Game 50 AfterThoughts: Why-Not Johnston?

Ladies and gentlemen, Dallas has finally come back to win a game when trailing after 40 minutes for the first time all season. And they did it in about the wildest way imaginable, as Wyatt Johnston scored a natural hat trick to turn a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 overtime win. And he had to do it without the Stars’ best defenseman, too.

That’s because Miro Heiskanen was lost to injury halfway through the final period, when Mark Stone threw himself into Heiskanen’s knees. After the play, Heiskanen clearly motioned for help to get off the ice, and he did not return.

It was a freak play that clearly wasn’t an intent to injure by Stone, as Roope Hintz got a stick on Stone’s skate right as Miro Heiskanen put a move on Stone, and Stone finished the play by lunging into Heiskanen’s knee, injuring the Stars’ best defenseman with what was only called two minutes for tripping.

After the game, Pete DeBoer said that he knows Stone isn’t a dirty player, but that he was frustrated with the officials for not even looking at the play by calling a major initially in order to give themselves a chance to review it. And I think he’s got a good point, considering how weird the play was. Why wouldn’t the officials want to give themselves to make sure it wasn’t worthy of a major call? They could have easily called a major penalty, as we’ve seen all season, then downgraded it back to a minor if they didn’t see a need to call it a five-minute penalty. But instead, they called tripping, for this.

The lack of further scrutiny was a travesty, but not nearly as much as the ESPN broadcast, which purported to have former NHL referee Dave Jackson on it, though it’s not like you’d know it, as the broadcasters wondered aloud what the officials could really call, since there was really no other penalty but tripping to call. And that’s where Mr. Nerdy Robert gets to thumb through his rule book, because, ahem:

Clipping is a rare penalty, but it exists for a reason. There’s a video explanation from the NHL, too. Watch that and tell me how, in all honesty, this play didn’t qualify. Or even watch an older Player Safety clip below.

David Castillo on Twitter also had a good slow-motion look at the play, where you can see Roope Hintz’s stick get a piece of Stone’s skate, but after which you can see Stone plant off his right skate and lunge right into Heiskanen’s knees in a desperation poke-check, causing the injury. Mark Stone was shown looking at an iPad and laughing after the play, saying (per Ray Ferraro) that he was tripped, and that’s why he went into Heiskanen. Personally, I think he clearly lunges the opposite direction well after Hintz’s stick gets his skate, but obviously the officials thought it was just a trip. Of course, whatever the call, it wouldn’t change the fact that Heiskanen is injured. DeBoer said after the game that they don’t know how long Heiskanen will be out, so we’ll have to wait until (probably) practice on Thursday to find out more.

On the podcast with Gavin after the game, I mentioned how similar this sort of play is to a lot of kneeling majors, where a player just instinctively sticks out a knee in order to prevent a player from beating him clean. That’s all Stone is doing here, is doing to avoid letting Heiskanen beat him. But the problem is, he accidentally dives into Heiskanen’s knee, and injures him. That’s a clear penalty, and given the injury, it merited more than two minutes. Any frustration after the game, however, should be directed at the officiating, not Stone.

(Incidentally, Stone got clipped himself a few years ago by Connor Garland, so he knows full well it’s a penalty.)

***

Three of the first four shots on goal in this game went into the net, though one was called back for being offside. Nonetheless, Oettinger could have been pulled early in this one, but he and the Stars shored things up after the early scramble, and a 2-1 deficit was probably no worse than they deserved, all things considered. And despite Vegas scoring a 5-on-3 goal to make it 3-1 the next period, it would end up being Oettinger who came up huge down the stretch, including a big save on a shorthanded breakaway. He also made a very tricky save late in the third period after a deflection, but we have to talk about the absolutely massive save on Shea Theodore on a breakaway right at the beginning of overtime.

Kudos to Oettinger for coming up huge in this one despite a rough start. That was a poetic ending to a rough beginning, as Oettinger literally kept his head in the game, and that’s what looked to save Theodore’s shot.

Also, kudos to DeBoer for sticking with his starting goalie, rather than pulling him after the team was scattered early. Patience is a tricky thing in hockey, but you have to say the Stars made the right moves early to steady the ship rather than blowing things up.

Roope Hintz was part of the good changes they did make, as he was moved up to the Johnston line in the third period, and well, that pretty much saved the game, didn’t it? After the two combined for a gorgeous shorthanded goal to punch back after going down 3-1 in the second, Hintz fed Johnston with two more primary assists to complete the natural hat trick.

Hintz and Johnston are both top-center caliber players, and it’s a luxury for Dallas that they can deploy them apart from one another or combine them when necessary. They aren’t Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, but when they’re really going, they can be just as deadly for Dallas. And DeBoer did the right thing by reuniting them late in this one, as their chemistry saved Dallas from what could have been a really demoralizing loss. Instead, it’s just a demoralizing injury. Potentially.

Thomas Harley had to step up in the third period in Heiskanen’s absence, making a big block in the third period and playing over 27 minutes as the de facto number one defenseman. You may remember how Harley had to step up last year when Heiskanen went out with an injury, and while nobody wants to hear another worse than “mild MCL strain” with regard to the Stars’ best defenseman, we simply don’t know enough right now to guess how severe the injury will be.

***

Dallas’s fourth line was really good in this game, with Oskar Bäck, Colin Blackwell, and Brendan Smith not only creating momentum, but scoring chances as well, including a tic-tac-toe chance earlier in the game that Bäck very nearly put home.

I’m not sure whether DeBoer will keep rolling with that line, but it’s clear that he’s gotten enough from that trio to keep sticking with it. That’s as strong an endorsement as they’re likely to get right now, and that’s just fine.

***

Ivan Barbashev came into this game not having scored in ten games. And after he appeared to do so on the first shot of the game, you could see why, as Barbashev was a good foot offside coming into the zone. But the great thing in this league is that offside plays get reviewed, if they lead to something exciting, and the goal was chalked off. Still, it was a glove-side winner that Oettinger wasn’t close to, and that’s hardly an auspicious beginning to any goalie’s game, whether in Vegas or Vancouver.

But Vegas wouldn’t let that get them down, as they kept on coming with the same line, and Barbashev found Jack Eichel all alone for a tap-in on the doorstep, after Thomas Harley tripped while following Mark Stone to wall, and as a result, he was just a step too slow to recover, while Wyatt Johnston decided to stay higher in the slot rather than come down to cover Eichel, and Miro Heiskanen had started off staying man-on-man with Eichel, only to leave him after Harley joined at the wall. So that’s how Barbashev contorted his body in order to make a genuinely fantastic pass to a wide-open Jack Eichel, who is very good. I mean, look at what Barbashev is doing with his body to find the passing lane, here:

It’s a rough goal to surrender, but you have to tip your cap a bit, too.

Dallas almost gave up a goal on the very next shift, too, only for Pavel Dorofeyev to miss a shot from basically the same spot Barbashev had just (not) scored from, and Mavrik Bourque would then demonstrate the proper way to convert such a chance, when Matt Duchene set him up for a beautiful chance that Bourque threaded between the stick and the pad along the ice to even things up, leading to some uneasy silence in the building for the Golden Knights faithful.

Bourque but! pic.twitter.com/QKUvuUKDY7

— Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) January 29, 2025

Nic Hague then decided to mash the BE BIG button later in a shift, and the large defenseman took the puck and just lumbered around the offensive zone and right to the net, where he jammed the puck against Jake Oettinger while receiving a decent shot from Matt Dumba. And that was great, except that Dumba’s prior assignemnt, Tomáš Hertl, was then left alone to immediately grab the rebound and slam it home at the near post, with Lian Bichsel back out front in the low slot. It was an alarmingly simple play, and it meant three of Vegas’s first four shots on goal had found the net.

That 2-1 goal was the point of the game that elicited a similar feeling from the 2022-23 playoff run, when Vegas’s third and fourth series wins came by a combined score of 10-0. Three of the first four shots Oettinger had seen had gone in, and you wondered whether the obscenely loud volume in T-Mobile Arena wasn’t making an argument for a really rash goalie change. But really, the whole team needed a wake-up call, and the defense started getting much more involved for Dallas in transition. That helped even things back up over the next few minutes, as Vegas had been aggressively attacking Dallas’s breakouts along the wall early. But after settling things down, it began to look like a Vegas/Dallas hockey game again, in a much less frantic sense.

The second period was all find and dandy until a couple of penalty calls gifted Vegas a 5-on-3. The second was a slash called on Ilya Lyubushkin, who put a stick on the hands that can get called, sure. But it’s the first penalty that might not have been one, as Jonas Rondbjerg fell down trying to get around Lian Bichsel, and the big Swiss defenseman was called for tripping.

If I’m being charitable, then Rondbjerg may have just been leaning to try to get around Bichsel, and he lost his balance when some contact happened, and that led to the fall. In any case, that by itself wouldn’t have torched Dallas, but then, it didn’t stay by itself.

The second penalty that came too soon after Bichsel’s was more avoidable, as Lyubushkin should probably be smarter with his stick, and it was only a matter of time before Vegas converted the 2-man advantage, with Pavel Dorofeyez doing his best St. Louis Blues impressed by sending a great chance right back into Oettinger rather than into the net, but this time, the luck was on Vegas’s side, and the puck caromed off Oettinger’s right pad and into the net. That made a very in-control game a very less-fun 3-1 deficit.

But speaking of fun, the Stars put out Wyatt Johnston and Roope Hintz to kill the remaining minor, and that duo was portentous, as Hintz intercepted a Shea Theodore pass and went the other direction with Johnston.

Hintz made a power move toward the middle of the ice, shielding the puck with his leg to shoot it far side low, which Adin Hill saved. But this time, Hill’s Rebound Factory generated a profitable product, as Wyatt Johnston had perfectly measured his momentum in order to find said rebound and slam it home for a shorthanded goal. Whether that was the universe tipping its cap to the iffy penalty call is yours to decide, but I’ve got my hunches.

Dallas then went on a double-minor power play (with a few dozen seconds of 4-on-4 at the front end) after Mavrik Bourque got his face scraped right off a faceoff. And wouldn’t you know it, Rondbjerg got a shorthanded chance of his own with Miro Heiskanen not able to outpace him down the ice, but Oettinger negated the chance, allowing Dallas to while away the remaining time on their power plays without converting, though Jamie Benn did chastise himself for missing a net-front tip attempt, if that counts for anything. (It does not count for anything.)

Lian Bichsel beaver-tailed his stick on a zone entry late in the second, and when he finally did get the puck, he fired a shot that took out Pavel Dorofeyev’s stick, leading to a bit of a 5-on-4.5 for Dallas. It just goes to show: when Bichsel asks for the puck, you should probably give him the puck. Also, if he asks for anything, probably get that for him, too. He is big, so it’s best to be on the safe side.

At the close of the period, Evgenii Dadonov fired a no-look shot from distance that appeared to scare Hill quite a bit. Nothing came of it, but I always love seeing those weird, veteran attempts to turn a nothing shot into something that confuses goalies. They always have a trick up their sleeve, those veterans. Anyway, it didn’t work, and Dallas had a chance to earn their first points all season when entering the third period trailing.

In an effort to reverse the Stars’ lack of comeback luck, DeBoer moved Roope Hintz back up to the top line with Robertson and Johnston, and Dadonov back to the Steel-Stankoven line. But it would be the latter line that nearly scored right away, as Thomas Harley got a great feed from Stankoven in the slot, only to send it just wide of the far post.

The third period was all about Vegas sitting back and standing up at their blue line, with Dallas having real trouble getting through the neutral zone with possession. But things got messy after the Heiskanen injury, which we already talked about earlier, and that’s where you could easily have seen the Stars running out of gas in one of the toughest buildings in the league, without their best player.

But the Stars’ other best player, Wyatt Johnston, then proceeded to do something heroic, because he’s Wyatt Johnston. After a slick little Jason Robertson play along the wall in the neutral zone to keep the transition moving, Hintz played give-and-go with his new-old linemate, and Johnston fired the puck past Hill’s blocker to tie the game at 3 and give the Stars’ shaken bench some much-needed life.

What can you say about plays like this, other than what we’ve said about Johnston so many, many times already? He was finding good ice all throughout this game, and every time he had a rush northward, he found ways to make things happen. And with this play, he simply beat a goalie with a fantastic shot after a great rush chance. It seems so simple for him, because he is simply that good.

***

After a bit of a frantic sequence with Ilya Lyubushkin at both ends of the ice (nearly scoring on his own goal, then nearly scoring a goal), Pete Deboer called a timeout with 1:25 remaining, presumably just to settle things down, and to rest his weary defensemen just a bit more before a vital final stretch in regulation. And with Jake Oettinger’s intervention, the Stars got to overtime, guaranteeing at least one point out of a very tough game.

Oettinger then had to be even bigger, stopping Shea Theodore on a clean breakaway right off the bat in overtime when Theodore just took the open ice and mohawked his way around the three skaters. Whoopsie.

Oettinger had to stay big enough with his upper body to fend off the shot. And that was key, because of what happened the other way.

WYATT CAPS US OFF!

RYSE | #TexasHockey pic.twitter.com/ewnEuljBVm

— Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) January 29, 2025

Which is to say, Wyatt Johnston and Roope Hintz looked like two number one centers playing with the defense, and they saucered the puck back and forth before Johnston waltzed in for the game-winning, hat-trick goal like he was putting a check in the mailbox.

Obviously Miro Heiskanen’s health is the top concern after this one, but winning a game like this, considering all of the adversity the Stars have experienced against this team in the past, and in this game in particular, was huge.

Dallas is staying in Vegas tonight and flying back tomorrow, so we may not know more until Thursday at practice. In the meantime, what a win, what a game. Go get some sleep, and dream of good medical diagnoses.