Game 40 Stray Observations: Dallas sweeps Minnesota with a 7-2 win

That game was pure destruction.

On the surface, it’s somewhat perfunctory. Minnesota is bad. Dallas is good, and the Stars won. But Dallas, without Miro Heiskanen and Jake Oettinger, have managed to put together a pair of complete games for what has felt like the most encouraging stretch of the season.

We can’t even quibble over certain individuals. Even Radek Faksa managed to beat Fluery in their last outing. Sure, there are certain stories that are worth keeping an eye on. Will the Wyatt Johnston line ever get going? How will we talking about the blueline next week when their schedule is LA, Philly, and New Jersey? But for the most part, everything is clicking.

I guess we should talk about the story of the hour: Nils Lundkvist. He’s an easy dude to root for. He’s talented, doesn’t make a lot of mistakes, but he’s also not a gamebreaker, and not “trustable”. It’s easy to turn the debate into an argument about Player vs. Coach, or Fans vs. Team. I’m sure tonight felt like validation for fans who believe Dallas just needs to be more patient. I’m sure fans are seeing that Matrix “he’s beginning to believe” meme in their heads. But I’d advise caution on this. Dallas is gonna be a buyer at the trade deadline. If they bring in a defender, you better believe Lundkvist will be the first casualty.

But I don’t want to talk about Lundkvist all night, and I don’t feel like digging my heels into another miserable discussion about development. Instead I’m gonna leave you with this. As many readers know, I take “analytics” seriously. By that I mean I take information seriously; especially information that packs a lot of events that I either missed, forgot about, or never considered (like literally everything that happened into every single shift that a player was on the ice for when a shot attempt was taken) into one morsel.

I say that to say this: Micah Blake McCurdy’s synthetic goal model takes Lundkvist very, very seriously.

Remember the way Will Farrell gasps “what???” in The Other Guys when the cops tell him every deviant thing they found in his stolen car? That was me when I saw this. Whether you’re a Lundkvist skeptic, or a Lundkvist believer, this is still mind boggling. We can safely surmise that his limited minutes are creating some mathematical noise. Julius Honka, after all, graded similarly.

Meanwhile, Evolving-Hockey’s GAR model articulates the skeptic’s take.

I don’t know what to make of this. Perhaps there’s nothing to make of it at all. There’s still too much to learn; what we don’t know outweighs what we do know. I don’t know what the future holds for Lundkvist, but this feels like the first sign of Lundkvist developing a genuine comfort level out there on the ice.

Dallas: Disciplined Deacons

I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s a stat that bears repeating. A lot of fancy analytics bake penalty differential into their calculus precisely because, at even strength, a two-minute stretch of hockey has an 8 percent chance of producing a goal. On the power play, a two-minute stretch has a 24 percent chance of producing a goal. In fact, you can use penalty differential as a cheap heuristic for a team’s ebbs and flows. Buffalo seemed like a team on the cusp last year. This year they’ve been a disaster. Unsurprisingly, they led the league last year in penalty differential. This year they’re drawing nothing. Arizona? Same thing, just in reverse. Last year they couldn’t draw penalties to save their life, ranking dead last. This year they’re 13th, with a +3 penalty differential. It makes a difference.

Dallas doesn’t draw penalties, but they don’t take them either.

It’s not something that gets talked about a lot, but I think Pete DeBoer and the coaching staff deserve a lot of credit for the Stars playing so disciplined. Obviously, you’d like to see them draw more penalties. It’s paying major dividends for LA and Vegas. But they’re not shooting themselves in the foot, and that’s important.

The top line looking like the top line

I wrote about the top line last week at D Magazine. It’s not that they’ve been bad. It’s that they haven’t been dominant. At last, we’re finally seeing signs of life from the big three. Were it for offsides, they would have been credited with four goals. However, the new year is treating them much better. In 2024, they’re outshooting opponents 44 to 32 (57 percent Corsi For), and rocking a 64 percent expected goal share. Granted, their quality of competition has been super kind thanks to two games versus Minnesota, but we’re still seeing what Dallas needs to see.

Joe Pavelski: A (statistical) digression

Something funny I noticed sifting through Micah Blake McCurdy’s website since I was curious about Lundkvist. According to Micah’s model, Pavelski has technically hit his decline.

Before fans lose their shit over Pavelski grading out as a lower tier third liner, keep in mind what synthetic goals are. And keep in mind what these models measure; the climate, not the weather. Players play “above” and “below” their underlying numbers all the time. Just look at Benn and Seguin last year. The real test is not about how many points Pavelski has, but whether Pavelski’s shift-to-shift performance sustains itself until Game 82, and beyond when Dallas makes the playoffs. Will the signs show up? Or will Pavelski be defined by moments rather than his statistical profile? Again, these models exist for usefulness, not accuracy.

The Minnesota perspective

Safe to say, this is a lost season for Minnesota. They’re down Kirill Kaprizov, Jonas Brodin, and Jared Spurgeon. Injuries in net haven’t helped either. But Marco Rossi and Brock Faber have been everything they hoped and then some. Their offensive prospects, like Liam Ohgren and Danila Yurov, are on the cusp while Jesper Wallstedt looks pro ready. As much as Dallas fans hate the Wild, they’ve been one of the more consistent franchises over the past decade, only missing the playoffs once in that span. This season and next season are probably a wash, which is fine. That’s when Suter and Parise’s buyout money comes off the books. I don’t think Bill Guerin is playing 11-dimensional chess or anything, but I am curious how they’re gonna be positioned in two years when they have the flexibility to invest in an actively competitive window.

Scheduling note

I’m still recovering from the flu, so this will probably be my last piece for the week. That means expect two paid posts next week: one will be a running feature I call “Metapuck” and the other will be a Tales From the Clipped on Thomas Harley. And yes, we’ll get back to some Texas Stars stuff next week. The twins were just named AHL all-stars after all!