Weekend Stray Observations: Two for the Devils, One for the Isles
It was a very Dallas Stars stretch of games.
Philadelphia. New Jersey. NY Islanders.
In some ways the weekend road trip felt like the perfect three-game sample of Dallas’ season so far: a talented team discommoded by its own spirit. How else to explain getting destroyed by a good Philly team, pasting an average one, and losing in overtime to one who’s -20 in goal differential and now led by Patrick Roy?
I’m not comfortable with the “oh but Miro Heiskanen” excuse. Dallas has been playing like this with Heiskanen. Besides, how do you think New Jersey felt, missing Jack Hughes and Dougie Hamilton? Getting half the amount of points potentially earned is both fitting, and not fitting. This team always looks like it’s fighting itself, whether in victory or defeat.
If we wanted an explanation we’d be here all day: the defensive core and how it’s structured, the forward lines that continue to produce but struggle to control play, and the goaltending that’s pure Jekyll and Hyde. The good news is that Colorado and Winnipeg have slowed down. Granted, they’re still on heaters, broadly speaking, going 7-3 and 9-1 in their last 10, respectively — much better than Dallas’ run of 5-3-2. But the Stars remain in striking distance, and Heiskanen gets closer and closer by the day.
Good news, right? Obviously. But the big picture stuff can wait. Let’s talk about the weekend that was with some strays.
Thomas Harley: (obviously) still elite
While we've been over this before, it bears repeating. Harley has been a force in Heiskanen's absense. However, across the two weekend games, I noticed a little bit more defensive nuance. Harley will never become a shutdown defender, but I noticed a few shifts where he stopped himself from his aggressive tendencies toward forward motion; perhaps realizing that he's Dallas' number one defender in Heiskanen's absence, and such such should begin to mimic more of Heiskanen's all-around game?
I could be wrong. As much as I love the Eye Test, I do need glasses. Whatever the case, I just know that while I'm sure plenty of fans are satisfied to see him get more minutes, it's still frustrating to see so many of those even strength minutes played next to Hanley. That's not even really a diss to Hanley, who is forced to play on his weakside (something that never gets mentioned). It's just that all the good teams seem to have good partners for their best defensemen. Dallas has a past-his-prime Suter for one, and an invisible man for the other.
Wyatt Johnston: slump maybe/maybe not averted
Johnston has had an oddball season. I was adamant it would be a banner year. It hasn’t, but Johnston has also felt like a victim of circumstance. Neither Jamie Benn nor Evgenii Dadonov have been impact players this season, and no, it’s not all their fault. But I don’t smell the performance of a “sophomore slump” when I watch him. If I were to put on my scouting cap, I would list all the things that made him special last season, plus a little extra — his speed.
One goal doesn’t make a trend, but it’s been a minute since we’ve seen Johnston snap ankles with his toe drag. He absolutely decimated Luke Hughes on this one.
Roope Hintz
How does an all-world player like Hintz routinely get overshadowed? It makes some sense, I guess. Pavelski, the aging veteran putting up consecutive career years, is an obvious story. Jason Robertson is an obvious story, as any young winger putting up 100 points will be. Hintz is neither a veteran, nor even necessarily young…and yet he’s one of Dallas’ most well-rounded players, the Stars’ main pivot, and he has Fuck You speed.
His underlying numbers are also nuts.
His expected goals above replacement on a per hour basis ranks second in the entire NHL, just below Auston Matthews, and above Artemi Panarin.
The other thing: Hintz in the playoffs. If you've been following Hintz since jump street, you know that he's been a red light performer throughout his career. Safe to say, he's not just a big part of Dallas' success. He's one of the three keys (the other being Heiskanen and Oettinger) to Dallas' theoretical success in winning a cup.
Nils Lundkvist: Out of the doghouse?
You couldn't ask for more out of Lundkvist. In the absense of Heiskanen, Lundkvist has stepped up, racking up four points, including two goals. His icetime has increased, and with it, so has his confidence. I'm not really sure what this means long term. Has it been enough for Lundkvist to earn DeBoer's trust? There are certainly signs. His icetime went up, which is nice. However, how much of that is due to DeBoer's hand being forced? When Lundkvist goes back to only playing even strength minutes, will that diminish his broad value in the eyes of the coaching staff?
That last question is an important point. Joel Hanley didn't have the greatest stretch, and that's not counting being part of a highlight reel that will be re-watched for the next six years -- but his specialty is invisibility. Lundkvist is not an invisible player. Will DeBoer still favor Hanley's invisible style when Heiskanen is back and the "backend offense" is taken care of. There's a whole separate discussion about how much "offense" you can or should have from your blueline. May I just point out that there is literally only one player who profiles like a high risk puck mover, and that's Harley. Meanwhile, Dallas has four defenders who can't dictate, control or so much as sniff an offensive play that wasn't either giftwrapped or accidentally handed to them.
Ty Dellandrea deserves to play
I couldn’t understand why Dellandrea didn’t draw in after that ridiculous game versus Philly. Even if you felt like none of the depth forwards deserved to come out — Dadonov, Faksa, Steel (although never again) and even Smith have all had their box of chicken fingers — based on performance, you could always mask it under “give the player a rest.”
To be clear, I don’t think Dellandrea is some great prospect. For those that are new here, I’ve been grinding this Hockey Writing As Spare Time thing for almost 10 years now. I wrote a draft profile on him in 2018. My opinion hasn’t changed: players like Dellandrea are not who you draft in the top 20. However, I’ve been modestly impressed since he broke into the league. (And to be fair to Dallas’ scouts, that draft was lousy past Noah Dobson. Hell it was lousy BEFORE Dobson.)
Overall Dellandrea’s shift-to-shift impact, offensively and defensively, on goals is just sort of meh. He’s a strong defensive center/winger who seems to be on ice for more goals than he actively helps generate.
He’s slightly above average on the penalty kill, and while he does take way more penalties than he should, he does draw pretty much as many as he takes.
Here’s the guy in front of him.
A player who is better defensively, way worse offensively, and actually rates worse on the PK. Important note: faceoffs are baked into these models before anyone brings that up, which we’ve been over.
DeBoer has already shown a willingness to scratch Faksa. In other words, the “but his cap” is no longer an excuse to scratch Dellandrea.
However, this doesn’t have to be a Dellandrea vs. Faksa firefight. Dellandrea will be here (presumably) when Smith is gone. He’ll be here after one of Duchene or Pavelski are gone. He’ll be here after Steel is gone (gotta imagine he’s earned a bigger contract that Dallas may or may not afford). Yes, Mavrik Bourque and Logan Stankoven will need spots too. But if Dellandrea is still part of the near-term picture, he deserves to play. When I look at the careers that Jack Roslovic, Jason Dickinson, and Ryan Strome managed to carve out for themselves, Dellandrea strikes me as that kind of player. That kind of player, at under a million per year, seems useful.
Scott Wedgewood and Tyler Seguin
Two of the more “unheralded” (broadly speaking; I know most people respect the Seguinlightenment) players had great weekends. I was actually a fan of Wedgewood starting, even if Oettinger did not have a case of ‘Bud Mutt’. The more rest Oettinger can get, the better. This east coast stretch wasn’t exactly a murderer’s row, even if it looked like one in Philly.
A quick word on that overtime goal
Here it is again.
I saw a lot of criticism directed at Duchene. For sure, it’s an aggressive play. There’s no reason to try to beat multiple defenders at 3-on-3 because if you lose, it’s a near-certified kiss of death, but try Duchene did. And it predictably backfired. However, I have no idea what Seguin and Harley were doing. Bo Horvat is not Nathan MacKinnon. So how do they get beat like that?
This is why I don’t think Duchene was crazy, even if he made a mistake. 3 on 3 is chaos, and sometimes you have to take your chances. Duchene took a shot and he missed. Seguin and Harley let Horvat take a shot that shouldn’t have happened to begin with, and he didn’t. (Also a pretty meh game overall.)
Some quick thoughts on Patrick Roy
I’m really tempted to rant on this one. But I won’t. I’m just tired of seeing article after article gassing up Roy’s return. The story of Roy’s return IS a good one. He’s entertaining, and like everyone else, he has the capacity to change. But there are so many elements of his initial run that deserve to be a part of that story. Like how a coach who openly poo-pooed analytics came to be a cautionary tale of what happens when you ignore their value. This is not just me picking shit out of pepper. This was the philosophical rift that drove Roy out of Joe Sakic’s favor, and why Chris MacFarland began to gain his ear instead. Roy had some managerial power during this time, which is significant. In the meantime, his teams got destroyed possession wise, and then there was the whole Matt Duchene fiasco.
My point? If Roy is become a good coach; a coach who realized the job was too difficult trying to manage dual roles; a coach who realized the value of analytics, and came to embrace them; a coach who probably regrets that Duchene drama — wouldn’t these details make his story more interesting?
I am certainly on the play Ty Dell and Lundkvist side. One interesting thing I noticed on the graphs is that Dellandrea PK defense is superior to Faksa even though we constantly hear of Faksa's superior PK.
I go one step further... 3 on 3 is mostly a man on man defense... once the puck changed possession... Harley was above his man... Seguin wasn’t anywhere close. It isn’t the first time Seguin has defended poorly on 3 on 3... I’d bet it’s closer to the 7th time, this year.