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The Dallas Stars did it again, turning a two-goal deficit into a three-goal lead in a 6-3 Game 1 win against the Edmonton Oilers at American Airlines Center on Wednesday.
McDavid / Draisaitl post PK & Edmonton’s cycle
The opening goal by Leon Draisaitl was a great example of a couple things Edmonton does very well.
One, they LOVE putting Draisaitl and Connor McDavid on the ice together just after a successful penalty kill. They have been doing this for years, as it is a very dangerous time for the power-play side, which often has mixed personnel and can get caught out of position. That move has worked out for the Oilers many, many times.
Dallas countered that by bringing Thomas Harley back out with Miro Heiskanen to ensure they had the matchup they wanted and two defensemen on the ice. Eventually, they changed, and the Oilers got to work on their offensive zone cycle.
If you watch the shift leading up to the goal, you can see the other thing Edmonton loves to do and does very well.
Once in the zone, they are able to get the defense spinning with their cycle. They use their team speed, make good tape-to-tape passes, and all five skaters interchange seamlessly. That includes former Stars defenseman John Klingberg, who I imagine LOVES this style of play. Klingberg spent that entire shift skating in circles around the offensive zone… right in his wheelhouse.
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Just in this 15 second clip, Klingberg goes from the right point, to the left side of the crease, and to the left point, as Draisaitl uses a little screen from McDavid to create space on Wyatt Johnston and open the scoring.
Defending that, and having a good gap from the forwards and defensemen when McDavid picks up the puck in his own zone or the neutral zone, will be keys for Dallas.
But don’t worry, it evened out, as Draisaitl assisted on Tyler Seguin’s breakaway goal to tie the game 1-1 after 20.
That first period was so dang fun, the way it should be. Here’s to more of that in this Western Conference Final…
Speed, speed, speed
The Stars had a lot of trouble keeping up with Edmonton’s big boys in the second. Draisaitl finished with three points, McDavid with two, and those two, plus Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, essentially had all of their scoring chances.
What’s the theme there? Speed.
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Dallas can play fast, but in the first 40 minutes, Edmonton was playing faster. The Oilers talked a lot before the series about how much faster they play after the trade deadline. If you watched them play in December, it looked like a totally different team.
Now, this isn’t all to say Dallas is doomed. The Stars looked a step or two slower than the Colorado Avalanche in round one, but they adjusted and took away a lot of that speed. This is a steeper challenge, but I believe they can do the same thing.
Shot chart from Natural Stat Trick
Not taking unnecessary penalties in the offensive or neutral zone will also help…
The resulting goal is a combination of miscommunication, overcommitment, and bad luck from Dallas. The Stars do not handle the power-play entry very well, sliding all four penalty killers toward the boards and watching the puck. Oskar Bäck does a good job of recovering to poke the puck away from Corey Perry, but the deflection falls perfectly for Nugent-Hopkins to bury the power-play goal.
I think if Bäck is more aware of Perry cutting behind him, he can be in the middle of this passing lane, allowing Johnston to sit back and take away Nugent-Hopkins. Instead, Bäck has to reach to poke the pass away — which is a good play that ends in a bad way.
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It’s a quick play, but that’s how Edmonton operates. Stars have to match that foot speed and game speed. So far, they have not.
Want some depth scoring? We gotchu
EVERYTHING HAPPENED IN THE THIRD PERIOD!
But I want to focus on the key players who contributed. Dallas needed more from Johnston, Matt Duchene, and Seguin if they had a chance to beat the Oilers in this series. And guess what?
Heiskanen started it all off with an immediate power-play goal — and led all skaters with 24:13 of ice time — and after Granlund tied the game with another power-play goal, Duchene used a bank shot off the back of Roope Hintz and put in his own rebound for ANOTHER power-play goal.
Dallas went from down 3-1 to up 4-3 in just about six minutes. It was absurd and fun, but the goals from these players could go a long, long way toward getting past Edmonton and over the hump. And it’s always a good time to have Duchene and Seguin up on the podium…
Quotable
Stars coach Pete DeBoer
“I think as a group, when we sit and look at it… I think our group knows that we can play better than we did for large portions of tonight.”
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