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Miro Heiskanen returned from injury, and the Dallas Stars rode a hat trick from Mikael Granlund in a 3-1 Game 4 win against the Winnipeg Jets at American Airlines Center on Tuesday.
Miro Heiskanen ft. Mikael Granlund
Okay, before we get to the actual game… we need to address the Miro Heiskanen in the room.
After enough question marks to make The Riddler happy, Heiskanen did, in fact, return for his first game since Jan. 28. And the AAC crowd gave him a warm welcome…
Heiskanen was immediately noticeable. His skating and defending are just ridiculous, and he stopped a 4-on-1 for Winnipeg without allowing a shot on goal. So good to see No. 4 back out there and the Stars FINALLY at full strength.
Stars coach Pete DeBoer told us after the game that Heiskanen actually flew to New York on Monday to get the final sign off from his surgeon. That is quite the day and a half.
“He hasn’t played in 42 games since late January,” DeBoer said. “It’s the first time I’ve seen him not catch a guy on a breakaway, so you can tell he’s been out for a while. But I thought it was a perfect night. He got 15 minutes in, made a huge play on the power play…it’s hard not to play him more. We’ve got to fight that urge. But… talking to him after, he got through the game and he feels good, so mission accomplished.”
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Robert Tiffin and I decided that Heiskanen must be wearing some sort of orb that lights up and gives powers to Mikael Granlund, a fellow Finn.
Granlund was the Stars best player in the first period, and that was even before he opened the scoring. He was making Jets miss and went into battles with a ton of speed and will.
Then, he danced his way into the Winnipeg end and beat Connor Hellebuyck-uck-uck with a perfect shot (although from pretty deep) under the glove and over the pad.
He also was not done yet… The Finnish 5 is in full effect for the first time.
It doesn’t matter how, it’s all about the score
I’ve learned to not look too much into the style of play in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Sure, Dallas was outplayed for a large part of the first two periods. They were a bit of a mess in their own end at times, and Jake Oettinger allowed a goal he will be very upset at himself about. Despite getting their first power play, the Stars still finished 40 minutes with only 13 shots.
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But they also finished the second period with a 2-1 lead and have yet to trail in the game. And that is truly all that matters.
The second (and third) period was also a great reminder about a classic hockey cliche: a save at one end often results in a goal at the other.
Oettinger may not have seen the shot from Kyle Connor, but his pad positioning made an excellent save on a backdoor pass. Shortly after, Mikko Rantanen won a battle on the boards and moved the puck up to Granlund, who went in 2-on-1 with Roope Hintz (yay Finns!) and beat Hellebuyck with a beautiful shot over the glove.
One of my absolutely favorite shots in hockey is looking off a defenseman and goalie on a 2-on-1 and going short side high… that is exactly what Granlund did.
Oh, and it wasn’t the first time…
Everybody gets a hat
The Dallas Stars have 13 playoff hat tricks in their history. Three of those have come in the past five games. All three have been from the Finns. Ridicolous.
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This is WILD!
And the hat-trick goal was a perfect exclamation point on this game. Winnipeg had gotten through 3:56 seconds of a double minor for high sticking. They would have come out of that kill with loads of momentum and 12.5 minutes to score one goal and tie the game.
Instead, Granlund hammers a perfect one-timer to extend the Stars lead to 3-1.
It was very impressive the way Dallas played after that goal.
We have all seen this team struggle mightily when playing 5-on-6 with an empty net at the other end. But in the past two wins, they have locked it down and actually played enough on their toes to not put all the pressure on their defense and goaltending. And when they needed him, Oettinger was very good, especially impressive after allowing that first goal.
“We hold the record for… how many goals did we give up in that one game, three in a minute? The worst 5-on-6 in NHL history late in the season,” DeBoer said. “So, we obviously fixed that.”
Also, this happened:
Quotable
Stars coach Pete DeBoer on Jake Oettinger
“I didn’t mention Jake [Oettinger], he was probably our best player tonight. He was so solid, made a lot of really tough saves look easy. A breakaway save (on Kyle Connor), it was a turning point in the night. They score there, the momentum flips and who knows what happens down the stretch.”
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