The Other Stars: Lian Bichsel Returns, and the Mayhem in Manitoba
It's been a crazy week in the American Hockey League.
‘The Other Stars’ will be a weekly feature here at the Stars Stack talking all things Texas Stars. Because there are so many of Dallas’ top prospects in action, I won’t follow an organized recap of the Stars games, but a disorganized analysis of the prospects worth highlighting.
On the surface, things look fine. Logan Stankoven (9 points) and Mavrik Bourque (8) keep doing their thing. They’ve come to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and they’ve been out of bubble gum since jump street. Lian Bichsel returned from his three-game suspension. A lot of previously invisible players showed up, and the Texas Stars are first in the AHL Central.
Except Texas is sixth in their Conference thanks to a week Central. If we go by points percentage, that drops them to ninth in the Western Conference. I’m not really sure what these Stars from the South are (better Sean?) but I don’t see a particularly dangerous team. They’ve gotten by on the chemistry of two star forwards, and the efficiency of their starting netminder. If it weren’t for several buzzer beaters, Texas would be closer to the bottom.
I should be upfront: Texas’ broad success isn’t all that interesting to me. It was great to see the southern Stars win the Calder in 2014, but if I had to choose between a great AHL team and a bad AHL team with great prospects, I’m choosing the latter every day of the week and twice on domingo. Still, it’s worth mentioning because without Stankoven and Bourque’s chemistry, they don’t amount to much. Which is all the ironic since they didn’t even get on the scoresheet in Saturday’s wild 6-5 loss to the Manitoba Moose.
The game itself is worth mentioning because of this: a Stankoven-Blumel special that was onside, and that beat the clock. Yet it was called off despite the clocks and the jumbotron showing the same time. Just not according to the league iPad. How that works, I’m sure I have no idea. Perhaps the Norwegian advocates of time-free zones to help sort this one out.
But for all the uncertainty surrounding Texas’ two losses this Halloween weekend, the same wasn’t true of its individuals.
Lian Bichsel’s defensive work
Instead of talking about Bichsel’s return, I want to talk about what I saw last week. I get enamored with Bichsel’s offensive plays in the defensive zone because I think it’s a big deal. It’s the kind of thing that isn’t standard for defensemen pegged as “stay at home” and it allows me to beat an old drum — talent matters in the defensive zone.
Bichsel is not your grandfather’s stay at home defender. He’s much more dynamic, but he also stands out for doing old school things. Like here.
This is a really good defensive read there at the end, where ne makes sure to engage his man and lifts the stick. Bichsel isn’t just physical. He’s smart too.
I love the following play because it’s such a picture perfect example of him blending that mindfulness and muscle.
I also love his defensive play at 0:06 to just jam his man loose. Like opening a pickle jar, sometimes you just need a strongarm the damn thing.
But yes, I still need to show you some slick Bichsel defensive puck handling.
It’ll be interesting to see how Bichsel’s production figures into his development, if at all. He’s not in a position to juice his point totals. He’s had a few courtesy shifts on the second power play unit, but nothing concrete. Production won’t be what earns him a trip farther north, but I’ll be curious to see how Dallas develops this aspect of his game if at all.
This is part of what I hate seeing when it comes to hockey development. “Well you look like Player Type A, which is what we need, so we need you to act like Player Type A as much as possible, as often as possible.” I hope Bichsel isn’t stuck being asked to play a shutdown game just because that’s what Dallas needs. You could argue this is partially how Esa Lindell’s offense — not only his bread and butter in the Liiga, but also in Cedar Park — completely evaporated. (I say partially because Lindell’s passing is actively bad.)
Bichsel is a nuanced player. That’s the player Dallas needs.
The French Connection
The Manitoba games were weird. The Moose looked like the better team in both games. They have quite a bit of talent between Brad Lambert — putting on one of those masterful skating clinics I’ve seen in some time — Nikita Chibrikov, and Daniel Torgersson, not to mention a real NHLer in Kyle Capobianco.
Still, the Bourque-Stankoven connection persisted.
I’ve been posting plenty of clips between them: Stankoven’s fifth goal on Friday, his ninth point on Saturday, and Bourque’s dogged neutral zone work. I forgot to post this one, which is amusing for how easily they were able to connect despite the massive distance between them.
A lot of players came to play this weekend despite the two losses. Frankly, it was about time. Oscar Bäck had a three-point night on Saturday, Matej Blumel continues to prove his shooting skills can translate, and Chase Wheatcroft is already making an impression with his impressive puck handling skills and quick release. (Stick tap to Kyle McDonald, who didn’t impress me early, but has slowly grown more comfortable in the lineup.)
How about some stray observations!
I can’t stand Derrick Pouliot with Christian Kyrou. Not only do you have two puck movers together, who seem to get way too many shifts with the top line, but both are porous defensively.
On Friday, Neil Graham went with Nicholas Caamano before he could get to Logan Stankoven. For those unfamiliar, Caamano scored a shootout goal last week. Still the goofily wrong decision.
Riley Damiani ain’t ever coming back folks. Just saying.
A player I haven’t talked about who went in with some modest hype is Matthew Seminoff. It’s hard to tell what Texas has in him because he plays a fifth line role. I feel like he’s noticeable, but it’s hard to say with any certainty what he is or who he’s growing into.
Francesco Arcuri was sent to Idaho. Arcuri is another player who came in with some modest hype that just kind of faded into the background. I didn’t think he was given much of a chance, but I didn’t think he made much of an impression either. As tough as it is to say, that’s the reality for all the non-Stankoven/Bourque/Bichsel prospects.
My prospect update for Defending Big D should be going up this week.
Wanted to read something insightful about Stars prospects and ended up going down the Norwegian timezone-less rabbit hole...
Haha, cheers.
The offensive/defensive Dman debate to me makes a bit more sense when you look at it in the context of other sports. Soccer is an interesting place to start, where the defense is on the field when you have the ball, but generally aren't expected to contribute much outside of set pieces. A good fullback will take away time and space, but also knows how to control the ball and start the team the other way. A mediocre fullback looks to just clear the ball, either upfield with a 50/50 ball or out of bounds (aka just exit the zone or ice the puck). An offensive Dman is more like a mid-fielder. They are expected to do similar defensive plays minus covering the breakout plays (similar to pinching in the offensive zone putting yourself out of position for a breakaway). The expectation for offense out of the midfielder is so much greater that for some the offensive contribution is more important than the defensive. Could probably look at forwards the same way, with the ability for maybe 1 to be a goal scoring princess, but the rest need to contribute at least marginally both ways with Centers being the offensively focused midfielders. I hope GMs play a game asking themselves if they could build a 4-4-2 or if they have a 5-1-4 they need to round out.
*Football defense is only similar to the goalie, in so much that their stats don't even track offensive numbers. Similarly pitchers in baseball.