Sometimes a best-of-7 series can behave like a marathon with too many twists and turns and hills to count. And other times, it’s strange how a fan’s thoughts can shift from elation to devastation about a series in a matter of, say, 40 minutes?
The Stars trailed Edmonton by two goals entering the third period of Game 1 here Wednesday night. But Dallas’ strength on the power play got an unimaginable boost when the Oilers took one penalty after another, allowing Dallas to score three times in six minutes and take the lead in the Western Conference finals.
For Game 2, the usual sellout crowd at American Airlines Center was ready to rock. It was, after all, a Friday night and there was a sense that the Stars — comeback kings in these playoffs — could overcome anything on their way to the Stanley Cup Final. Surely, their longtime playoff rivals from the True North weren’t going to take them down again this year.
But when the fans left the arena Friday, some had to be wondering if they would be staring down an elimination game Thursday when they come back here for Game 5.
Edmonton took a 3-0 lead in the first two periods, outplaying the Stars more aggressively than they had in taking a 3-1 lead Wednesday before falling apart. This time there was no massive collapse. The game stayed 3-0 to the bitter end, and now it’s a dead-even conference finals. No guarantees that this demonstrates any sort of momentum shift on behalf of the Oilers, but, to be fair, the Stars have not been a good road team this postseason.
Dallas had the best home-ice record entering play Friday night (7-1) but is just 2-4 on the road. The Stars didn’t score in either of their last two games at Winnipeg. You want a bigger problem than that?
Since Mikko Rantanen stopped going wild on a nightly basis, the Stars have struggled to score, period, while playing 5-on-5. It’s great to have the best special teams in the playoffs — Dallas’ power play ranks a solid first among the four remaining teams and the penalty kill is a strong second behind Florida — but sometimes being great at one thing masks a deficiency in another.
And, more and more, that feels like the case with the Stars.
In the entire playoffs, Dallas has been outscored 26-22 in 5-on-5 play. Since Game 7 against Colorado, here are the Stars’ goals at even strength (not including an empty-net goal) — 2-2-0-4-1-0-1-2-0.
That’s 12 in nine games, four of them coming in a 5-2 romp past the Jets, the worst playoff road team we have seen.
“For sure we haven’t had a lot of 5-on-5 scoring,’’ coach Pete DeBoer said, “but, situationally, we were playing Colorado without two of our best players and defending a lot of that series in order to win. Then we played the best defensive team in the NHL [Winnipeg]. You’re not going to put up numbers against that team.
“Listen, I liked our game better tonight than I did in Game 1. I don’t think the score was as dramatically reflective of the game as you might think.’’
Still, the Stars produce some strange scores even while advancing. As good as Dallas has been at working its way through the Western minefield of Colorado, Winnipeg and now an even battle with Edmonton, the Stars have lost six times by three goals or more. They win the close ones, and that’s another great trait to maintain, like having superior special teams. But not many teams hoist the Stanley Cup with a half-dozen blowout defeats in the first three rounds.
Not to mention four shutout losses in a 12-game stretch.
I might have mentioned before that the year the Stars captured the Cup here in 1999, they had one two-goal loss the entire playoffs and that was treated as a disastrous letdown, coming as it did in a Game 5 loss to Colorado.
Those Stars overcame that. There’s nothing written in stone that says these Stars can’t continue with playoff hockey into the middle of June, either. They just need to find a way to be much more efficient at even strength because, in the playoffs, that’s how the majority of each game is played.
The series is just 1-1. There are more storylines to come. Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid were held to one assist apiece, which felt like a victory in itself for Dallas Friday night. But the Stars’ offense stayed silent all night, and that’s something DeBoer has had to watch too many times this spring.
And so it felt a lot scarier for the home squad leaving the building Friday night than it did walking in.
Twitter/X: @TimCowlishaw
