Game 64 AfterThoughts: First Goals, Last Laughs

Mikael Granlund and Mikko Rantanen ensured Vancouver would stay on the outside of the playoff picture, at least for now

Jason Robertson’s effort in this game was pretty emblematic of the Stars as a whole. After getting skated out of the rink for the first two periods in Edmonton, the Stars came out and faced a desperate Vancouver team and simply outplayed them, bit by bit. In a game where shots on goal ended up being 23-19 to Vancouver, the Stars were incrementally better in each period, and that added up to a 4-1 victory.

Mikael Granlund scored his first goal with Dallas, and that had to be a relief to him and everyone in that room. He’s been playing well and racking up assists, but to really feel like an offensive threat, you need to see the results at some point. For Granlund to get that goal while playing next to Rantanen might be just a tad bit extra special, too.

Kudos to DeBoer for putting out Rantanen with Duchene and Granlund in that spot at the end of the second period, too. That was the only shift Rantanen played with Granlund all night, and it resulted in a goal, with Rantanen occupying two Canucks at the front of the net, with Granlund finding space and a juicy rebound out wide. Those little moves usually don’t result in anything, because goals are a rare thing. But sometimes, everything comes together, and it’s nice that it ended with a reward for a deserving player.

Robertson had a really, really nice game tonight. The power play wasn’t clicking in the absence of Roope Hintz’s help with entries and setup, but Robertson showed the form that helped him score 109 points a couple of years ago, leading the forwards in ice time for the second night in a row, and scoring a heck of a goal to stop Vancouver’s comeback before it got started.

The goal was a thing of beauty, as Robertson made a fantastic defensive play coming back across all three zones to strip the puck away from Dakota Joshua. He then headed back up ice and exchanged with Matt Duchene to eventually be set up for a tap-in goal after he won the race (and fight) to the net.

It was effort, skill, and responsibility working in perfect harmony. You can’t really ask much more of Robertson, or the Stars as a whole, than that. If the Stars get that Jason Robertson in the playoffs, they’re going to be a nightmare to play against, given the other talent that surrounds him.

Perhaps in recognition of his work tonight, Robertson was also put out to defend the 6-on-5 late, showing that DeBoer still trusts Robertson’s defensive aptitude, even if no one will ever mistake him for a defenseman outright.

Elias Pettersson (whom I will refer to as Elias Pettersson #1 henceforth) ended the night with a -3. He had no shots on goal. If you’re Vancouver, teetering on the edge of a playoff spot, I don’t know what on earth you do if you end up in the ninth spot with seven years of his $11.6 million cap hit still to go.

I’m not sure if that number being just $400K below Rantanen’s deal is a sign that the Stars got a bargain or that the Canucks are in the soup, but I can’t imagine they are thrilled with his performance this year either way. Personally, I think Rantanen is a better player to have for (roughly) that price. Top-ten players in the NHL are good to have on your team. That’s just my hockey expertise coming into play there, no big deal.

Cody Ceci also had two points tonight, and he deserved them. He’s an easy player to pile on when he makes a mistake, but as we’ve said so often, he’s been absolutely vital to the Stars’ maintaining their form since losing Heiskanen. Tonight, for instance, Ceci (who played mostly with Esa Lindell) played 20:38, second-most on the team.

The defensive pairs were able to be extremely balanced, with Thomas Harley getting what counts as a night off for him, playing just 21:32. This game was an important proof of concept in terms of ice time distribution before the home stretch of the season. You have to keep players as fresh as possible right now in preparation for the big games in April.

The Stars’ defensive work in this one was noticeable in the way that Vancouver generated a lot of scrambles around the net, but they couldn’t find loose pucks quickly enough, which is as much a credit to Dallas’s desperation as a criticism of Vancouver’s killer instinct. Dallas’s forwards (especially their fourth line, with Blackwell re-inserted) were largely following Robertson’s lead, and it made life easier on everyone as a result, including Casey DeSmith.

DeSmith deserves his own plaudits for a 4-1 win that saw him matching his win total from last year (in Vancouver) in just 18 games of record. DeSmith is now 12-6-0, whereas last year he went 12-9-6 with the Canucks. He controlled rebounds better than Kevin Lankinen, and he stopped a couple of great looks for Vancouver that could’ve turned the tide. Life is good for goalies in Dallas, this year.

Matt Duchene and Thomas Harley were steadily excellent, as they’ve been all year. I really don’t know what else you can say about Duchene that we haven’t said this year, but in a game where Marchment had been moved off his line and Hintz was out of the lineup entirely, Duchene continued to look like the Stars’ top center in many regards. He’s made good on his word after last season to keep the momentum going in the second half, and then some.

Mikko Rantanen wasn’t as noticeable as he was in his debut, but that’s not surprising in a game with far less space than the Edmonton Fiasco. He did make a show of force by standing up for Jason Robertson after some nasty cross checks, and I think that show of solidarity is a big deal for this team right now.

Rantanen wasn’t entirely quiet on offense either, as he still made a few really excellent plays, including a dish to Duchene on a rush that nearly set up a rookie defenseman for a goal. That defenseman was Lian Bichsel, who also had a good game tonight, for a sixth defenseman.

Bichsel made a couple of properly aggressive plays both in the offensive zone and on defense, including stepping up to sweep away a dangerous puck in the neutral zone as Vancouver was coming with numbers. It was the sort of play that requires confidence and quick thinking, and he executed it perfectly to defuse the attack.

When Bichsel uses his skating to eat up ice, he goes from being a merely big player to a downright dangerous one. The Canucks targeted him a bit tonight, but aside from a pretty bogus penalty (which we’ll talk about in the Game Beats below), he had a lot to be perfectly happy about when it came to enduring the slings and arrows of less-than-outrageous fortune (which were flung mostly by Nils Höglander).

Roope Hintz Update

We did get an update on Roope Hintz’s condition from Pete DeBoer before the game. The Stars coach said Hintz’s status is day-to-day, but Hintz has also flown back to Dallas already, rather than waiting for his team That may suggest that some further imaging and testing is probably necessary to determine a timeline for Hintz.

Here’s what Pete DeBoer said about Hintz before the game today:

“Flew home today. So, we’ll see. Initially thought was it’s nothing “long” long term, but obviously not available. Day-to-day here.”

When asked about whether Hintz’s initial screenings had ruled out a fracture, DeBoer confirmed things didn’t initially look too bad: “Yeah, that’s what it looks like [no fracture]. But until they do all the imaging, you never know.”

We’ll hope for the best for Hintz. If there’s good news to be had, it’s that the equipment staff are well-versed in putting together protective face shields this season. That is not really good news when you think about it, but we’re trying to be positive here.

Stars Lineup

The Stars began the game with this lineup:

Robertson-Johnston-Rantanen
Benn-Duchene-Granlund
Marchment-Bourque-Dadonov
Bäck-Steel-Blackwell

Harley-Lyubushkin
Lindell-Ceci
Bichsel-Dumba

DeSmith

***

Benn and Marchment switched places after the bubbled forward had struggled to rekindle his earlier chemistry with Duchene since his return from a major facial injury.

Colin Blackwell also drew in for his first game since February 25 in Columbus. Brendan Smith was a healthy scratch.

DeSmith faced his former team in Vancouver, where he spent one season before coming to Dallas last summer. DeSmith pretty much played like a backup goalie on Vancouver, going 12-9-6 with a .895 save percentages. He has been much better in Dallas this year.

Game Beats

The first dangerous moment of the game came when Elias Pettersson #1 got a rush down the left wing, and rang a shot of the bar over Casey DeSmith’s right shoulder, with Ilya Lyubushkin hustling to get back in position.

The Stars got the first power play of the game after Drew O’Connor dove for a puck in the neutral zone and tripped Lian Bichsel. But the Stars only had one look at a rebound when it came to chances, dropping the post-Rantanen (post-Moose?) power play to 50% after going 2-for-3 in Edmonton.

Oskar Bäck got the Stars’ next great look, firing a puck into a Vancouver shinpad, then gathering the puck and firing again into Kevin Lankinen, who swallowed it up.

Marcus Pettersson got a chance of his own, as the defenseman charged to the net and put a backhand on DeSmith, but nothin’ doin’, as you’d expect when a defenseman like Pettersson gets that sort of chance.

It’s funny to see Tyler Myers still going in Vancouver. The Houstonian is 35 now, but all 6-foot-8 of him was still on the ice to provide a nice comparison for Lian Bichsel.

The Stars’ penalty kill finally got some work to do after Mavrik Bourque got tagged for a holding penalty on Jonathan Lekkerimäki about four feet in front of the referee. Bourque looked like he was just trying to use his strength to finish a check into the boards, but he used his free hand to get some leverage at first, and that’s always gonna draw a call—especially in the first period with a referee sitting in the front row.

The Canucks got the puck down low a couple of times, but they never forced a serious save from DeSmith, thanks to the diligent work of the best penalty kill in the NHL.

Things got chippier as the periods wore along. As if he needed to endear himself to the Dallas fans any more than he already had, Mikko Rantanen showed that it is, in fact, permitted for a teammate to step in for a teammate when the other team targets one of your best players. Nils Höglander laid a couple of cross checks on Jason Robertson that weren’t called, and Rantanen stepped in with a vicious cross check of his own.

It all resulted in a big ol’ scrum, out of which the officials agreed that Höglander had been running around like a bit of a nincompoop, so Vancouver probably deserved to be punished, sending Rick Tocchet into the stratosphere when he realized his team was going to be shorthanded. Dakota Joshua was given an extra minor, and that gave the Stars a chance to spend another two minutes not scoring on the power play, which they promptly took, and did. All’s well that ends well, Rick.

The first period ended without either team having created nearly as much as they would’ve liked, despite three power plays. The 0-0 score felt entirely deserved, for the players. As for the viewers, well, you spent half an hour watching that, so I hope you at least got a free magnet or something. You deserve that, at least.

Second Period

Mikael Granlund had his first Stars goal sitting on his stick after a superb cross from Matt Duchene to create an open net,, only for the puck to roll onto his heel right before he put it away.

He ended up firing it into a sliding Lankinen, who lost his stick and curled into the fetal position, somehow retaining the puck with everybody hacking away.

In the end, it would be the patchwork line of Marchment-Bourque-Dadonov that scored first, after a couple of low-to-high cycles and hard work resulted in Thomas Harley seizing space in the high slot and taking a feed from Dadonov with traffic in front and firing the puck at the mass of bodies in front of the net.

Harley had to come over from the left point to find the space, but it’s a testament to his offensive prowess that he got to the right spot at the right time. The shot deflected off multiple things on its way end, with Lankinen’s skate eventually kicking the puck just over the line.

(Mavrik Bourque is probably like 0.1% annoyed about that last part, as the puck would’ve been sitting right there for a goal had Lankinen not put it in himself. But a goal is a goal is a goal.)

A scramble at the netfront indicated Vancouver’s pushback, and the Stars had to hunker down for a couple of minutes to weather the storm. They ended up generating a chance of their own just after the halfway mark, as Rantanen fed Robertson from the boards with Lian Bichsel rushing in alongside him. Robertson set up the defenseman for a great shot that got through Lankinen, but the puck trickled just wide of the post and behind the goal line.

And of course, with that chance missed, the Canucks were bound to score soon after, and they obliged, when Derek Forbort scored his first goal of the season after a slick give-and-go with Conor Garland gave Forbort a golden chance from the doorstep, and he put it over DeSmith’s shoulder like he does it all the time.

The Canucks successfully pulled the Stars’ forwards out of position and Forbort’s move got Vancouver numbers at the hashmarks—a sure sign of blown coverage, as one of Rantanen and Duchene probably needs to pick up Forbort (in the middle of the ice here, heading to the weak side) and he dishes the puck to Mancini in the image below:

Instead, both Rantanen (recovering after following Garland, the puck carrier) and Duchene wind up on Garland, with Robertson keeping an eye on Mancini (#90) up at the point.

Probably Rantanen needs to switch off there and go with Forbort, but there’s an argument that Duchene should stick with Forbort. I’ll chalk that up to playing with new linemates, one of whom is in a new system without having a single practice yet.

But you also have to credit Vancouver for their work and movement in the zone. Nobody on earth expects Forbort to head downhill the way he did after that sequence. Consider that a window into what it feels like when Ilya Lyubushkin scores against your team.

After some aggressive play from both sides—Razor pointed out how much 1-on-1 defending had to be done in this one, and how well it was performed—Colin Blackwell drew a penalty on Tyler Myers as he nearly split the defense with his speed. It was a good sign for Blackwell, who is likewise at his best when his speed is noticeable in open ice.

Mikko Rantanen had a great chance on the power play 45 seconds in when he gathered a puck and ripped it sight-unseed just wide of the net.

Mavrik Bourque also got a great look—he looked dangerous from his off-wing on that second power play unit, for my money—that Lankinen just barely got a piece of as well, albeit from an angle goaltenders should stop pucks from.

But after a third power play elapsed without result, DeBoer put out Duchene and Granlund with Rantanen in place of Benn for an offensive face-off in the final 30 seconds of the period. That trio won the face-off back, and Cody Ceci fired a long wrist shot that Lankinen blockered right to Granlund, with Rantanen occupying two Canucks at the netfront.

It was a pretty inexcusable rebound from Lankinen, but Granlund was clearly determined not to repeat his miss from nearly the same spot earlier in the game. He leaned into the puck and aimed it into the net with every muscle fiber he had, falling over as he shot the puck into the net for his first goal as a Dallas Star.

It was a pretty neat moment.

Third Period

To start the third period, DeBoer shuffled the top-nine thus:

Marchment-Rantanen-Johnston
Robertson-Duchene-Granlund
Benn-Bourque-Dadonov

Teddy Blueger got a chance to dig away at a puck in Casey DeSmith’s crease a minute into the period, but the Stars’ goaltender held his ground, and Marchment was able to poke the puck away, with Rantanen also holding the line at the top of the crease.

After an extended shift for the Bichsel-Dumba defense pair, a puck was sent down less than a foot wide of Lankinen’s crease for icing. As a consequence of the inability to change, Bichsel was still on the ice when Höglander basically skated into him and grabbed his stick. Bichsel dismissed peremptorily, but with power plays at 3:1 to Dallas,

It wasn’t the sort of call you like to see a back referee make when the near official opts out, but the Stars made it through the penalty because Canucks.

DeSmith had to be sharp a few minutes later with a couple of chances, including one puck flung from a sharp angle that caught him almost entirely unawares after a scramble in front.

But Jason Robertson would start and finish a great chance a few minutes later, after ripping a puck away from Dakota Joshua with some great backchecking, then turning up ice with Duchene and putting the feed in behind Lankinen to make it 3-1 as the flashbulbs popped.

That earned a look of from Duchene that I am interpreting as, “Hmm, pretty nice pass there, eh?”

After that, DeSmith came up huge, denying Dakota Joshua (rough night for him) at 11:00 to go in the third on a chance he had all alone from the wing.

After that, the Stars power play got a chance to make an appearance after three unsuccessful attempts when Tyler Myers put Sam Steel in an accidental headlock and got called for holding.

It’s not easy being 6’ 8”, I hear. But it is apparently even more difficult to be the Dallas Stars Power Play in Vancouver, because they spent a fourth set of two minutes with nothing much generated, and one scrambly sequence allowed at the other end, but again without result.

Elias Pettersson #2 nearly cut the lead in half with a wrist shot from the point at the 4:30 mark, but it hit the bar and bounced down and out, with DeSmith spinning but not finding the puck.

Harley was also to shovel it away (you can see the puck behind DeSmith’s head here), however, and Vancouver’s frustration continued.

Speaking of which, Höglander showed some great glove-puck coordination on the doorstep when he batted a Kiefer Sherwood cross out of the air and through DeSmith’s five-hole.

I have to think Lian Bichsel was a little extra happy to see Höglander's goal be waved off, however, as the Canucks forward’s attempt to get a stick on the puck before it went through DeSmith was unsuccessful, and the officials immediately washed out the goal, and properly so.

Lankinen was pulled with just over two minutes to go, and the Stars didn’t give up too many dangerous looks before they iced the game by giving one of the ten best scorers in the NHL this look at an empty net. Would you believe he didn’t miss?

Rantanen did not miss, and the Stars took a 4-1 lead back to Dallas for a few days before they head back to Canada to faced the Jets on Friday followed by a stop in Colorado on Sunday.

Before then, the Stars have four days off, which will hopefully be some useful recovery time for Roope Hintz.

Certainly the rest will be welcome for everyone else, too, as the Stars prepare for a breakneck pace of knocking out their final 18 games in 33 days, from March 14 to April 16. This schedule is something that could really wear a team down over a season like this one, but getting a player like Rantanen will put some extra juice in anyone’s legs.

The Stars have scored four goals in every game they’ve played since acquiring Mikko Rantanen. Will this trend continue? Science says, yes, forever. I will double check that later this week.