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The Dallas Stars once again overcame a multi-goal deficit and came back from the dead in a 3-2 shootout loss against the Calgary Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Alberta.
Devin Cooley is pretty Cooley
Devin Cooley has started 10 NHL games in his career. The 28-year-old has spent most of his time in the American Hockey League, other than six starts with San Jose in 2023-24 and four starts with Calgary this season. Usually, when a team is not only losing most of its games but is also allowing a ton of shots and goals, goalie numbers reflect that. They do with the nearly rookie of the year goalie from last season, Dustin Wolf.
But with Cooley, they do not.
Cooley entered tonight’s game 1-2-1 in his four starts. His save percentages were .935, .921, .944, and .933 in those games. Yes, those are elite. And he continued his hot play into the first period against Dallas, where he was spectacular. According to our pal Owen Newkirk, Dallas threw pretty much everything but the toilet tank at him.
No dice.
These high-danger chances came on backdoor plays, wide-open wristers from the slot, and rebounds in tight. Cooley had the answer to each and every one and looks ready to “goalie” the Stars tonight. The good news is that Casey DeSmith looks equally game, so we may get an unexpected goalie duel in Alberta.
Speaking of expectations.
Mikko Rantanen (again) & expectation vs reality
Let’s start with expectation vs reality since Mikko Rantanen didn’t get himself into trouble until late in the period.
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If you look at this game on paper, Dallas should would been expected to steamroll Calgary. The Flames have won only six times all season, half at home and half on the road. They are dead last in goals for, power play, and a few other stats. They allow over three goals per game, and Dallas has been on fire recently.
Then comes reality.
Instead of Dallas jumping out to a nice 2-0 lead and winning 5-2, Cooley decides to stand on his head and completely shut down the early Stars push. Give the Stars credit, they racked up the first six shots and gave some serious tests to Cooley in the early going. I am talking long division or fraction type tests. Nobody has the answers to those. But Cooley did.
Then Calgary started to play, and despite owning the worst power play in the NHL, they opened the scoring with the extra man… With a little help from their friends, the Stars penalty kill.
This is NOT good penalty killing.
I’m not sure why Wyatt Johnston is pressing up so high to the corner of the blue line. And Miro Heiskanen gets sucked into a play that has happened to the Stars far too often this season. He gets pulled up high because Johnston is also too high, but Heiskanen also doesn’t need to step up on a player outside the face-off dot. And then Esa Lindell cannot — or maybe doesn’t want to because it’s part of their PK structure — get over to help out in time, giving Matt Coronato all kinds of time and space to walk to the front of the net and bury the power-play goal.
As Luds texted us, the Stars rolled out the red carpet for Coronato and the Flames’ power play. Yikes.
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And speaking of Coronato… Rantanen got himself in serious boarding trouble again tonight. This time, there is really no excuse for Rantanen not to pull up. He instead buries Coronato from behind, resulting in his face smashing into the dasher and drawing plenty of blood. Rantanen was given a major penalty for boarding and a game misconduct.
Potential discipline from the league coming here, too? I would be surprised if there isn’t.
The Stars are now down two players, which they can obviously not afford with their current injury list.
Lindell left the game after taking a stick to the throat off a defensive-zone faceoff. He has yet to return at the end of the second period. ** Lindell did return for the third period. Huge news for Dallas.** Rantanen was ejected and is out for at least the remainder of this game. Rantanen’s hit also gives Calgary a three-minute unreleasable power play (only three because Jonathan Huberdeau got two for instigating when he jumped Rantanen after the hit).
For Dallas’ sake, it better not cost them. They can ill afford to go down 2-0 in this goalie duel and allow TWO power-play goals by the worst man advantage in the league.
Robertson makes it interesting and then some
Well, it did cost them.
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Joel Farabee scored Calgary’s second power-play goal of the night. They now have 11 this season. That means that 18% of their power-play success has come in one game against Dallas. That’s also yikes.
To be down 2-0 to this Flames team, both being power-play goals against… That’s not a good feeling, especially after Stars coach Glen Gulutzan was also unhappy with most of the game in Vancouver. Been tough to get their game going in the past few contests, at least.
The positive here is that Jason Robertson can still score, no matter how badly his team is playing.
Robertson tallied when Dallas had created basically nothing in the third period. It was his 10th goal during a six-game goal streak, matching a career-long for him. After the performance from Cooley up to this point, this was a surprising goal for him to let in.
Maybe a screen or a little deflection? But maybe not.
What this goal did, other than extend Robertson’s streak, was somehow put Dallas right back in this game. If they can shut the door and find another goal, this would be yet another performance in which they have risen from the dead to either win or steal one point. Let’s see.
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And lookie, lookie… Despite being completely invisible outside of winning draws over the past two games, Roope Hintz played hero to tie the game 2-2 late in the third period. It’s a big goal for Hintz, but it all came from another great play by Robertson.
Robertson is able to hold onto the puck, fend off defenders, and delay just long enough to slip a pass to Hintz in the slot. Hintz does such a good job quickly getting his hips around the puck and creating torque on the stick to elevate this shot past the blocker of Cooley. How on earth do they keep doing this?
And it got them to overtime. And gave them a point. A point stolen, for sure.
Robertson also scored in the shootout, which he ALWAYS DOES.
DeSmith finished with 31 saves on 33 shots (.929) and stopped three of five in the shootout. Cooley stopped 28 of 30 (.933) and four of five in the shootout. A goalie duel it was.
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