Tales From The Clipped: About that Game 2 overtime, and how Dallas' best defense became a heavy forecheck.

Heavier than the earth's core.

As you may recall, I had Colorado in six. That was with the assumption that Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson would not play a single game in this series. That probably tells you a lot about, well — a lot of things. As someone who sounded the alarm from jump street about Dallas’ play without their Finnish phenom, I should have had Colorado in a sweep, right? No. It was always more about Colorado not quite being who everyone says they were.

But now it’s about Dallas. And how they’re starting to reshape the narrative. Watching that overtime period for the third time, I can honestly say that I was stumped. Where was this all year? I don’t mean during that time with Heiskanen out. I mean possibly in Pete DeBoer’s entire tenure. I’ve never seen this Dallas team play with this much controlled aggression on the forecheck. They were beasts as much as they were seers, finding ways to crush Colorado in their own zone without giving up too much the other way.

It was a masterclass. But it was only 17 minutes. And so that’s the real question: when did hockey’s best rush attack add new dimensions the way they did? When did hockey’s best rush attack become hockey’s heaviest cycle? We still saw some of this in Game 3, but Game 3 was less about pace, and far more about patience.

Nonetheless, I feel like we noticed something important in that Game 2 overtime that will likely continue to be felt long after.