The Dallas Stars kicked off the party just nine seconds in and carried the momentum to a dominant 6-2 Game 5 win against the Colorado Avalanche at American Airlines Center on Monday.

Bing to the bong

As I leaned forward in my seat up in the press box at the start of the game, the AAC goal horn was already blaring.

Wyatt Johnston, one of the bigger Stars who needed to get going offensively threw a puck at Mackenzie Blackwood from a sharp angle and found a spot under the glove to bank it in off the big goaltender.

The arena went wild, and the Stars scored first for the first (woah) time in the series. It was also the fastest goal in Stars playoff history.

Why was that so important? If you paid attention to Blackwood after that, he looked awfully shaky.

His glove whiff on Evgenii Dadonov’s long shot was a perfect example of that. And guess what? The Stars benefited from his shaky play a second time before the first period ended.

Look at Blackwood’s head just as Thomas Harley’s shot gets to his blocker. He takes a quick glance to his left and completely loses sight of the puck… very similar to the Dadonov play I mentioned above. Because of that, it hits his blocker without any control of the rebound, loops over him, and because he doesn’t locate it, Blackwood slowly backs up and the puck actually hits his back and goes in.

To me, Blackwood looked like a goalie guessing. I know that well as a lifelong and college lacrosse goalie. When you don’t feel confident, you are twitchy and begin to guess and lean because you don’t trust your reactions and tracking of shots to take over.

If I were Stars coach Pete DeBoer in the Dallas dressing room after 20 minutes, I would tell my team to shoot absolutely everything on net. See just how shaky Blackwood is going to be.

Let’s see if they do it.

Let’s hear it for the defense

First, to the point above… the Stars scored on their first shot of the second period and finished 40 minutes with five goals on 17 shots…. soooooo.

I want to talk about the Stars defense… but not their defending.

In the first two periods, we saw a goal from Harley, an assist for Cody Ceci, an assist for Ilya Lyubushkin, and then a late goal from Alexander Petrovic! Awwwwwwwww, the goal was actually changed to Mason Marchment… but Petrovic still got the primary assist., so the point stands!

We all called that, right? DeBoer did say the big guys were due… could he have meant Ceci, Lyubushkin, and Petrovic?? I believe it.

“We’ve got some big men back there,” DeBoer said. “It’s a big group of defenders, and I think they’re hard to play against.”

That is incredible, especially when you consider the fact that Dallas had scored just seven total goals over the first four games of the series and was 16th out of 16 playoff teams in goals per game heading into tonight.

Now if we could just get an Esa Lindell empty netter to finish things off… dang, Roope Hintz got it. Still fun.

In the span of just under four minutes, the Stars went from clenching their entire bodies in a one-goal game to leading 5-2 and feeling great about themselves.

“The result is how we use it (moving forward). We had our biggest offensive output playing our most honest game tonight,” DeBoer said. “Those things go hand in hand for me. You defend well, you take care of the puck, the goals will come.”

Hockey is wild sometimes. And also all the times. Every of the times.

And the best part is that the fifth Dallas goal pushed Colorado to put backup Scott Wedgewood in the pipes for the third period. Selfishly, I love that. From a Stars perspective, they love that they chased a starting goalie who has been really good in the series and shut them out in Game 4.

Could that push itself into Game 6? Could Wedgewood get the start?

Game 6 is going to be awesome

The entire game was heated tonight, but especially the second half, and especially especially Lian Bichsel.

And then he did this in the box before getting ejected from the game:

These teams do not like each other. Harley even says they hate each other. And it showed tonight with plenty of post-whistle activity and a boatload of penalties. It was a “man’s game” out there for sure.

I expect Game 6 in Denver to be more of the same as the temperature and desperation gets dialed up to an even higher level. And I cannot wait to be there to see it.

Quotable

Stars coach Pete DeBoer on the performance:

“This is our best game (of April) for sure.”