Game 43 AfterThoughts: Logan Stankover (and Over Again)

Note: I’m about to hop on the Spits and Suds podcast with Gavin, so give that a listen when it goes up later tonight.

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This was a lot of things for Dallas, but first and foremost, it ought to be branded as a Character Win.

It’s the final game of a five-game road trip. Moreover, it was a game in Toronto, where Dallas hadn’t won since before the pandemic. Dallas also spotted the Leafs a 1-0 lead on a rough defensive zone turnover to set up Auston Matthews. Oh, and they lost Roope Hintz for the game just a few minutes into the first period, during which they were under siege, with the Leafs hitting post after post with Dallas not even getting a shot until halfway through the opening frame.

And then, the Stars buckled down. Logan Stankoven got to the net with Matt Duchene and Sam Steel on the ice, and Stankoven got to a rebound to whack it through Woll, where Stankoven was able to pounce on another rebound to poke home his first goal in exactly two months. Stankoven would go on to add another goal and a primary assist for a three-point night. But from that first goal, Dallas clearly started to feel like this was going to be their night.

The fact that Hintz was labeled only as “questionable” is mildly promising, but no more than that. If the hit that sent Hintz down is anything like a shoulder injury (and that’s just a guess given how he fell), then we really won’t know anything until they have some imaging on it. But we don’t know anything more than “upper body injury,” so for now, Stars fans will hold their collective breaths.

Hintz has been instrumental in how the Stars enter the zone at times this year, and that was never more apparent than on the power play without Hintz, when the Stars’ first unit repeatedly struggled to get in and set up. But it wouldn’t end up needing to do anything, as the Stars’ second unit would get the job done with a quick, smart sequence from Sam Steel (who was only on the power play because Hintz was out) and Thomas Harley (who sometimes doesn’t even get on the ice during all two minute soft power plays at all). Then Stankoven tipped the puck off Bourque (who was pointedly kept off the power play earlier in the season when he was still getting up to speed). Sometimes, things just all start to click.

All scorers are streaky. The power play is, by definition, a collection of scorers. So it’s not a surprise that most every power play hits a cold snap here and there in a season. But scoring two goals tonight was a big boost, especially given Dallas’s inability to do so against Toronto when the teams faced each other last month. This game was catharsis, in a lot of ways, but it also felt like a catharsis the Stars can build on.

Stankoven said after the game that he’s never had a streak like this in his life. He even said that Joe Pavelski called him before the game this morning just to check in, so once again, we discover how integral Pavelski is to this team’s success. Is there anyway way the Stars can harness the magic of technology to do Pavelski Vision around the dressing room? I am mostly joking, I think.

Jake Oettinger had dinner with his longtime friend Joseph Woll yesterday. The two go way back, but they also have enough in common right now to bond over Chris Tanev, which has got to be a pretty melancholy experience for Oettinger, who no longer gets to play with Tanev. Though you’d hardly have known it in this one, given how many goals were going into the Toronto net. Oettinger got stronger as the game went on, but the entire Dallas team looked solid, too.

Matt Duchene, Jason Robertson, and Wyatt Johnston all had to step up and play over 20 minutes in this one. Duchene was fantastic, as his power play goal was just an elite play from a top-class player, and even Sam Steel stepped up in Hintz’s absence, playing up 18 minutes like it was nothing for him.

The Stars are a team built on depth, and tonight was one of those games when you saw it everywhere you looked. Ilya Lyubushkin was joining shorthanded rushes, and Matt Dumba laid a huge hit, as did Jamie Benn (who also had some great plays with the puck himself). Miro Heiskanen was everywhere, and he and Lindell both prevented great Toronto chances from materializing off the rush.

In many, many ways, the better team won this game. That hasn’t happened for far too many games this season, but the second half is looking a lot truer to type than the first half. The Stars didn’t play well in Ottawa, and they lost. They played well in Toronto, and they won. I’ll pick Dallas to play better than the other team the majority of times this year, as they’ve done so far. If the output begins to match the input more frequently, a second-half run is more than possible, even before upgrades after the 4 Nations Face-Off.

See you all on Thursday, as the Stars return home after winning four out of five games on their road trip. They’ll deserve every bit of applause they’ll get to start the game.

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Toronto dominated the first half of the period, with Dallas more or less on their heels, taking over 10 minutes just to generate their first shot on goal. To be blunt, it was a miracle they didn’t end the first period with a significant deficit, given how flat they came out to start the game.

The Leafs changed up the left winger on the Auston Matthews-Mitch Marner line, and Steven Lorentz looked like the secret sauce before the first whistle of the game, as Matthews capitalized on a failed Miro Heiskanen-to-Roope Hintz zone exit attempt, making a 1-0 lead out of a turnover. It was a great shot by Matthews hitting the top corner over Oettinger’s blocker, but then, great shots are kind of what Matthews does. The idea is not to allow him into that area to begin with.

Sam Steel scored the first goal in these two teams’ last meeting, but he got on the score sheet with the opening penalty this time around. The Leafs didn’t score, but they did ring three posts squarely during the two minutes, threatening in about as threatening a manner as one can threaten without scoring. As Craig Berube and every other coach will tell you, the power play just needs to create momentum, even if it doesn’t always score. And it sure seemed to do that, as the Stars only caught their breath after the first television timeout.

But just as the Stars deserved better than they got against Toronto in Dallas, so also did Dallas tie the game back up despite deserving to be down my multiple goals. And all it took was a bit of a haphazard line where Matt Duchene and Sam Steel combined to get Logan Stankoven to the net for a rebound, and Stankoven sent the rebound back over Woll’s pad, where it leaked through his arm and sat behind him looking like a Fabergé egg as far as Stankoven was concerned. And so he got to the puck first, put it in, and got wiped out after the fact. Somehow, I don’t think Stankoven felt a thing on that hit. Breaking a 25-game goal drought has got to be a pretty superseding sort of feeling.

Play got physical in the first period as well, with Lyubushkin taking a decent him along the wall in addition to Roope Hintz taking a decent bump to his shoulder from Auston Matthews that sent him to the ice.

Hintz stayed in the game for the moment, and Jamie Benn would return some of the favor by flattening Mitch Marner at center ice with the puck at his feet. But the most concerning part of the roughhousing was the fact that Hintz would end up missing most of the first period after he had an awkward fall at the offensive blue line in addition to being knocked onto his right shoulder by Matthews on a clean hit earlier.

Mavrik Bourque also took a Ryan Reaves stick up high on a clearance, but the referee correctly indicated that there was no penalty on the play (check Rule 60 if you don’t believe me, you skeptic). Matthew Knies also took an uncalled high stick that may or may not have been from his own teammate, but it wouldn’t matter, as the John Tavares hook just prior had drawn all of the referees’ attention, putting Dallas on the power play..

In the top center’s absence, Wyatt Johnston moved up to the top line, while Logan Stankoven moved up to Duchene’s right wing. It didn’t bode well for players’ ice time further down the lineup, as absences tend to do. Blümel didn’t have a shift after briefly heading down the tunnel midway through the second period. He returned to the bench fairly quickly, but that’s where he stayed, and the Stars played the second half of the game with just 10 forwards, though DeBoer said after the game that Hintz was the only injury he was aware of, though some guys may have been “banged up.”

With the late power play taking place without Hintz, Sam Steel got moved onto the second unit, though without much result. In fact, the best chance probably came when the puck slipped off Robertson’s stick on an attempted point shot, leading to a near-breakaway/2-on-1 that Miro Heiskanen successfully controlled with some excellent backchecking. That feeling when you think you’re shooting, only to realize the puck isn’t on your stick? Yeah, that’s one of the worst feelings there is for a hockey player, I’d imagine.

Matěj Blümel had a great look from the equivalent spot as Matthews earlier after Duchene set him up, but it turns out that Matthews has one of the best shots in the world, whereas Blümel couldn’t quite beat Woll’s shoulder. It would’ve been a cool moment for the winger, but it didn’t end up being that.

The second period nearly started with a beautiful goal, as Jamie Benn had a gorgeous lay-off to Duchene, who was busting in the offensive zone with enough speed to cross the puck over to his forehand and put it off the crossbar, which was the fifth post hit between the two teams through just 21 minutes. Imagine if they actually widened the nets, folks. Imagine it.

Esa Lindell wouldn’t like bigger nets, I would guess. But it doesn’t really matter when he prevents you from shooting to begin with, as Lindell did on a 2-on-1 led by Mitch Marner. Lindell expertly defended the pass, then managed to turn and poke the puck away when Marner tried to get underneath him and shoot.

It’s nice when two different defensemen save a goalie from facing a 2-on-1 shot before the game is halfway done, but it’s probably even better not to allow a 2-on-1 to begin with, I’d say. In fact, it’s even better to generate them yourself, and that’s what Jamie Benn did with Evgenii Dadonov. Benn would take the ice he was given and nearly chip the puck over Woll’s shoulder at the near post, but “nearly” means he missed, so skip it.

Matthew Knies also hit another post for Toronto on a backhand shot on the top of the crease, and one began to suspect some sort of magnet-based ploy having been cooked up by the two goaltenders over dinner the night before.

The game started to slow down as shots on goal evened up at 15 apiece, but a couple of nice transition sequences from Wyatt Johnston and then Matt Duchene ended with the second Stars power play of the game after a slashing call on, once again, John Tavares. Should’ve signed with Dallas, buddy. You got to hear the pitch and everything! Ah well, at least you won that one playoff series.

Anyway, after a series of pretty rough entry attempts, the second unit for Dallas got on the ice. And wouldn’t you know it, Thomas Harley once again got the job done on the power play, sending a hard, low shot to the net that Logan Stankoven tipped right into Mavrik Bourque, after which the puck went into the net.

It wasn’t pretty, but I think Stankoven is due for a few good bounces. And thank goodness this tip attempt hit Bourque lower than Stankoven’s tip on Marchment did. Anyway, the Stars’ power play made a statement by converting on this one, and the Stars had a lead, at last. That gave Bourque his fourth point in his last five games, and Stankoven his second point of the night.

Matt Dumba continued the physical play with a big hit on old friend Max Domi in the middle frame, after which Domi gamely popped up and skated over to Dumba & Co. in an attempt to stir the pot. It was a fun game, this one, at times.

Matt Dumba crushes Max Domi. Cleanly. pic.twitter.com/34Hz8nUGP5

— David Castillo (@DavidCastilloAC) January 15, 2025

Colin Blackwell drew the Stars’ third penalty after some up-and-down by the teams after Oliver Ekman-Larrson spun him around with a free hand for pretty much no reason at all. But on the same sequence Ilya Lyubushkin got hit with a puck on what looked like his, uh, midsection, and he headed straight to the dressing room. Though the fact that there were only 20 seconds left in the middle frame probably had a lot to do with that, as he came back out for the third without any apparent problems.

As Josh and Razor mentioned going into intermission, the Leafs had to be feeling pretty frustrated through 40 minutes, which was a nice feeling to be on the other side of in this contest, for once. It’s about time Toronto stopped enjoying unparalleled success, for once. That frustration would only mount early in the third period, as Dallas doubled their goal total before Toronto’s faithful fans had even settled back into their suites.

First, Matt Duchene went between his legs to beat Woll late in what had suddenly become a lethal Dallas power play. The sequence all came after Jamie Benn made a beautiful play to keep the puck in on a pretty weak Toronto clearance attempt, so it felt like some self-inflicted damage even before Duchene went Full Fancy Dan at the top of the crease, notably unmarked.

Next, Logan Stankoven proved that the ketchup bottle had well and truly been cleared of its detritus, as Duchene sent a shot netward that deflected off Stankoven and past Woll to make it 4-1. You know, it was the sort of goal that was fluky in two ways: first, because it was an odd bounce, and second, because Stankoven wouldn’t have been playing with Duchene if not for Hintz’s absence. But it’s just as funny that this was the exact sort of goal we all thought Stankoven would need to get back on the beam, only it came after he’d already done so. Two goals in Toronto is a pretty nice way to erase memories, I’d say.

Bourque nearly scored a second of his own on a lackluster Leafs neutral zone play, busting into the zone downhill and firing the puck clean off the left post in behind Woll for the Stars’ third or fourth post of their own up to that point.

The confidence was just pouring forth for the Dallas rookies in this one, and Toronto didn’t have many answers. They had a look at the game midway through the third when when Sam Steel took a slashing penalty on a scramble at the Stars’ netmouth, but Toronto’s heart never really seemed to be in it. Dallas could sense that, I think, as Oettinger flashed the glove to stop Matthews with far more than the minimum amount of flair during the kill, and the collective confidence only seemed to grow for Dallas.

I’d say that Toronto might have some issues with handling adversity, given how they collapsed in this third period in this one. Dallas was able to milk the final 10 minutes with a surprising amount of ease, given their depleted lineup, and even with a perfunctory goalie-pull with just over a minute to go, Toronto never really looked like Toronto outside of the first five minutes of the game, while Dallas ended the contest looking more like Dallas than ever.

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On one final note, Evan Grant has a report in the Dallas Morning News tonight that the Texas Rangers will be joining the Victory+ platform next season with a paid annual subscription. Even though it’s not free, the additional partner on the Stars’ streaming platform is a very big boost, both in terms of future growth and current exposure. When the official announcement comes out, we’ll have more to say, but this report only appears to be further proof of the Stars’ bet on their streaming platform looking like a good one.

If nothing else, this just means there will be that many more bars and restaurants that will know how to find games on Victory+. And who doesn’t want that?