Stray Observations: Bichsel's savagery, the thirteenth forward, and Stankoven

Dallas just keeps on rolling.

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With one more preseason game left, Dallas will have a chance to close out the preseason undefeated.

It’s not something that matters in the long run, nor is it something any team aspires to. But all the Stars expected to be impact players have looked dynamite. Miro Heiskanen looks like the best defensemen not put into a top tier who is top tier. Matt Duchene is getting his Man On a Mission thing started early. Logan Stankoven scored two goals last night, because the regression gods owe him. And goaltending has looked stout. Of course, they’ve also played a lot of substandard rosters, so grain of salt and everything. Nonetheless, individual performers have stood out the way they need to, and then some.

The big story of the preseason so far has been Lian Bichsel’s showing. We’ve been watching him closely at the Stars Stack, from Traverse to Texas, to his return from “sabbatical.” So far he’s shown Stars fans exactly who he is. In fact, I would argue that his game remains more or less the same. However, there is one thing that appears to be changing (actually two, but I’ll save that for a future Tales From The Clipped).

Namely, his physicality. Bichsel has always been physical. He’s always been half hockey player, half Akuma. It’s an element he himself has played up in interviews; it’s an element that has always been evident in his game. I know that. You know that. But physicality comes in different forms. Players like Brenden Dillon, and Joel Edmundson play a heavy kind of physicality. Bichsel seems to be developing the heavy and the mean.

Now he’s half hockey player, half Leatherface. As much as I hate the comparison, despite also making it, it’s hard to avoid identifying the Darian Hatcher similarities. Like Hatcher, there is malice in these hits. Bichsel isn’t trying to dislodge the puck. He’s trying to staple his opponents.

This kind of hitting is not just about brute force, though. It’s about leverage. It’s a clue that his skating confidence has improved. Open-ice hitting was not on his resume last season. But it seems to be this year.

Re-posting this clip from Twitter, this mean streak of his doesn’t take away from his effectiveness. He’s still making reads. This hit, for example, he only takes because Dallas quite clearly has numbers on Colorado. It was a play with minimal risk, high reward, and he got the best case scenario. (Technically best-case scenario would have been Dallas scoring a goal, but still.)

Dallas is sometimes criticized for being “soft.” It’s not a criticism I consider serious; at least as a serious reason for the Stars losing in the postseason. After all, good arguments are usually not confined to single words. But I get it as an element Dallas lacks. Through several, varying degrees of meaningless games, Dallas did not lack physicality with Bichsel in the lineup.

It’s unfortunate Bichsel won’t be able to hone his craft in the NHL, because I thought the Heiskanen-Dumba, Bichsel-Lindell, and Harley-Lyubushkin lineup looked quite slick. In fact, it’s the only reason why Bichsel has stood out to me more than usual: neither Brenden Smith, nor Nils Lundkvist, looked like better options. (More on that in a bit)

Nonetheless, you know how this goes: Bichsel will look good in the AHL, he’ll make the jump, and then insert all the usual cliches about NHL readiness.

Figuring out the thirteenth forward

The top 12 forwards are set in stone. I don’t think anyone questions that main lineup.

However, I haven’t seen anyone really grab that 13th forward spot either.

Arttu Hyry has been a cut above the rest. He’s displayed a fantastic shot, in addition to good offensive movement, and two-way responsibility. He doesn’t profile like an impact player—I feel like his threat level was always high but I would have liked to have seen more chance generation—but he’s got the plug-and-play sheen, where he can easily fit into any spot in the lineup, and neither elevate nor drag his line down.

Beyond that, Kole Lind, Oskar Bäck, and Matej Blumel are a kind of superorganism of depth more than individual players with potential interlinking skills. They displayed different kinds of talents at different times—Lind with his shooting, Bäck with his Faksa-lite style, and Blumel with his skating—but nothing consistent enough to inspire hype.¹

That sixth spot on defense

Maybe I’m extrapolating too much, but I thought the pairings were telling. Barring something non-Nill like, Bichsel won’t start with the big club. But he averaged more minutes (19:43) than Ilya Lyubushkin and Brendan Smith — yes, the most likely explanation is that they wanted Bichsel playing more so they could learn more. (To drive this point home further, Lundkvist averaged the second most minutes) I get that. But it also felt like something reciprocated; Bichsel drew interest from the coaching staff and was rewarded for it.

The team clearly sees Bichsel as an essential part of the defense once he transitions. It’s hard not to. Bichsel was by no means perfect, but he has a high floor, and who that’s been a Stars fan for as long as people like me don’t get nostalgic for a hatchet man like the former captain from the Cup-winning squad?² Certainly the Victory+ crew loved him. Unlike someone like Lundkvist, there’s not much to nitpick.

Speaking of Lundkvist, I thought he looked solid…but he still looked like Lundkvist. And that’s kind of the problem. In fact, if we do this whole song and cumbia³ again, it’s hard to imagine a different end result. Whatever Lundkvist is capable of, he can’t simply get better, inch by inch; he has to transform. It’s hard to envision that happening. The same is true of Smith, who seemed to have a really rough set of games. He’s been underrated for so long, it’s easy to forget that even the underrated have a shelf life.

I guess my point in all of this is that Bichsel’s eventual transition is merely a formality.

1. To be fair, I don’t think anyone was hyped for these players. They’re older players destined for the AHL. However, Jim Nill mentioned them by name, which probably drew more interest than was warranted.

2. Hatcher might be my favorite Star ever, but in terms of pure hockey defense, I actually preferred Richard Matvichuk. I have this theory that if we had “fancy stats” back then, Matvichuk would have rated as the better transition defender.

3. Come on. Didn’t you see Selena?!?