had 1-1 after two. So the sky is hardly falling.

Trailing Stars

One of the recurring themes of this Dallas Stars postseason run is the slow start. They’ve trailed in 12 of 16 games now. It’s easy to look at that stat and think unhappy thoughts despite Dallas being in the Western Conference Finals. However, we kind of touched on this in our brief discussion about scoring sequences, and distinguishing between clutch goals and non-clutch goals. I mean, that’s actually not a proper distinction, nor is it even useful to think of scoring sequences this way, but I’ll allow it for now. Point being, if the context of a team’s intrinsic goal differential, it’s not something that I think is especially worrying. Dallas tends to score clutch and non-clutch goals alike.

However, there is a very real question: how much is their constant trailing a function of constantly not having the puck more than their opponent?

Special teams vs. special teams

Dallas’ power play got one over on Edmonton in Game 1. In Game 2, it was the Oilers’ turn to take advantage of the lack of discipline. This really feels like one of the rare occasions where the respective histories of both teams have little to do with where they go from here. Sure, Edmonton’s power play has been bad in this postseason. But it still has Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Sure, Dallas’ power play has been amazing. But shooting 34 percent will regress over the course of potentially four rounds. This is not to minimize what the Stars have accomplished on special teams, which deserves all the accolades it has earned thus far. But it is to stress the importance of even-strength, and how quickly the Stars need to figure it out before it’s too late.

The forward lines

I liked the move to bring in Colin Blackwell. He made his presence known early by drawing a penalty on Take Your Pick of Oilers Who Accosted Him (officially Corey Perry, but he seemed the least aggressive of candidates). But Blackwell will not move the needle. Players like Wyatt Johnston and Jason Robertson will.

To be fair, both have a difficult assignment for different reasons. I highly doubt Robertson is anywhere near 100 percent. On the other side, Johnston has been tasked with the tough matchups. The ESPN broadcast made a big deal about his plus/minus which is the all more reason to put it on mute. However, tough matchups or not, Dallas will need Johnston to do more than eat tough minutes, but to put up points. For unforeseeable reasons, now might be the time.

“It wasn’t that vicious.”

I’m gonna do my best to keep this PG. The comment above was made by Dave Jackson, who famously rides the fence every time he’s asked his opinion about a call on the ESPN telecast. I don’t know what else to call a two-handed slash away from the play that results in the injury except vicious.

The blame on Nurse goes without saying. But this is less about Nurse — stay with me — and more about hockey’s officiating problem. The entire playoffs have been like this. Toronto lost their starting goaltender to nonsense like this. YouTube hockey channel Next Man Up had a full reel just for the Winnipeg/St. Louis and Toronto/Florida series alone.

The only way to discourage this crap is to make an example out of these players. Let’s take the context out of this Nurse-Hintz play, and say it’s in the middle of a net front battle with the game tied, and 30 seconds left in the game. Call it. By failing to make the right call, officials enable players to make the wrong plays with zero consequences. It’s how the line gets blurred so that instead of watching hockey, we’re talking about hockey’s culture problem. The NHL so badly wants to be thought of as “tough” that it just ends up looking stupid, with no one knowing what’s a penalty or not, and players taking whatever justice the officials are supposed to represent, and putting it into their own hands.

What’s worse is that there are consequences. The players who get elbowed in the head, slashed, charged, and/or boarded are the ones on the receiving end of a league that wants order without any laws. So here’s to hoping Hintz is okay, and that hockey culture changes within my lifetime.

And just in case this recap isn’t enough, Robert Tiffin and I posted one at D Magazine.