The original title for this Afterwords was going to be “Dead Cat.”
The main body of the piece was going to talk about how we all knew (or should have known) that the Dallas Stars weren’t coming back to beat the Edmonton Oilers this series. How in light of that, all I really wanted for Game 5 was to have a “dead cat bounce,” that is a resounding victory that would fill fans with hope even if it was to all come crashing down later, most likely in Game 6 back on the road.
I would then make a joke about how we got a “dead cat” alright, but no bounce. How I knew the game was over as soon as the Stars took an early penalty, which was confirmed when the Stars got scored on first for the 15th time in 18 games. Which was then followed by 2-0. And then by 3-0. And then again two more times when Dallas scored to put the game within one, only for the Oilers to immediately restore the 2-goal lead.
I was going to talk about how that was the theme all series, of Dallas not being able to score and, even when they did, they immediately gave one up anyways. How Edmonton clearly looked like the better team for all but one, maybe two periods in a five game series in which Dallas had a lead for less than 20 total minutes. Only then, after talking about the game and the series as a whole, was I going to dive into the bullet points, the first of which was to be about a certain coaching decision I took issue with.
Then I got home from Dallas. Then I was able to look at Discord and see what the post-game buzz was all about. And that’s when I saw this quote from Pete Deboer:
“Anytime you pull a goalie, the reasoning’s always to try and spark your group, so that was the number one reason. We had talked endlessly in this series about trying to play with a lead, and obviously we’re in a 2-0 hole right away. And you know what, I didn’t take that lightly and I didn’t blame it all on Jake.
But the reality is, if you go back to last year’s playoffs, he’s lost six of seven games to Edmonton and we gave up two shots on two goals in an elimination game. It was partly to spark our team and wake them up, and partly knowing that status quo had not been working. And that’s a pretty big sample size.”
Sigh… it’s going to be like that, is it? Alright, fine: we’ll make this the focal point.
First off, let me clear: this was an absolutely horrible take from DeBoer. Period. I mean, I’m not like many doomer Star fans who’ve been calling for his head — I like and appreciate what he has done in his time in Dallas. But this was just indefensible.
Second, let’s take a step back in time and talk about the pull before DeBoer tried to justify it. When Jake Oettinger got yanked, needless to say everyone was shocked. In the Stars Discord (which you should totally join, not sponsored), I immediately called out that it was at best an overreaction, and a terrible decision nonetheless. I mean, yes, two shots on two goals, but did you see the goals? The first was Corey Perry (who’s actually been dangerous this postseason) being left all alone in front on the power play (again). The second was the Stars being caught on a lazy change, allowing Jake Wallman to breakout a long distance pass which eventually led to a Mattias Janmark breakaway goal.
And yes, I know it’s Janmark. And to be clear, that was a bad goal to let in by Oettinger. But that’s still just one bad goal out of two, wherein both of them were only opportunities to begin with due to the Stars defense completely hanging their goaltender out to dry. Which, again, has been the theme all series against Dallas. Blaming he early 2-0 deficit on Oettinger and pulling him as a result would be a horrible decision.
People mostly agreed, which is why they argued back that it wasn’t a statement about Oettinger, but rather DeBoer trying to send a message to the team. That he was trying to light a spark in them, with ye ole “if you’re going to play like crap, then you don’t deserve to have your starter goaltender in net. Be better.” It’s a tactic that DeBoer has done before, and it has (occasionally) worked in the past for various teams.
But here’s the thing: even if it was about sending a message, it was still a horrible decision. That’s the kind of thing you do in the regular season, or early in a playoff series, or when you’re getting blown out. When you’re facing elimination, against a team that you can’t seem to score against, when your backup goalie isn’t a “1B” but a bona fide backup, and your star goalie has been one of your best players all postseason long and the reason you were able to make it past the second round against the President’s Trophy winners and the best goaltender in the world? I’m sorry, but in that circumstance, you need every save you can get, which means you have to stick with Oettinger unless he is clearly cooked (which, again, he most definitely wasn’t). And that’s to say nothing about how, if you want to send a message, that’s what the timeout you just called is for!
Of course, if it was just about “sending a message” or “lighting a spark,” Oettinger would have been back for the second period — still down by two goals, an intermission to cool off, time to get to work and win this thing. But he stayed on the bench, and that was that. Which goes to show that, when DeBoer said a spark was the “number one reason” for the pull in his post-game presser, it wasn’t really — otherwise, he would have just stopped right there.
No, the real reason was what he said next: blaming Oettinger for having lost six of his last seven playoff games against the Oilers. Never mind that DeBoer has also lost six of his last seven playoff games against Edmonton, or that the defense has been non-existent all series long, or that the Stars were only capable of scoring five total goals in the last four losses (four of which were by the still-injured Jason “I’m not dead yet!” Robertson) and just six goals across all five games outside of a single third period burst. No no no, the real reason for the team’s struggles was clearly one of the best performing goaltenders this postseason. How obvious!
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised by the quote, given DeBoer’s past drama with starting goaltenders. But it honestly shocked me, to hear how a coach fresh off a third consecutive playoff series loss where his team’s offense evaporated threw his goalie of all players and staff under the bus. Again, he could have just left it at “I tried to light a spark.” He could have taken some blame for it, saying “it didn’t work, my bad.” Or literally anything besides, “But actually, it was Jake’s fault.”
And you know what the most hilarious (meaning “not funny”) thing about this was? Oettinger let in two goals. Casey DeSmith let in three, one of which literally less than a minute after taking the ice. And for icing on the cake, Stuart Skinner also let in three goals after the pull. That means there’s an alternate reality in which Oettinger doesn’t let up another goal after those first two and the Stars end up winning 3-2 (excluding any empty net goals).
Is that to say those goals are all on DeSmith? Of course not — they were, again, mostly the result of horrible defense and some awful puck luck. Which, again, was par for the course of a series in which your “shutdown defensive pairing” of Esa Lindell and Cody Ceci ended up looking like this:
But here’s the thing? That first goal by Jeff Skinner? As chaotic and weak as the defense was, he still extended his stick to knock the puck away… right back into the front where all the bodies were, rather than clearing it out to the side. And then he (perhaps fairly) completely lost track of the puck, to the point that he was still trying to kick-save it when it was already in the net behind him. That breakaway by Connor McDavid? He’s the best player in the world, and Oettinger has (understandably) given up a few of those this series, but wouldn’t you rather have your start goaltender get a chance to stop that instead of your backup?
And the third goal by Evander Kane… okay yeah, that was just the hockey gods torturing Dallas. But something something butterfly effect, and something something could have still glove saved it. Again, I’m not blaming DeSmith for the loss anymore than I would Oettinger. It’s very likely that Oettinger stays in net until the third goal and it’s still an eventual 6-3 loss, or he stays in net the entire game and it’s still a 3-goal loss.
But butterfly wings aside, I think Oettinger stops that third goal and keeps it 2-0, and there’s a chance he stops another. Maybe the Stars don’t win 3-2 outright, but maybe they end up forcing overtime at 3-3, or having a much narrower 4-3 deficit to try and come back from late in the third. Not that it would have really mattered, of course — the Stars only managed 4 shots on net the entire third period (again), and only 17 total.
That’s what really did the Stars in at the end of the day: the scoring dried up. That and the “patchwork” defense (which, in the words of my friend and former colleague David Castillo, is a very “diplomatic” way of putting it) finally getting exposed and coming back to bite Dallas in the butt, which along with the scoring struggles explains a lot about being scored on first 15 out of 18 games. The forwards didn’t get their job done, neither did the defense, and frankly, neither did the coaching staff.
But yes, let’s take the easy way out and blame the goaltender who helped drag your team to the third round in the first place. After all, it’s not like you already committed to him as your “guy” for the next eight years….
• Yes, I’m still heated about that quote. The more I think about it, the angrier it gets me. But I’m still not team “Fire Pete DeBoer.”
Even outside of that quote, that’s been a popular sentiment among the “doomers” of the Stars fandom — with DeBoer dropping a third consecutive Conference Finals loss, the sentiment among many seems to be that he’s “always the groomsman, never the groom” and won’t be able to put Dallas over that hurdle to get that final cup.
Heck, some are even calling for Jim Nill’s head given the failure to upgrade the defense this season, which… to be fair, I can kind of understand, given that his free agent acquisitions in Ilya Lyubushkin and Matt Dumba spent the last several games in the press box (Dumba for the whole postseason) and his mid-season acquisition of Cody Ceci was an actively harmful player for the whole postseason (did you see that chart from earlier?). Of course, there weren’t exactly many high quality options for fixing the blueline mid-season, especially not after the Mikko Rantanen trade… but that can be a discussion for another day.
Back to the whole “three consecutive third round loss” thing, here’s the deal: I still maintain what I said last game that there are 28 teams that would kill for that kind of success, with the only exceptions being the two teams in the Stanley Cup Finals (again) and the team-that-should-not-be-named that beat Dallas the first time to go on and win the Cup. Heck, I’m still surprised the Stars were able to make it past the first round given their finish to the regular season and missing both Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson for the entire series against the Colorado Avalanche.
And in a weird way, I think those doomer fans would have actually been happier with that first round loss, because then we would have all shrugged our shoulders and said, “That sucks, but it’s to be expected.” Instead, Dallas managed to overcome the Avalanche in seven, and then decisively knock out the Winnipeg Jets, who had the best record in the NHL and clearly had the Stars’ number all season long, in just six games. And therein lied the worst thing the Stars did to their fanbase this year: they gave them hope, and as we’ve all heard from Ted Lasso, it’s the hope that kills you.
That’s not to say I blame Stars fans for being frustrated at the same result three years in a row, especially when the performance on the ice has looked the same each time. That’s not to say the Stars should simply try and “run it back” with the exact same lineup (which, cap wise, is technically impossible). Just that, in my opinion, “losing to an incredibly deep Oilers team firing on all cylinders with Connor freaking McDavid at the helm in the Conference Final when you weren’t even expected to make it past the first round” isn’t exactly grounds for “we’re a loser franchise that will never win anything.” If that’s what you’re looking for, there’s a team that fits the bill right next door.
• A quick word on Rantanen: much has been and will be said about him going cold down the stretch. Heck, it will be a talking point that it was his second cold stretch, when you factor in the first four games of the playoffs. His presence was supposed to be the differenece maker that Dallas lacked last year, and he just… wasn’t that series.
But you know what? He still scored 22 points in 18 games, currently ranked 3rd in the NHL behind McDavid (26) and Leon Draisaitl (25). He’s also four points ahead of 4th place Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (who scored exactly half of his 18 points in the first four games against Dallas alone) and five points ahead of the top non-Oilers (Kyle Connor and Aleksander Barkov at 17 each). He produced big time for Dallas, full stop.
Furthermore, playoffs can be a funny thing, where you go on different scoring streaks that stand out more because it’s a small sample size. And you know what? There’s a good chance that if Rantanen hadn’t been streaky, and his goals and points were more spread out, that Dallas wouldn’t have even made it this far — after all, the Stars’ early wins against Colorado were by close margins, whereas the losses were blowouts. Shuffle around some goals and Dallas and Colorado probably still win and lose the same games except for the Game 7 comeback that gave Dallas the series win. Ditto for the Game 1 hat trick against Winnipeg that the Stars’ won 3-2, although maybe Dallas still eeks out a win in another Game 7.
So yeah, no complaining about Rantanen here — he and Jake Oettinger were the stars of this postseason, and deserve all of the praise in the world.
• Another player I want to shout out is Jason Robertson, who scored four goals in the last three games after going pointless in his previous nine contests. And as a reminder, those four goals accounted for the five total the Stars scored in their last four games, i.e. the four straight losses against Edmonton.
I point this out for two reasons: one, when talking about Robertson not scoring, it feels like the broadcast/media/fans/whoever kept forgetting (or at least under emphasizing) that he’s been hurt this entire time. I mean did you see the injury in the season finale that made him miss the entire first round? Did you watch him play 13-15 minutes a night largely on the fourth line, up until an injury to Roope Hintz forced him up the lineup and he responded by scoring the Stars’ only goals? If you’re looking for “passengers” or players that didn’t show up this series or postseason, I have a long list for you that doesn’t include Robertson on it.
The other reason is that Robertson is often floated around as a trade candidate if the Stars want to get spicy and really make a big change to this team, namely as the main piece in acquiring a bona fide Top 4 defensemen to cap off with Heiskanen, Thomas Harley, and Esa Lindell. Which, to be fair, I get to an “armchair GM” extent. But it feels like more often than not, there is a desire to trade Robertson not just to get a strong piece, but because he’s viewed as part of the “problem” in Dallas.
To which I say this: Robertson has been, plus or minus a goal or point here or there, been at point-per-game player and 30+ (and twice 40+) goal scorer every year since his rookie year, in which he was on pace for only 72 points and 27 goals, the bum he is. People then point to the playoffs, in which, save for his first (admittedly) underwhelming postseason (4 points in 7 games against the Calgary Flames), he’s put up 18 points 19 games, 16 in 19, and now just 6 in 11… with the asterisk that he has been clearly hurt for most if not all of those games, and yet still outproduced players who were healthy and played all 18 games like Matt Duchene, Mason Marchment, and Jamie Benn.
At the end of the day, I wonder if this is Oettinger 2.0 all over again, where his first playoff series set such lofty heights that everything that comes afterwards is viewed as disappointing — in this case, Robertson hasn’t “delivered” on his franchise-record setting junior season of 46 goals and 109 points. But in my opinion, he’s clearly not a “problem” for this team or its core. So if you want to play armchair GM and argue that you need to trade a high quality player to get a high quality one back, fine. But let’s not pretend that such a move would result in Dallas “fleecing” another team into taking a player who isn’t a high quality winger.
• Finally, if you’re still here reading this, after that deflating and depressing loss, I commend and thank you. In fact, thank you for reading some, any, or all of these Afterwords — I really wish I was able to consistently crank them out throughout the entire season, but at the very least I’ve been able to cover the playoffs.
And hey, that’s a lot of playoff games I’ve written Afterwords on over the past three years (four really, with seven games from the Flames series in 2022). The Stars mediascape has changed a lot over that time frame, but I’ve still been here just doing my thing, taking over this series for a more talented writer who now takes baths in Benjamins from all of the Substack money he’s raking in (or, at least, that’s how much he deserves to be earning).
On that note, shout out to Robert Tiffin for always having insightful analysis with prose I could only dream of penning — if you haven’t already, you should follow and subscribe to his Substack. And shout out to one of my favorite writers in David Castillo, who, in addition to being one of the best in the hockey business at analyzing and translating #fancystats into “normal people talk,” has always been encouraging to me in my amateur hockey writing career. He also deserves to be bathing in Benjamins, and you can help him with that by following and subscribing to his Substack.
I will try my best to put out some offseason content here and there on Defending Big D, but those two are the ones you really want to be tuned in for for regular, heavy-hitting analysis. And with that, I say adieu for now.
