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The Dallas Stars were not the better team, but found a way to get a point in a 2-1 overtime loss against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Benchmark International Arena on Thursday.
Mr. 1000
Tyler Seguin played his 1000th NHL game tonight in Tampa Bay, an impressive feat. But rather than diving into his stats and such, I want to talk about why it is specifically so impressive for Mr. Seguin.
Seguin has had horrible luck with injuries. Shoulder surgery, multiple hip surgeries and labral repairs, and knee surgeries. And those are just the biggest ones.
When his body allowed it, Seguin was an 82-game player. He played all 82 in three-straight seasons, has played 70+ five times, and has found a way to get past each injury and return to a full-time NHL role. What’s even more impressive than simply playing through the injuries is that he has found a way to stay productive, even eventually completely changing the way he plays the game.
When Seguin came to Dallas after his third season, he was a superstar.
Seguin finished 4th with a career-high 84 points in 2013-14. He tallied 77 points in 71 games and helped Jamie Benn win the Art Ross Trophy the following season. And despite being on a mostly struggling Dallas team, he reached 70 points in each of his first six seasons, finishing top 15 twice, then 22nd, and 28th in league scoring before the COVID-shortened season.
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Then, the injuries really began.
With that came a complete shift in how he played hockey. He could no longer rely on his speed and skill alone. He simply didn’t have the speed to separate from defenders and create dangerous scoring chances. So he evolved. He worked on his net-front play. He worked on his shooting closer to the blue paint, and he worked on getting his body through traffic and into the dangerous areas.
If you go back and watch Seguin’s seasons when injuries really started to slow him down, you’ll see his goals starting to go in from a lot closer to the net. He began driving to the net for “ugly” goals. His average shot distance went from consistently between 32-35 feet to 27.6, 25.3, 23.9, and 20.0 feet in the past four seasons.
And it worked.
If he played 60 games, he either scored 20+ goals or came very close. And last year, before he went on LTIR for hip surgery, he had 21 points in 20 games and was arguably the Stars best player and part of their best line with Matt Duchene and Mason Marchment.
He is not a superstar anymore, and he’s been okay with that, even if it was hard to swallow at first. He’s still been an important player, a leader, and has produced in both the regular season and playoffs, when relatively healthy. Impressive.
Seguin was pretty honest about his injury struggles, too. He said there were times when he wasn’t sure he would ever be back on the ice or in the room with the boys. Now, he is thankful for all of those little moments.
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Congratulations, Tyler Seguin.
The Stars will hold a pregame ceremony to celebrate Seguin’s 1000th game on Dec. 13, where he will also get a silver stick.
“This is how you play in all three zones”
Craig Ludwig looked at us toward the end of the second period and said that he was seeing a perfect example of how a team should play in all three zones. The problem is, it was Tampa Bay he was talking about.
Tampa controlled the flow of the game through two periods. Jake Oettinger needed to be great in the first, making a couple of sprawling saves and getting some help from guys like Ilya Lyubushkin in the blue paint. In the second, Oettinger wasn’t tested with as many high-danger chances, but the Stars were clearly the inferior team, mostly chasing the Bolts around the rink and creating very, very little in the offensive end.
Tampa outshot Dallas 11-6 in the first and 10-4 in the second, and they finally took a 1-0 lead when Miro Heiskanen had his billiards puck luck catch up to him.
Not that this should be super surprising, but Dallas has had its struggles through all of the injuries. Now, they have won three straight games. So, that’s great! But each has been bumpy, including defending a 1-0 game to victory on Tuesday.
Some games, the offense was creating but the defense was sloppy. Others, like Tuesday, it was the offense doing just enough and the defense/goaltending locking it down. Tonight, it’s been a struggle for both sides, while Oettinger has had to sparkle to keep things close.
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Oettinger was great all night, stopping 30 of 32 with a .938 save percentage… and his stats should’ve been even better with a bunch of saves he was not officially credited for.
What’s in a point?
The Stars were not good in the first 40…
…………..
It worked.
As this game went on, Dallas looked like a team that would be happy to earn a single point and force it to overtime. Sure, they had a 5-on-3 with a chance to take the lead around the midway point. But we can be honest here, Tampa Bay was, by far, the better team.
In overtime, Mikko Rantanen’s stick throwing backcheck assisted by a tush push from Miro Heiskanen was not enough, as Anthony Cirelli buried a breakaway backhand to give the Bolts the 2-1 win in overtime.
Now the Stars get a nice break… NOT. Ha, got you all.
Dallas now goes to Sunrise, Florida, to take on the 2x Stanley Cup champions on Saturday night. It will be their 7th game in 12 days. After a two-day break Sunday (team Halloween party??) and Monday, they play seven games in 12 nights once again.
Yeesh.
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