Earlier this month, after an overtime win against the St. Louis Blues, the Dallas Stars were comfortably in the first wild card spot in the Western Conference. In fact, they were tied in points with the Minnesota Wild for third in the powerhouse Central Division.
Over the ten games heading into Sunday’s tilt with the Canucks, the Stars went 1-6-3, dropping out of playoff position, to the point that HockeyViz.com has them at just a 6% chance to make the playoffs. They’re collapsing like some sort of giant luminous ball of hydrogen and helium, forming a region in space with gravity so strong that not even light can escape.
I’m not sure what you might call such a massive globe of gas, but whatever you want to call it, that’s the Stars right now.
I’m sure that Team Tank is apoplectic right now about this win essentially taking the Canucks out of contention for last place — the Buffalo Sabres are not about to start winning a whackload of games — but the Canucks didn’t really have a chance to lose this game. The Stars were just so bad. They were so very, very bad.
I listened to the Scott Pilgrim vs The World soundtrack after I watched this game.
- I’m likely being unfairly harsh on the Stars. They had some good chances to score and Jacob Markstrom shut the door like he was raised somewhere other than a barn. Side note: that’s an idiom that never really made sense to me. When you live on a farm, you definitely don’t forget to close the barn door because, if you leave it open, the animals get out. The idiom should be, “Close the door! Were you raised in a tropical climate with an exceedingly low crime rate?”
- I’ll be honest: I never thought we’d ever see Ashton Sautner play an NHL game. He was a reasonable gamble as an undrafted free agent out of the WHL, but never made a huge impression with the Utica Comets, rotating in and out of the lineup with other defenceman. But he did it; with Chris Tanev doing his best impression of an Operation game with another new injury (next up, he’ll be diagnosed with “spare ribs”), Sautner got the emergency call-up and made his Canucks debut.
- Sautner’s debut was about as good as a rookie defenceman can hope for: no goals against, no egregious turnovers, and some physical engagement with the opposition. His post-game interview, however, betrayed the fact that he’s gotten used to playing meaningful games in Utica with just three words: “Big two points.”
- Jake Virtanen appears to have earned the benefit of the doubt from Travis Green. His giveaway for the Stars’ opening goal might have earned him a spot on the bench earlier in the year, but he was instead immediately back on the ice for the Canucks’ tying goal on the power play 30 seconds later. Which, contrary to what some fictional pop stars might say, is not actually how long it takes you to get to Mars. That’s just the name of a band, it’s not a fact.
- Reid Boucher now has five points on the season. Four of them have come against the Dallas Stars. He loves the Stars so much you might as well call him Carl Sagan. He scored the Canucks’ first goal with a wonderful redirection of a hard Jussi Jokinen pass into the high slot with Virtanen screening Kari Lehtonen, then later picked up a secondary assist on a soft Jake Virtanen goal. All in under 10 minutes of ice time.
- Jokinen had two points as well, getting a second assist on Nic Dowd’s goal in addition to the primary assist on Boucher’s goal. I have no idea what to make of Jokinen, honestly. He’s lost a step and he barely had a step to begin with. When Ciara asked to see his 1-2 step, he only ever got halfway through. But he’s still got skills and smarts. Is there any possible way the Canucks bring him back for next season?
- Nic Dowd scored the game-winning goal on the power play, so if you didn’t already think this game was more bizarre than D12 rapper Bizarre doing a cover of OMC’s “How Bizarre” at a bazaar in Bazaar, Kansas, his goal made sure of it.
- Jake Virtanen had no business scoring from where he did, as his bad angle shot managed to slip past Lehtonen on the short side. Poor Lehtonen has a terrible name for a goaltender, particularly one prone to giving up bad goals. His name just lends itself to puns: “Let one in,” “Lehtonen another goal,” “Lettin’ ‘em in.” The only worse last name for a goaltender would be “Sieve.” Especially if his full name was “Badgoalie Sieve.”
- Those bad angle goals are funny, because the old-school hockey guys — the ones most likely to rail against the corsi statistic — will always be the first to say something like, “Getting the puck towards the net is never a bad play.” It's almost like getting shot attempts and preventing shot attempts for the other team is a good thing.
- Tyler Motte scored his first goal as a Canuck, hitting the empty net after forcing the puck out past Dan Hamhuis, who was also the defenceman victimized by Dowd on his power play goal. Poor Hamhuis. He doesn’t deserve that.
- Honestly, Virtanen might be the only goalscorer in this game that actually plays for the Canucks next season. Boucher and Motte might wind up stuck in the AHL all season and Jokinen is an unrestricted free agent who played for four different teams this season because his play has declined so much.
- The Canucks did some in-game power play experimentation. During the double minor, Jake Virtanen got a brief turn on the first power play unit as the net-front presence, with Horvat moving to the left faceoff circle. Later, Sam Gagner returned to the first unit in the high slot, an area where he had a lot of success with the Blue Jackets, but with Horvat still on the left, which isn’t ideal with his left-handed shot. I mean, I know nitpicking power play formations at this point in the season is pretty pointless and the Canucks did score a couple power play goals, but when you have round pegs available, why use the square pegs in the round holes?
