Unimportant Portents

keeping the light on, light on, ain’t easy

keeping the fight on, so long, is hard to do

for all the times you feel the weight

there might just be a better way

***

The Dallas Stars had a 3-1 lead on the Colorado Avalanche, once. Confident in where they stood after what initially looked like a terrifying series, those Stars decided to do something bold: they gave their best player a chance to come back off an injury to see if he would be able to carry them through the playoffs.

It wasn’t crazy, in context. The Avalanche themselves had to go three-deep on goalies as well, with Philip Grubauer only appearing in the first game of the series before his season-ending injury, giving way to Pavel Francouz, who himself couldn’t make it past Game 4 of the series. Then Michael Hutchinson, who played more games (4) for Toronto’s AHL team that season than he did for Colorado’s NHL team (1), came into the series after Franvouz didn’t finish Game 4. So the Stars felt like a team that had found their way to a big, comfortable lead against an opponent only getting weaker.

Then Ben Bishop played the final NHL game of his career.

In fairness to Bishop, it wasn’t really his knee injury that sank the Stars. They legitimately sagged, with Colorado out-shooting them 18-3 in the first period en route to putting up a five-zip lead. Bishop was pulled after the fourth goal, and Colorado added a fifth before he could even get his backup towel situated. It was a reminder of just how unlikely it was for the Dallas Stars to be in a dominant position over the Avalanche in the first place, and just how fragile their lead really was, when the Avalanche started firing on all cylinders.

It felt like the Stars had squandered a crucial chance to take care of business while they had their chance. After that Game 5 win, Colorado continued to roll, responding to an opening Miro Heiskanen goal in Game 6 by scoring four answered goals to win 4-1 and force a Game 7. Everything felt disastrous. Taylor Fedun played six minutes. It seemed like Colorado had finally gotten healthy, if only metaphorically, and Dallas was teetering on the edge of “choke” territory, if that’s what losing thrice to a great team is supposed to be called.

You know what happened in Game 7. Colorado responded to another opening salvo from Alex Radulov by establishing leads of 2-1 (after a horrific Jame Oleksiak turnover), 3-2, and then 4-3. That fourth Colorado goal came with just 3:40 remaining in the third period, and it felt like a death sentence. Dallas had been hanging around, largely thanks to some otherworldly goaltending from Anton Khudobin, but Colorado always got the next goal, always managed to poke their nose back in front. And finally, the Nate MacKinnon line scored a fourth goal and prepared to lock things down.

Ten seconds later, it was tied again. And seven minutes into overtime, Colorado’s defensive zone coverage looked like this:

Would you believe that didn’t work?

So Joel Kiviranta got his profane nickname, and the Stars managed to avoid the ignominy of coughing up a 3-1 series lead by the slimmest of margins. But that feeling after Game 5, and especially after Game 6, is back.

Dallas had this team. They had them! And now it feels like one loss is as good as two, given what Colorado can do with momentum. If they lose two in a row, how on earth are they supposed to show their faces at American Airlines Center again in a Game 7 that never should have happened?

That’s what your anxiety tells you, at least. Tonight feels a lot like the lead-up to Game 3 against Vegas, in the sense that a loss doesn’t sink Dallas, but it feels like any games afterwards will be mere formalities. It’s not entirely rational, but it’s palpable.

Another thing to remember though, if you can, is that after Dallas squeaked by Colorado two years before the Avalanche blitzed their way to a Stanley Cup, they had to face Vegas in the Western Conference Final. And that series felt even more daunting, until Dallas ran the Golden Knights out of Edmonton by finally winning an elimination Game 5:

This year, the Stars are more on the 2008 San Jose/2008/Anaheim/2016 Minnesota series track. They’ve been the better team in most games, and they’ve jumped out to a series lead by scoring the first goal in every game. It is, and has been, Dallas’s series to lose.

If they manage to get past Colorado, they’ve got another tough series waiting for them. Unless they don’t, depending on how real you think Vancouver and Edmonton are. And if you see either of them as an opponent Dallas can handle, then this Game 6 in Colorado suddenly feels like a gateway to a whole lot of important things, doesn’t it?

Players can’t look past the game. They can’t even look past their current shift, their current puck battle. They have to put everything they have into winning the game in front of them, every second they’re on the ice. But fans have to live with the context of those games with the implications of disaster that is in one sense far more unbearable for lack of our agency in the outcome. We want the movie to end happily, but we know that once we’ve bought the ticket, the third act is entirely out of our hands. Each hockey season is a relationship, filled with investment and fraught with the implications that come with it.

There are many, many ways things can go wrong. After a loss, everything feels dark and impossible. But it is so often in the darkest times that the deeper joys await us anyhow. We can wish for victory every time, but we would also do well to appreciate the chill of dread, the gift of anticipation that games like this bring. Even if things don’t work out, it’s still a gift. And maybe things will work out, and we’ll unwrap that metaphorical bicycle under the tree we asked Santa for. I am saying that a win, for fans, is like a bicycle. Except not in Texas, because where and when do you bike in Texas? These roads are meant to kill people, and the weather to cook their remains. Thank goodness the Stars got to fly to Colorado, the lucky bums.