Last Friday, Pete DeBoer was fired by the Dallas Stars.

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing regarding the decision to let go of DeBoer, with the main naysayers pointing out that the Stars possessed the best record in the NHL in the regular season over his three years in Dallas. On top of that significant achievement, he also was a main factor in the team winding up in the Western Conference Finals three consecutive seasons. With those accomplishments, you could even make the argument that DeBoer is the most successful head coach in Dallas Stars history, with the exception of Ken Hitchcock Version 1.0. That’s got to count for something, right?

It certainly does. DeBoer’s merits as a head coach when it comes to wins and losses in the regular season are well documented. Dating back to the start of his tenure in San Jose in 2015, DeBoer’s teams have won 45 or more regular-season contests seven times. Two of the instances where that didn’t happen were due to extenuating circumstances, such as taking over a job mid-season (2019-20 with Vegas) or the pandemic limiting the number of games the team played (2020-21 with Vegas). Besides, those two seasons were some of his most successful—he made it to the Conference Finals with Vegas in both and lost.

Oh, there it is again. Losing in the Conference Finals. That's a part of the “Pete DeBoer Problem.” Sure, the regular season is usually a piece of cake for teams under his watch, but the late goings of the postseason are an entirely different story.

It’s a somewhat baffling phenomenon due to his repeated success in those late rounds early in his head coaching career. While his three-year tenure with the Florida Panthers from 2008-11 was fairly unsuccessful, his time in New Jersey marked the first moment where people woke up to what a Pete DeBoer-coached team could accomplish. In his first season with the Devils, New Jersey finished fourth in the Atlantic with 102 points and made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, where it’d lose to Los Angeles in six games. Fast-forward to 2015, when the Devils let go of DeBoer and the San Jose Sharks scooped him right up. That Sharks team made the playoffs, marking just the second time in DeBoer’s coaching career that a team he headed made the postseason, and then marched its way to the Stanley Cup Finals, where Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins did their thing and won it all. Two shots at a Cup, two failures.

But hey, that’s not all bad. Getting to the Stanley Cup Finals is an incredible achievement, one that many head coaches around hockey would die for. Still, he’d yet to win one, and as long as he hadn’t touched the sport’s greatest trophy, the questions of whether or not he could actually do it would continue to ring on and on and on.

Today, those questions remain evergreen. Since that trip to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2015-16, DeBoer’s teams have made the playoffs a whopping eight times. Never once has any of those teams touched the final round of the postseason.

The Stars clearly didn’t want to become stuck in that purgatory forever. So, instead of riding it out for one more year, hoping that DeBoer would buck the history, they decided to move on to find someone else who could coach this star-studded roster toward a Cup.

But that’s just one part of the Pete DeBoer Problem.

Pete DeBoer can’t stop benching his star goalies. It happened two weeks ago, and it’s happened in the distant past.

In Game 5 of this year’s Western Conference Finals against the Edmonton Oilers, DeBoer made the decision to bench Jake Oettinger after the Stars’ franchise goalie let in two A-grade chances just seven minutes in. It was a bold, yet rash, decision that at the time felt like a coach trying to pull every last lever imaginable to attempt to will his team to a win.

Needless to say, it failed, and it failed tremendously. Backup Casey DeSmith, who’s beloved in the locker room and was fantastic all season, gave up a goal a couple of minutes into his tenure in the game to make it 3-0 Oilers. Taking Oettinger out of the game was supposed to light a fire under the Stars’ butts. Instead, it seemed to make them put their metaphorical tails between their legs and give up.

DeBoer was grilled about this decision on every part of the earth. Online, fans were calling for him to lose his job (I bet those people are happy right now). Even rational fans who don’t pull the trigger so easily struggled to see the reasoning behind the decision. It was a baffling one, that’s for sure.

To his credit, DeBoer didn’t back down when asked about it after the game. His explanation for why he pulled Oettinger, however, was less than pleasing to the ear.

DeBoer: Any time you pull a goalie, the reason is always to try and spark your group, so that was the number one reason.

I can understand this. No qualms here, Pete!

DeBoer: We had talked endlessly in this series about trying to play with a lead. And obviously, we’re in a 2-0 hole right away. And you know what, I didn’t take that lightly, and I didn’t blame it all on Jake.

That’s good to hear. I certainly wouldn’t want him to blame it all on the franchise’s star goalie who’s going to be here for seven more seasons.

DeBoer: But the reality is, if you go back to last year’s playoffs, he’s lost six of seven games to Edmonton, and we gave up two shots on two goals in an elimination game. It was partly to spark our team and wake them up and partly knowing that the status quo had not been working. And that’s a pretty big sample size.

Oh. It kind of sounds as most, if not all, of it was on Oettinger, at least according to DeBoer.

It is true that Oettinger and the Stars have lost six of seven games to the Oilers over the past two postseasons, and, frankly, it hasn’t been pretty. The context in which that occurred needs to enter the conversation, though. Dallas’ offense completely dried up in both series, with the power play completely not working in 2024, and then the offense as a whole not clicking in 2025.

Were there some goals that Oettinger probably shouldn’t have let in? Potentially. But I think that when we look back at these two series against Edmonton the past two seasons, Oettinger’s performance is not going to be the main billing as to why the Stars lost. So, making him the scapegoat for the rest of the team’s failures is quite rich. It feels like a coach refusing to take responsibility for his own actions.

It does need to be pointed out that throughout the press conferences that followed the Game 5 loss, DeBoer did reiterate multiple times that it wasn’t all Oettinger’s fault. There’s still enough evidence in his words, though, that points toward the greater point of refusing to take accountability, such as not taking a firm stance on whether this Stars team was the best he’d coached while in Dallas.

“I’m not sure it was,” he conceded after Game 5. “Maybe on paper. I’m not sure it was the best team. I’ll have to look at it.”

Mikko Rantanen is on this team, for crying out loud! To me, and I might just be reading between the lines a little too hard, it sounds like a subtle jab at the front office. Yeah, on paper, this is the best team, but was it really? I’d disagree with DeBoer’s assessment there, and it’s evident that Nill probably did as well.

Here’s one more quote from DeBoer regarding the Oettinger decision, followed by some fantastic analysis by the great Robert Tiffin of Stars Thoughts.

“I think from a coaching perspective, we’re one-and-seven against that team at this time of year, in the Conference Finals,” he said. “So everything’s on the table: lineup decisions, goaltending decisions, system decisions. Everything’s on the table. You’re looking for some type of way to flip that momentum, because it’s not a small sample size. One-and-seven is not a small sample size. That’s not just on Jake; that’s on our entire group. We scratched veteran guys in order to try and change that. We moved guys up and down the lineup. We switched lines. We switched power-play units. I mean, you’re looking for solutions in order to try and flip that momentum, and the goaltending is one piece of that. I think Jake is the best young goaltender in the league. But that doesn’t mean there’s not still a learning curve and growth. That’s all part of the journey.”

Yanking Oettinger isn’t the problem. It’s throwing him under the bus after the fact that seemed to irk players in the locker room and people in the front office. It’s that inability to communicate—DeBoer said in what would be his final press conference as the Stars’ head coach that he’d yet to speak with Oettinger regarding the situation during Game 5—that ultimately, in my opinion, ended his tenure in Dallas.

Actually, don’t take it from me. Take it from general manager Jim Nill, who had this to say when he was asked if he had a problem with what DeBoer said: “I think everybody did.”

This isn’t just a one-time occurrence. DeBoer has ticked off his starting goalie before, back when he was the head man in Vegas. During the 2020 bubble playoffs, DeBoer decided to not start future Hall of Famer Marc-Andre Fleury in round one against Chicago, putting Robin Lehner in net instead. While Fleury himself didn’t publicly tear down his head coach, his agent, Allan Walsh, sure did, as he posted this now-deleted picture on Twitter:

Fleury’s contributions to the Golden Knights have been well documented. He led Vegas to the Stanley Cup Finals in the franchise’s first season in 2018 and was a top-five goalie in the league throughout his time in Nevada. In a vacuum, benching him seemed ludicrous, but within the context of the situation, it makes much more sense. Lehner’s save percentage (.904) since arriving in Vegas midway through that 2019-20 season was better than Fleury’s (.886).

It still didn’t sit well with either Fleury or his agent, and from what I can tell, there hasn’t been any love lost between the two sides in the intervening years. Just months after the benching, the Golden Knights traded Fleury to Chicago, and that was that. DeBoer would be out the door soon as well, as Vegas fired him following the 2021-22 season.

Sure, it’s a different situation than the one that occurred in Dallas just two weeks ago, but it illustrates the point: DeBoer’s relationship with goalies has been rocky in the past. And Jim Nill and the front office did what Vegas seemingly refused to do back in 2020 and sided with the goalie. DeBoer might’ve won the battle in the moment, but Oettinger ended up winning the war.

Contrary to everything I’ve been saying, Pete DeBoer is a really good hockey coach. While his inability to achieve what all head coaches aspire to achieve—the Stanley Cup—has been one aspect of his downfall in Dallas, his frequent ability to continuously win regular-season games is a clear sign that he has the chops. If you don’t believe me, take Stars’ owner Tom Gaglardi, who had this to say after Dallas lost Game 5 two weeks ago: “He’s a top-three, top-five coach in the league.”

And yet, here we are. While everybody’s question in Dallas is about where the Stars will turn for a new head coach, I can’t help but be left wondering where Pete DeBoer will wind up. Apart from the Stars, there are no other head coaching vacancies in the NHL. As such, it appears that the 2025-26 season will be the first season in 17 years that DeBoer isn’t a head coach in hockey’s best league.

I hope he lands on his feet somewhere. Despite the challenges he’s had with some goalies, everything I’ve heard surrounding DeBoer and his interactions with most players has been positive. While that shouldn’t be the number one component when it comes to a coaching hire, it should certainly be near the top of the list.

It’s the potential victories that he brings that make him an attractive candidate for a job. If you hire Pete DeBoer, you will win hockey games, there’s no doubt about that. Now, how far he can take you when the lights get bright and the going gets tough is an entirely different question, but nobody can claim that he doesn’t have the ability to get his teams at least close to the promised land. And while that wasn’t enough for the Dallas Stars, it’s probably enough for somebody else, and that, in my opinion, will be to their benefit.

For 30 NHL teams, the season is over, and the offseason has begun. Unfortunately, the Dallas Stars are part of that group after failing to advance against the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Finals last week.

As the Oilers compete against the Florida Panthers for the Stanley Cup, the rest of us are forced to sit and ponder the season that was for our respective teams. For me, that means reflecting on the 2024-25 Dallas Stars. What happened? What went right and what went wrong? Was firing Pete DeBoer the right call? What are the next steps for the organization following that move?

All those questions have been ringing around my head for about a week, and frankly, I still don’t have an answer.

So, before the offseason truly begins for everybody, and the Stars get ready to prepare for a championship run for 2025-26, let’s look back at the last couple months of the season. As the hockey calendar reached its climax, my coverage of the Stars ramped up exponentially. The story that follows is every single one of my posts regarding the Dallas Stars since the Mikko Rantanen trade and up until yesterday’s firing of DeBoer.

It was a good season in many regards, and not so great in others. I hope that my words — all 16,497 — over the last couple months paint a vivid picture of what watching this team triumph and fail felt like.

Enjoy.

Heartbreak, Hockey, and Hope

The Stars are what we all need post-Luka trade.

I hope that distance makes the heart grow fonder.

Needless to say, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here. There are a variety of factors behind the extended absence, the most glaring being my newfound commitment to being a college graduate who has to find ways to make the ever-elusive commodity that is money.

Despite that loss of time, I still watch my fair share of sports. If you ask my wife, she’ll tell you that’s all I do still, which I swear is not true. She’ll point out the constant blabbering about Jerry and Stephen Jones’ ineptitude, or how Wyatt Langford and Adolis García both had a mild oblique strain during the last couple weeks of Rangers’ Spring Training. She’d pinpoint how I can’t stop watching or talking about the Dallas Stars and my somewhat newfound love for hockey.

What she’d say I’ve ranted to her the most, however, is the despicable trading of Luka Doncic to the Lakers on February 1.

To say that the DFW Metroplex desperately needed a lifeline after The Trade would be the understatement of the millennium. Luka was the embodiment of DFW sports in so many ways, and to see him shipped off for what equated to a box of scraps, some stale candy, and a pat on the back was disheartening to say the least. I’d go as far as calling it heartbreaking, which is not a term I throw around lightly. I was heartbroken. Just ask my wife.

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about how baffling that maneuver was by the Mavericks’ front office. If Mavericks’ GM Nico Harrison has his way, I’ll understand one day. Unfortunately for him and the organization he works for, I don’t think I ever will.

Fortunately for me and so many other residents of this wonderful metroplex, the Mavericks aren’t the only source of sports that we have the privilege to indulge in. Besides the Cowboys, who are a wreck in their own right at the moment (can we please spend some money in free agency Jerry?), the Rangers and the Stars are the shining beacons of DFW sports at the moment. The Stars in particular have been a ray of sunshine that has been much needed during this time of distress.

Just a handful of days ago, the Stars made the biggest splash of the trade deadline by acquiring Mikko Rantanen. Rantanen, a 28-year-old Finnish forward who had spent his entire career with the Colorado Avalanche before being unexpectedly traded to the Carolina Hurricanes just several weeks ago, joins an already loaded Stars roster that’s looking to win its first Stanley Cup since 1999. Dallas has gotten close recently but still hasn’t been able to fully summit the mountain. Will the acquisition of Rantanen push the Stars over the top? I sure hope so. This city needs it. It needs it bad.

I read an article by the great Bob Sturm and Ralph Strangis the other day about how the Stars have the opportunity to take possession of the DFW sports fan here in winter and spring given the recent turn of events for the professional basketball team. That article was written before the trade. I believe, and I’m sure Sturm and Strangis would agree with me, that that sentiment rings even more true now after gaining possession of a talent like Rantanen. The Stars have the opportunity to give this city what it so desperately wants and needs: another taste of the ultimate glory. If they can accomplish that, or at least get close to it again, I believe they’ll continue to win over a lot of hockey-skeptics that aren’t so sure about this whole puck-and-stick sport that we all adore.

Winning a Stanley Cup is extremely hard. It’s arguably the hardest championship to win in all North American sports, which is one of the reasons why the playoffs that lead up to it are so full of drama and excitement. There’s nothing like watching your team score the winning goal in overtime of a game seven. It’s pure euphoria and ecstasy. The equivalent heartbreak when your team is the one that loses in that situation is unimaginable.

Dallas’ path to the Stanley Cup will no doubt be difficult. The NHL’s Western Conference is loaded. The Winnipeg Jets have consistently been good all season long. The Colorado Avalanche are still loaded despite the mid-season loss of Rantanen. The Edmonton Oilers employ Connor McDavid, the greatest hockey player in the world. The Vegas Golden Knights are really good too, which is hard to admit given the fact that I loathe them with all of my being. Once they somehow get through all that, the matchup in the Stanley Cup Final will be a test as well. It’s a tough road, but if the Stars can do it, man oh man would that be sweet. Even just giving us fans a sniff of it would be fantastic as well.

Sports are ultimately about hope. Whether the Stars win the Stanley Cup or not is not of consequence to me right now, even with Rantanen’s addition and their recent stretch of good play. I’m just glad that they’re putting in the effort to give DFW sports fans hope for now and the future. Hope is what the Mavericks ripped away from us at 11:12 PM CT on February 1, 2025. I’m glad that the Stars have decided to provide it instead.

Playoff OT Winners = Panacea

A quick reflection on Game 2 of Stars-Avalanche.

Jumping from regular-season hockey action into the Stanley Cup Playoffs is always a major leap for me in terms of adrenaline. Sure, watching the Stars play the Sharks in the middle of January is exciting and comes with plenty of thrills (even despite the Sharks being absolute bottom feeders). But the playoffs are just different, and last night was a testament to how exciting — or paralyzing — postseason hockey can be.

Four absolute bangers of games emerged from the rubble of what was a chaotic and exhilarating Monday evening of hockey. Every contest was a one-goal affair, with two going to overtime and another reaching its climax in the final minutes of regulation. The superstars played like the superstars they are, and surprising depth pieces emerged as heroes. It was everything one could’ve asked for in a hockey night, and as it crescendoed around midnight, my heart was racing and I couldn’t stop smiling.

The Stars desperately needed to pull out the win last night. Coming into Game 2 against the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas had lost eight consecutive games and hadn’t won since April 2.

That pitiful streak had taken the wind out of the sails of a team that had appeared to be soaring into the playoffs once again. Perhaps this would be the year the squad finally breaks through the conference finals barrier and returns to the promised land. Is it finally time to avenge the losses to Vegas and Edmonton in 2023 and 2024, respectively? Are we going to be partying like it’s 1999? That’s what the fanbase had been pondering prior to the abysmal lapse in play over the last several weeks. After it, the cries were the exact opposite (in fact, there might’ve actually been some tears). It was starting to look like the dream season that was promised was going to come crashing down sooner rather than later.

Losing 5-1 in Game 1 of the first round to the Colorado Avalanche last Saturday certainly didn’t help quell the frustration inside or outside the locker room. As such, it was imperative to come out in Game 2 and deliver a win. If the Stars couldn’t do it, their season might have been toast.

Fortunately, they got it done via a 4-3 overtime victory, thanks to some fantastic effort by the fourth line and Colin Blackwell, who buried the game-winning goal.

Blackwell was an unlikely hero, all things considered. In a series that features heavyweights like Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Cale Maker, and Wyatt Johnston, having Blackwell deliver the OT winner was a surprise. But the playoffs are all about the unexpected — and last night was certainly that, on all fronts.

There’s no telling if the Stars will now bulldoze their way into the next round or if yesterday was just a blip on the radar and the Avalanche will roll on instead. In a sport that features a puck on ice, who knows what’s going to happen in any given game? Compound that with two teams that seem to be playing really good hockey at the moment, and the uncertainty doubles. Maybe even triples.

It certainly didn’t hurt the Stars’ chances of advancing, though. In fact, without the win yesterday, Dallas was probably a sitting duck. Yes, they managed to claw their way out of a 2-0 series hole last year against the Golden Knights, but many Stars players have gone on record about how much that series drained them. To win the Stanley Cup, your season has to extend all the way into June. Having a first-round series that completely sucks the life out of a team isn’t a recipe for winning the ultimate prize — and if I’m the Stars, I’m doing everything in my power to get out of this as quickly as possible, while still picking up victories, of course.

For my money, the Stars are in a good spot. As last night’s game progressed, it was clear they were skating better than Colorado — a welcome sight. Through the first two games of the series, Dallas has steadily played a more well-tuned game. That’s the exact opposite of what they’d been doing during the last two weeks of the regular season. It appears the team has finally taken its medicine and learned its lesson.

Seeing the Stars win the Stanley Cup is something I’ve yearned for a long time. After the Rangers — it’s well documented that they are my first and most loved sports franchise — the Stars are the team I want to see win it all the most. With how much success they’ve had over the last decade or so, it’s kind of unfathomable that they haven’t yet. They’ve gotten oh-so-close so many times that I have to think the fantastical end of the journey is coming soon.

The regular season didn’t end the way I — or the team — wanted it to. After trading for Rantanen at the deadline, Dallas treaded water until the wheels fell off in early April. It was obvious to me that chemistry issues, as well as injuries to key defensive pieces, helped make the stretch run of the season the disaster that it was.

Now that the monkey is off their back and the team has finally won a game, I hope the floodgates open and they start performing the way they’re capable of on Wednesday night in Game 3 against Colorado. I need it. This fanbase needs it. Most importantly, this city needs it.

Heart Palpitations on Ice

A quick reflection on Game 3 of Stars-Avalanche.

Disney on Ice, take a seat, because the Stars and the Avalanche have dethroned you.

Before the Stars got ready to play the Avalanche last night in Game 3 of the Western Conference Quarterfinals, I like to imagine that the hockey powers that be asked the Stars what they’d like to deliver to their fanbase. I then like to think that this is what they responded with:

“Yes, I’d like to order one more stressful hockey experience for my fanbase, please. Preferably one where their hearts skip multiple beats and they almost tear their hair out because they’re so nervous.”

At least that’s what I was feeling. Anybody else?

Entering Game 3 with a split in the first two contests was a welcome sight, especially given how poorly Dallas had played over the last month of the season and how awful Game 1’s outing was. The euphoria of Colin Blackwell’s OT winner on Monday evening that delivered the Stars the 4-3 victory quickly faded away once the puck was dropped on Wednesday evening. It was time to settle in for another potentially gut-wrenching experience. Luckily for me and Stars fans everywhere, it was once again an experience that ended up proving extremely rewarding.

Robert Tiffin put it best: last night was the Mason Marchment experience turned up to 100.

Marchment continually made his presence known, for better and for worse. With the third period winding down tied at one (and everybody’s heart rate entering the stratosphere), Marchment took a disastrous high-sticking double minor that forced his teammates to kill off four minutes — 3:20 of which would be in do-or-die overtime — of a terrible penalty. After Dallas killed off the first 40 seconds of it to end regulation, Marchment and the rest of the team walked into the locker room for what would be a pivotal 15 or so minutes of strategizing and resting. For Marchment, however, it was probably agony. Imagine sitting there pondering a potential game-losing mistake for what probably felt like forever. Everything was taken out of Marchment’s hands, at least until the Stars could rise to the occasion and stymie the Avalanche power play.

It was a task that on its face appeared untenable. How in the world could the Stars stop Nathan MacKinnon and company from finding the back of the net for over three minutes while being a man down? As overtime commenced, I was asking myself that same question. What I forgot, though, was that the Stars’ penalty kill had suffocated the Avalanche all series (Dallas had already killed off four other Colorado minors in the game prior to Marchment’s high-sticking penalty), and that wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.

For the first two or so minutes of overtime, Colorado couldn’t get their power play unit set up to do any damage. Some excellent work from Esa Lindell, alongside some unusual carelessness with the puck by MacKinnon, aided the Stars in getting through the first couple of minutes of danger. But with the power play winding down, the Avalanche turned up the pressure, and it almost worked out. Had it not been for some excellent work by Jake Oettinger — who was spectacular last night and deserves a lot of credit for where the Stars are so far in this series — and the left leg of Lindell, Dallas would’ve lost the game.

Just look at this play by Lindell. Oettinger couldn’t smother a rebound after MacKinnon put one on net, allowing Artturi Lehkonen to pounce on the puck and shoot it toward the wide-open goal. If Lindell hadn’t been standing in the way, that puck crosses the line, and the Denver crowd erupts with happiness as the Avalanche take a 2-1 series lead. But Lindell blocked it with his left leg, sending the puck careening harmlessly outside the post to keep the game alive.

And then, just two minutes later, Mikko Rantanen (he was also so, so good last night) fought for the puck in the Stars’ zone and sent it down the ice to Marchment, who furiously fought off Devon Toews to keep control of the puck. Once he won that battle, he passed it to a charging Tyler Seguin, who kicked the puck off his blade to his stick and sent it past Colorado keeper Mackenzie Blackwood to win the game.

There he was again. Yes, it was Rantanen who had to wrestle the puck away from the Avalanche first, and it was Seguin who buried the game-winner, but it was Marchment who acted as the middleman and kept the play alive. A couple of minutes before that heroic effort, Marchment was shamefully sitting in the penalty box, biding his time. Now he was part of the jubilation, jumping up and down with Seguin and the rest of the squad as they celebrated winning Game 3. Sports are crazy, man.

Winning back-to-back games via overtime scores is improbable enough, but what’s even crazier is that the Stars find themselves up 2-1 in the series and in control despite having led for only 70 seconds throughout the first three games. Meanwhile, the Avalanche have led for over 90 minutes of game action but have only one win to show for it. To steal a quip from Ron Washington, the longtime manager of the Texas Rangers and now the head man for the Los Angeles Angels who always had a knack for an awesome phrase, “That’s the way hockey go.”

The Stars now find themselves in control with a 2-1 series advantage. With two days off before Game 4, there will be plenty of time to celebrate back-to-back overtime thrillers and winners. But the job is not finished. Colorado is still a formidable force, and there’s no doubt that they’ll give it all they’ve got on Saturday night in Denver.

Before the Stars touch the ice again, two more days of Stanley Cup Playoff action will pass them by.

Tonight, the reigning champion Florida Panthers look to go up 2-0 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. With Matthew Tkachuk returning for Florida, the Panthers are poised to continue to be in the conversation for another run at a championship.

Up north, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators will play Game 3 of the battle for Ontario. The Leafs took both games in Toronto, but the Senators are feisty, and I wouldn’t count them out if I were you. Plus, this is the Maple Leafs we’re talking about. You think the notorious chokers are just going to win this series nice and easy? No way.

Late at night is when the Western Conference matchups kick into gear. The Vegas Golden Knights and the Minnesota Wild are tied at 1-1 heading into Game 3 in St. Paul. Matt Boldy has been exceptional for the Wild; he has three goals through the first two games, including the opening score in Game 2 back on Tuesday night. However, the Golden Knights are not a team that should be taken lightly (as a Stars fan, I know this all too well). That team is so talented and so deep that seeing them in the conference finals and potentially in the Stanley Cup would not be a surprising outcome.

The Winnipeg Jets — the winner of the President’s Trophy this season — and the St. Louis Blues round out Thursday night in what’s essentially a win-or-go-home game for St. Louis. Winnipeg won both games up in Manitoba in fairly dominant fashion and could take a stranglehold of this series if it wins tonight. Personally, I don’t know who to root for in this one. Both teams are fairly large rivals of Dallas — St. Louis especially. How about everybody loses? Sounds good to me.

On Friday, the Washington Capitals, Carolina Hurricanes, and Los Angeles Kings seek to go up 3-0 in their series against the Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils, and Edmonton Oilers, respectively. That latter matchup between the Kings and Oilers has been very surprising, with Los Angeles outscoring Edmonton 12-7 so far.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are magical, what can I say? It’s the best postseason tournament in all of sports.

Simply Not Good Enough

A quick reflection on Game 4 of Stars-Avalanche.

I’d like to think Pete DeBoer was just as baffled by the Stars’ Game 4 performance in the Western Conference Quarterfinals as I was. Based on the photo above, he looked every bit as confused and incredulous — maybe even more so.

Last night was simply not good enough in so many ways.

It was clear from the moment the puck dropped to when the final horn sounded that the Avalanche had more to give than the Stars did yesterday evening in Colorado’s 4-0 win in Denver. That was exactly what Colorado needed, of course, given that it was down 2-1 in the series — and going down 3-1 would have been catastrophic to its chances of moving on. As such, the Avalanche proved to be the much more decisive, quick, and ready team because of their pure desperation to win.

It was a shame that the Stars couldn’t match that energy. Dallas had the opportunity to grab this series by the scruff of the neck, but instead, Colorado reclaimed some momentum as the series heads back to Texas for Game 5 on Monday. It’s now a best-of-three, and luckily for the Stars, they still maintain home-ice advantage, which is so crucial this time of year.

The Stars were down 2-0 at the end of the first period, but they probably deserved slightly better than that. When both sides played 5-on-5, it was pretty evenly matched, with Dallas maybe even outplaying the Avalanche to a certain extent. Special teams, however, were where the Stars left a lot to be desired.

Mikko Rantanen drew a high-sticking call at the 13:29 mark of the first period, giving Dallas a man advantage early in the game. While nothing came of that power-play opportunity, the Stars did manage to put some pressure on the Avalanche and goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood. Unfortunately, there was nothing to show for it on the scoreboard.

About five minutes later, Colorado defenseman Devon Toews put a puck over the glass in his own defensive zone, drawing a delay-of-game penalty that put the Stars back on the power play. Given how the initial two minutes of the Stars’ power play went earlier in the period, it was safe to assume they’d be able to at least keep the score deadlocked at zero. Nope. Thomas Harley mishandled a pass near the blue line, and Logan O’Connor — who’d been in the penalty box for the high-sticking call on Rantanen earlier in the game — pounced, racing the length of the ice and beating Jake Oettinger blocker-side to give Colorado a lead it would never relinquish.

The rest of the man advantage resulted in absolutely nothing for the Stars, and even-strength play resumed for nearly the remainder of the period with no further damage allowed.

That was until the Mason Marchment experience kicked into gear.

As I chronicled in the Game 3 recap (and as Robert Tiffin of Stars Thoughts wrote last Wednesday night), the Marchment experience is something like no other. He was the sole reason the Stars were on the power play heading into a do-or-die overtime in Game 3, and he was also the reason the Stars won that game after he beautifully set up Tyler Seguin to bury the game-deciding goal.

Last night, he was also the reason the Stars went into the first intermission down 2-0 instead of just one. But should he have been?

After a rush allowed Marchment to put a shot on net (Blackwood smothered it with ease), he “elbowed” Cale Makar in the face.

You tell me: Is this elbowing?

Regardless, Dallas was on the penalty kill for the first time, and while it took a while for the Avalanche to capitalize on the Marchment “mistake,” they eventually did via a beautiful Nathan MacKinnon one-timer that skirted through Oettinger to put Colorado up 2-0.

Given that Dallas didn’t score a goal last night, any deficit would’ve been a decisive one — but that goal in the waning seconds of the first period felt like a gut punch. When MacKinnon fired that puck on net, there were just four seconds left on the penalty and 24 seconds remaining in the period. Who knows how the game turns out if Dallas heads into the break just down one instead of two? It probably still ends in defeat given how poorly they played in the second period (don’t worry, that’s what I’m talking about next), but that’s not a certainty.

OK, let’s talk about that disastrous second period. I have one word to describe that 20 minutes of hockey: bad.

Terrible.

Awful.

Lousy.

Dreadful.

Atrocious.

Careless.

Unacceptable.

Maybe I have more than one word to describe it. (Yes, those are the results when you type in “bad” into an online thesaurus.)

Colorado outshot Dallas 22-5 in the second period and maintained control of the puck for what felt like the entire frame. When a team dominates possession, hockey people like to say that the “ice is tilted.” Well, that adage certainly felt right last night, as it seemed that any time the Stars attempted to regain control of the puck, they were skating uphill while the Avalanche were going downhill. In other words, the Stars were skating a 0.5x speed while the Avalanche were going 1.5x. It was tough to watch.

If not for a herculean effort from Oettinger, the Stars could’ve easily found themselves trailing 7-0 — or worse — by the end of the second period instead of just 3-0. He turned aside 21 of the 22 shots he faced, standing tall as the Avalanche furiously swarmed. By the time the horn sounded and both teams took the walk into their respective dressing rooms, he looked gassed and defeated. He gave his team everything he had. His teammates didn’t return the favor.

Stars head coach Pete DeBoer opted to sit Oettinger for the third period and gave backup goalie Casey DeSmith the reins. On its face, it’s a questionable decision to sit a goalie who had been standing on his head for most of the game. At the time, the score was 3-0, which is obviously a big deficit in hockey but not an insurmountable one, especially in the playoffs. But DeBoer wanted to give his starting goalie a rest heading into a crucial Game 5 on Monday. And given how the team was playing, it was probably obvious to him — and to everyone else — that a three-goal deficit was going to be too much to overcome.

It, of course, was, as the Avalanche added another tally midway through the third period to bring the score to 4-0. Colorado was the more determined team from start to finish. That’s pretty much the end of the story.

If I’m looking for any silver linings — as I’m prone to do sometimes — it’s that the Stars would’ve absolutely taken a 2-2 series split at the start, especially since Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson have not been available. Despite being down arguably their two best players, the Stars have still been able to compete with a fully healthy Avalanche team that even got Gabriel Landeskog back after 1,039 days of missed time.

Side note: Landeskog’s story is objectively pretty cool. Prior to last night, he hadn’t scored a goal since June 20, 2022, which was Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final — a series that Colorado ended up winning. Because of multiple knee surgeries — all stemming from a knee injury he suffered in 2020 — Landeskog hadn’t been able to play in a game since that series. But he returned in Game 3 to a raucous ovation from the Denver crowd last Wednesday evening. When he scored last night, man, that place was roaring. Once I took my Stars-tinted glasses off, it was a pretty amazing and emotional sports moment.

Nobody said that winning a Stanley Cup was going to be easy. The Stars, more than most teams in the league, should know this. The road is filled with potholes, and it’s bound to give teams bumps and bruises — both figuratively and literally — as they attempt to reach ultimate glory.

Losing in that fashion last night was obviously not ideal, but I encourage everyone to take a step back and look at this series from a 10,000-foot perspective. Dallas is in a good spot. Now it’s their job to capitalize on it.

Stargazing in Dallas

A quick reflection on Game 5 of Stars-Avalanche.

The Stars are without Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson, yet they still lead their opening-round series against the Colorado Avalanche three games to two. How in the world?

Compound those absences with the fact that coming into Game 5 last night, the big dogs — namely Mikko Rantanen, Wyatt Johnston, Mikael Granlund, and Matt Duchene — hadn't made their mark on the series just yet, at least on the scoreboard. To have the series tied while getting little to no production from the top players was a remarkable feat, but it was time for them to show up and make their presence known.

That’s exactly what they did last night.

Nine seconds into the game, Johnston raced past a lazily skating Nathan MacKinnon and beat him to an entry pass that had bounced off the boards. He then fired it on net from a bizarre angle, catching Colorado goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood completely by surprise. The shot somehow found the back of the net, giving the Stars a 1–0 lead with less than ten seconds off the clock.

Perhaps that shocking goal set the tone for the Stars — and for Blackwood and company — for the rest of the night. Colorado, to its credit, didn’t back down after the opening goal, swarming in search of an equalizer throughout the first period. Thanks to some stingy work by Jake Oettinger, though, that goal never came.

Instead, the Stars added another tally late in the first period on yet another blunder by Blackwood. After a turnover by the Avalanche in their own defensive zone, Thomas Harley snapped a shot toward Blackwood, which he stopped with his blocker. The puck went flying into the air, and Blackwood seemingly forgot that what goes up must come down. That’s exactly what the puck did, bouncing off the back of Blackwood’s sweater and into the net for Dallas’ second goal of the night.

Prior to Game 5, Stars head coach Pete DeBoer was asked about the lack of production from Rantanen and the other star players on the roster. He said that “it’s time now” and that he thought “these guys are all due.” He was right.

A little over a minute into the second period, the Avalanche’s offensive pressure backfired, as the Stars caught them sleeping on the back end and created a two-on-one rush. It was the two Finnish stars — Rantanen and Roope Hintz — who connected, with Hintz dishing a beautiful pass to a cutting Rantanen, who buried it with ease. It was Rantanen’s 35th career postseason goal — and his first with Dallas. Was it poetic that his first with his new team came against the squad where he’d scored the other 34 of his Stanley Cup Playoff goals? I think so.

Even down 3–0, the Avalanche were still dangerous, as evidenced by the back-to-back goals they scored within a 2:27 span. Artturi Lehkonen scored the first after Martin Nečas fired a puck on net, and Lehkonen was able to tip it past Oettinger. The second came off a beautiful shot from MacKinnon, who beat Duchene and then easily fired one into the back of the net.

After those two goals from Colorado, the momentum had completely swung. From my seat back home, it looked like an equalizer from the Avalanche was just an eventuality. It was not — thanks in part to a dumb play by Sam Malinski.

Mark Lazerus, a senior NHL writer at The Athletic, correctly pointed out that Malinski’s elbowing penalty on Sam Steel was the turning point of the game. Colorado was going to tie it up — we were all certain of it — but then Malinski immediately put Dallas on the power play with a really, really stupid penalty. Here it is for yourself:

The puck is long gone, yet Malinski still decides to elbow Steel in the face. That’s just not good hockey, folks.

The ensuing man advantage for the Stars resulted in a little insurance — thanks to a beautiful goal from Johnston, his second of the game. He was set up by an even more beautiful pass from Duchene, who swung the puck across the crease to Johnston, leaving him with a wide-open net to finish the play.

Then, with momentum back on Dallas’ side, Mason Marchment tipped in an Alex Petrovic shot from the point to give the Stars a three-goal lead once again. One quick note on that Marchment goal: Tyler Seguin did an excellent job maintaining possession behind the net on that play. Had he not done so, Colorado likely takes control of the puck there, and that goal doesn’t happen. Seguin was awarded a secondary assist for his efforts.

For the rest of the game, everything pretty much held serve. Colorado was awarded some chances in the third period thanks to a cross-checking penalty by Lian Bichsel, but Oettinger and his penalty-killing unit were able to snuff out the danger with relative ease — except for when Cody Ceci lost his skate blade and had to defend on one knee for about ten seconds. It’s funny in hindsight, but in real time, it was a freaky moment that could’ve ended in disaster for the Stars.

An empty-netter by Hintz capped off the night for Dallas as it cruised to a 6–2 win in Game 5 to take a 3–2 series lead.

I wrote in my Game 4 recap on Sunday morning that, despite the lackluster performance by the Stars in their 4–0 shutout loss in Denver on Saturday night, they were in a good spot. Without Heiskanen and Robertson, being tied through four games was probably the best-case scenario.

Now, the Stars are just one win away from advancing to the second round for the third season in a row. There’s no doubt that they’re in a fantastic position, but the job is not finished. As Bob Sturm will tell you, it’s the first to four, not one, or two, or three.

The Avalanche are really good. Despite not getting standout performances from Brock Nelson, Martin Nečas, and Valeri Nichushkin, they’ve still managed to give Dallas a formidable test. That’s mostly because MacKinnon and Cale Makar are just that good — and not to be trifled with.

So, as the Stars head to Denver to try and win Game 6 — and with it, the series — just remember that this rollercoaster ride isn’t over. The Avalanche are not going down without a fight. In fact, I believe Game 6 will be the toughest test for the Stars so far this series. You thought the desperation Colorado showed in Game 4 was intense? Well, get ready to see what a team fighting like an animal backed into a corner looks like on Thursday night.

It’s going to be stressful, but that’s what the Stanley Cup Playoffs are all about.

Rantanen’s Revenge

A quick reflection on Game 7 of Stars-Avalanche.

I’m starting to think that the Dallas Stars trading for Mikko Rantanen was a really good move.

One hundred days ago, on January 25, Rantanen was a member of the Colorado Avalanche — until he wasn’t. In a stunning move that almost nobody in the NHL saw coming, Rantanen — who had spent the entirety of his decade-long career in Denver — was shipped off to the Carolina Hurricanes. In return, the Avalanche received Jack Drury and Martin Necas.

Now, on Saturday, as a member of the Stars, Rantanen scored a hat trick in Game 7 of Dallas’ first-round series against the Avalanche to send the Stars to the second round.

Never in a million years did anyone expect this to happen 100 days ago—least of all Rantanen himself. The Finnish superstar had made it extremely clear over the last several months that he expected to spend the rest of his career in Denver, even with his contract set to expire at the end of the season. But circumstances changed, and Rantanen is now locked into an eight-year, $96 million deal with Dallas. As such, his three goals in the third period on Saturday night kept the Stars’ season alive.

Hollywood couldn’t have scripted it any better.

I have to admit, when Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon made it 2–0 early in the third period, I thought the Stars were cooked. Given how they had played up to that point, I wasn’t entirely off base. Colorado had controlled much of the game, and I would’ve been stunned if the Stars could mount a comeback strong enough to scale the Avalanche mountain. There was just no way, in my mind, that MacKinnon and Cale Makar were going to let up with 19 minutes left.

But they did.

It was a catastrophic collapse by the Avalanche, highlighted by Rantanen putting the Stars on his back against his former team.

With 12 minutes to go, Rantanen, who was double-shifting at the time and playing with Dallas' fourth line, skated into the offensive zone and used a (probably illegal) screen by Sam Steel to get open in the high slot. That’s a spot where a player as good as Rantanen rarely misses. He fired it past Mackenzie Blackwood, bar-down, to cut the Avalanche lead in half.

The tying goal came on a power play, when Rantanen decided to take on three Colorado players head-on. He bolted into the offensive zone, past Ryan Lindgren, Valeri Nichushkin, and Samuel Girard. After blowing by all of them, he wrapped around the net but couldn’t complete the wraparound himself. The puck fluttered off his stick, then off Girard’s skate, and into the net. Tie game.

It’s easy to chalk that goal up to bad luck for the Avalanche, but that bad luck doesn’t happen unless Rantanen puts in the effort to get there in the first place.

And the rest is history. A controversial penalty (which wasn’t all that controversial if you ask me — though Avalanche fans might kill me for saying that) set the Stars up with a power play late in the third. They capitalized, thanks to a beauty of a one-timer from Wyatt Johnston.

Now up 3–2, all Dallas had to do was hang on. Shot after shot came their way, but Jake Oettinger was up to the task, making stop after stop after stop. With every glove save in the final 90 seconds, the crowd at American Airlines Center roared. How the roof didn’t come off that building is beyond me, because man, that place was loud.

Rantanen’s hat trick was completed when Tyler Seguin cleared the zone, allowing him to skate down the ice unimpeded and bury the puck into the empty net. Three goals to seal the deal, and four points in a single period for the second consecutive game. Wow. He’s the first player in NHL history to accomplish that feat.

Even more impressive: through four games against Colorado, Rantanen had managed just one measly point — a secondary assist on Seguin’s OT-winner in Game 3. Flash forward to the end of the series, and he leads all players in playoff points with 12. How in the world? He’s just that special, folks.

It’s safe to say that without Rantanen, the Dallas Stars would likely be sitting on their couch next week instead of jumping on a plane to Winnipeg for the second round. Considering they were without Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson — two of their best players — it was a minor miracle the series even got to Game 7. To win it altogether is a blessing from on high.

Now it’s on to Manitoba for the Stars, where the Jets just beat the St. Louis Blues in their own Game 7 — a thrilling double-overtime classic. The Jets won the Presidents’ Trophy for the best record in the league and will be a formidable test for a banged-up Stars team that just came through a war. How will it turn out? As I often say when asked questions like that: I have no idea. What I do know, however, is that the Stanley Cup Playoffs are the best. And a Stars vs. Jets series is almost guaranteed to be some top-tier entertainment.

One final thought before I wrap up this euphoric reflection on the Stars’ 4–2 win in Game 7: Saturday night is why we do sports. The countless lows are only made worth it by the glorious highs that sometimes follow. There’s never a guarantee that glory will come — but it’s the hope that it might that keeps us going.

These small victories are what make hockey so incredible. Winning a Stanley Cup is unbelievably difficult, and advancing to the second round is an achievement in its own right. So, bask in it while you still can. You never know when the journey will end — whether in a sad handshake line or a champagne-filled locker room. The good deserves to be celebrated at all times, even if it’s just the first round.

That being said, buckle up, everybody, because this ride is just getting started. Bring on Winnipeg. Bring on Vegas. Bring on Edmonton. You know what? Bring everybody on.

It’s time to bring the Cup back to Dallas.

Rantanen’s Reign

A quick reflection on Game 1 of Stars-Jets.

It’s safe to say that with Luka Dončić’s departure from DFW, there was a gaping hole in the “who is the best player in the city?” argument. Ever since Dončić arrived in 2018, there really wasn’t a discussion to be had regarding who was the cream of the crop in Dallas.

While there’s no way anybody could eclipse the star power and prestige that Dončić brought to the Metroplex, somebody still had to take the mantle of “best player” sooner rather than later. The easy bet would’ve resided at AT&T Stadium — the home of the Dallas Cowboys — where DFW sports stars are born and bred. Nobody, and I mean nobody, outdoes the Cowboys when it comes to publicity, so it was easy to assume that there would be some kind of PR campaign to elevate a member of that team to “best player in the city.”

The other Arlington residents — the Texas Rangers — also employ a superstar who brought the city its first championship since 2011 in Corey Seager. Without his heroics throughout the 2023 postseason, the Rangers don’t win that World Series, plain and simple.

But I don’t think the answer to the “who is the best player in DFW” question resides in Arlington. In fact, that dude plays in the exact arena that Dončić did for his entire NBA career until February 1 — except he doesn’t play on hardwood. He’s a member of the Dallas Stars.

Over the Stars’ last four Stanley Cup Playoff games, Mikko Rantanen has eight goals and six assists for a playoff-leading 14 points.

In Game 7 of the Stars’ first-round series against the Colorado Avalanche, it was Rantanen’s hat trick in the third period that helped lift Dallas out of a 2-0 hole and into the second round.

And in Game 1 of the second round in Winnipeg last night, Rantanen did it again. His natural hat trick — with all the goals coming in the second period — was the deciding factor in a close 3-2 victory for Dallas over the Jets.

Right now, Mikko Rantanen is the Dallas Stars.

Mikko Rantanen is Dallas sports.

Don’t get me wrong — last night was an incredible team win in many regards, with the Stars’ penalty kill going 4-for-4. But it was Rantanen’s magic that ultimately delivered the goods.

In my 22 years of watching sports in this city, I’ve never quite seen a stretch of play as awesome as the one he’s on right now. Rarely do we get to say in this town that we have one of the best — but we do now. Who would’ve thought that we’d still be able to say that even after Dončić was dealt away right under our feet?

Let’s not forget the other incredible feat accomplished by Dallas last night: it was the Stars’ first Game 1 victory since September 19, 2020 — Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals in the bubble against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In the intervening period between then and now, Dallas was 0-8 in Game 1s.

Winning the first game of any series is undoubtedly a good thing, but it’s in no way an indication of whether a team will go on to win the series as a whole. As you may well remember, the Stars ended up losing that 2020 series to the Lightning in six games. What you might remember even better is that the Stars lost Game 1 a little over two weeks ago to the Colorado Avalanche — and it’s not the Avalanche who are playing in the second round.

Regardless of any semantics about whether winning Game 1 will result in a trip to the Western Conference Finals or not, the story of last night — and the story of this entire playoff run so far for the Dallas Stars — is Mikko Rantanen. If there were any doubters remaining about whether that trade was a good move by the Stars, they were extinguished in the last two games. He’s been that good.

Jason Robertson returned to the lineup for Dallas last night, which was an extremely positive sign. His name didn’t feature on the scorecard, but he played a completely fine game, and there wasn’t really any sign of fatigue or pain from him.

Now the Stars just need to get Miro Heiskanen back, and their arsenal will be fully stocked. When Dallas traded for Rantanen at the deadline, it did so hoping that one day later in the season this loaded roster would be completely healthy and ready to unleash fury on the rest of the league. With Tyler Seguin back from hip surgery and Robertson now patched up, the Stars are one step closer to realizing that dream.

Stars head coach Pete DeBoer said that Heiskanen should be ready sometime during the second round. Whether that’s for Game 2 tomorrow or not, he didn’t say. Nevertheless, his imminent return is exciting.

The Stars have done a decent job patching up the blue line through the first three weeks of the playoffs, with Thomas Harley and Esa Lindell bearing the majority of the load. Harley has been a workhorse since January — outside of Heiskanen, he led the team in average time on ice at 23:23 throughout the season — and since Heiskanen went down, he has proven to fans in Dallas and across the league that he’s a top-tier defenseman.

When Heiskanen returns, somebody on the blue line is inevitably going to have to move over. The likely candidates are the third pairing of Lian Bichsel and Alex Petrovic, but even that might be somewhat hard to stomach. While the pair haven’t been otherworldly, they’ve been more than suitable and have frankly outplayed expectations. Unfortunately for one of them — probably Petrovic — Heiskanen is a top-five defenseman in the NHL, and somebody’s going to have to scoot on over.

All this talk about Rantanen and Robertson’s and Heiskanen’s potential returns to the lineup has overshadowed Jake Oettinger’s role in Dallas’ success so far this postseason. Last night in particular was a shining example of why the Stars are so lucky to have a goalie as reliable as Oettinger.

Don’t get it twisted: Oettinger outdueled Connor Hellebuyck yesterday evening. For all of Hellebuyck’s historic struggles in the playoffs, he’s still the best goalie in the world and is about to win his third Vezina. When he is at his best, there’s no one like him.

And while Hellebuyck wasn’t swimming in the swamp pit like he was in the Jets’ first-round series against the St. Louis Blues, he was completely formidable last night in Game 1. He was good—but Oettinger was better.

Of the 31 shots that Winnipeg flung Oettinger’s way, he stopped 29 of them. When the pressure was really on late in the third period and Winnipeg was throwing everything they had at him, Oettinger once again stood tall.

I mean, look at the absolute chaos in the picture above. If you can believe it, the puck didn’t find its way into the back of the net after all that. Thanks, Jake!

So, next time you hear a Stars fan complaining about Oettinger’s performance in net, just remember: it could always be worse. He’s never going to lose the Stars a game, and he’s the definition of reliable. That’s not the case for every team’s goalie situation remaining in the playoffs (I’m looking at you, Edmonton).

There can be a tendency for teams that don’t have home-ice advantage to be content with a split on the road. With Dallas winning Game 1 in Winnipeg, I really hope that’s not the case. While going up 2-0 isn’t necessarily a death blow — especially to a team as good as the Jets — it’s certainly close to it. Imagine if the Avalanche had shut down the Stars in Game 2 of the first round and headed back to Denver up 2-0. I don’t think that series winds up in Dallas’ favor if that’s the case.

So, the goal is simple: win tomorrow. If the Stars can manage that feat, they’ll be sitting really pretty come Sunday afternoon when they play Game 3 in Dallas.

To Kick, or Not to Kick

A quick reflection on Game 3 of Stars-Jets.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are not for the faint of heart. They will knock you down and drag you along, all while berating you to no end. The hockey postseason is built to destroy your soul, with only the fearless and strong prevailing.

In other words, the Stanley Cup Playoffs will change a person.

That’s not to say the incredibly taxing journey can’t be rewarding in the end. It absolutely can be for all those involved—but only one team will claim the ultimate prize once it’s all said and done. Whatever team is standing above the wreckage at the conclusion is truly the only one that can look back on the experience fondly.

So, that’s what we’ve all gotten ourselves into. And as I watched the Dallas Stars win Game 3 against the Winnipeg Jets yesterday afternoon by a score of 5-2, I reminded myself that there’s still a long road ahead in the pursuit of glory. Yesterday’s matinee victory was extremely satisfying, yes, but it also painted an extremely clear picture of just how difficult the remaining games in this series are going to be.

The 5-2 final score was not indicative at all of how gritty a win that was for the Stars. Had it not been for a (controversial) goal by Alex Petrovic in the third period, followed by a spectacular finish by none other than Mikko Rantanen, this game would have been a battle until the very end. But that’s not how the cookie crumbled yesterday, and the Stars are perfectly okay with that outcome.

A quick aside before fully diving into yesterday’s game: I apologize for not posting a recap of Game 2. A late-night game on Friday followed by a busy Saturday that started early meant no post was written for that contest. It was a horrid game from a Stars perspective, and honestly, not much needs to be said about it. Anyway, onto Game 3, which was much more pleasant to digest.

As William Shakespeare famously wrote in Hamlet, “To kick, or not to kick, that is the question.” Okay, maybe that’s not exactly what Shakespeare wrote 400 years ago, but it’s close enough. It’s certainly applicable to what happened yesterday in downtown Dallas. Did Alex Petrovic kick the puck into the net, and should the goal have been disallowed because of that?

Let’s focus first on that third period, which started deadlocked at 2-2. While Dallas never trailed in the game—it opened the scoring on a Roope Hintz goal in the first period, and after Winnipeg tied it, Thomas Harley snapped one in to regain the Stars’ one-goal advantage—it almost felt like a Winnipeg win was inevitable. I’ve watched enough Stars games over the years to know just how fickle a tie game can be. One second a team is holding steady, and the next, it’s down by two goals after being caught with its pants down a couple of times. That’s exactly what happened to Winnipeg yesterday.

It’s totally understandable that the Jets and their fans are irked about the Petrovic goal, which resulted from a “kick” by the Stars’ defenseman. Here’s the play in question:

According to everything I read regarding the specific rule, it felt like the Jets had some credence to argue that it shouldn’t have been a goal.

Here’s the rule:

A puck that deflects into the net off an attacking player’s skate who does not use a distinct kicking motion is a legitimate goal. A puck that is directed into the net by an attacking player’s skate shall be a legitimate goal as long as no distinct kicking motion is evident. The following should clarify deflections following a kicked puck that enters the goal:

1. A kicked puck that deflects off the body of any player of either team (including the goalkeeper) shall be ruled no goal.

2. A kicked puck that deflects off the stick of any player (excluding the goalkeeper’s stick) shall be ruled a good goal.

3. A goal will be allowed when an attacking player kicks the puck and the puck deflects off his own stick and then into the net.

4. A goal will be allowed when a puck enters the goal after deflecting off an attacking player’s skate or deflects off his skate while he is in the process of stopping.

The clause most applicable to the Petrovic goal is the second one, which suggests that if the puck deflected off Connor Hellebuyck’s stick and not anyone else’s, the goal should be disallowed. Of course, that wasn’t the case. The officials (after over seven minutes of deliberation with the Situation Room in Toronto) ruled that while there was a distinct kicking motion, it was Hellebuyck’s actions that ultimately caused—or in their words, “propelled”—the puck into the goal.

If that doesn’t make much sense, here’s the NHL’s official explanation:

The Situation Room initiated a video review to further examine if Alexander Petrovic kicked the puck into the Winnipeg net. Video was then used to determine if the puck made contact with Petrovic’s stick prior to it entering the net. After looking at all available replays, video review supported the Referee’s call on the ice that Connor Hellebuyck propelled the puck into his own net.

Finally, here’s some thoughts from Elliotte Friedman:

Friedman said on the 32 Thoughts podcast this morning that the league is really trying to stick with the calls made on the ice. Wherever possible, the NHL wants to avoid disallowing goals. It’s an understandable stance—taking goals off the board via video review isn’t fun for anyone, and it disrupts the flow of the game.

I’ll say this: It’d be hard to convince me that what Petrovic did with his skate was a legitimate kick. The spirit of the rule is to prevent players from intentionally using their skates to kick the puck into the net like a soccer ball. Unfortunately, the wording of the rule can be interpreted loosely enough to call what Petrovic did a “kick.” I call bull hockey on that. Yes, he angled his skate, causing the puck to go airborne, but I firmly believe he was trying to kick the puck to his stick and simply whiffed.

Oh well. It doesn’t matter anyway. The goal counted, and it gave the Stars a 3-2 lead. The Jets could protest all they wanted, but at the end of the day, it was their job to respond—and they didn’t.

Pretty much immediately after the officials upheld the Petrovic goal, the Stars struck again via Rantanen’s ninth (!) goal of the playoffs. It was his third point of the day—he assisted on the Hintz and Petrovic goals—bringing his postseason total to a league-leading 18 points (Connor McDavid, the best hockey player on the planet, is in second place with 16). The run Rantanen is on right now is unlike anything I’ve seen in Dallas sports in a long time. In recent memory, only Adolis García’s tear through the 2023 postseason compares to the heroics Rantanen is delivering.

With the score 4-2 and the American Airlines Center ready to explode, it was all over for the Jets. They put up a decent effort, but Jake Oettinger—who’s currently making a case to be the best American goalie—shut down any resistance Winnipeg mustered.

That added pressure by Winnipeg ended up biting them in the butt. They got caught behind the play after a turnover, which resulted in a two-on-one with Jamie Benn and Evgenii Dadonov. After they couldn’t finish the play, Wyatt Johnston bore down on the net and finished the job to give the Stars an insurance goal.

There’s a lot that could be said about the Stars’ Game 3 win against the Jets. Now up 2-1 in the series, Dallas has a chance to take a stranglehold on this second-round matchup with a win tomorrow night. Given that the Jets have yet to win on the road this postseason, it’s certainly in the cards. Just remember: the Stars were up 2-1 on Colorado last round, and that series went the distance. Also recall last year’s Western Conference Final against Edmonton, where Dallas went up 2-1 and didn’t win another game as its season floundered to the finish line. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen this time around.

The ball is in Dallas’ court, and it’s their job to pick it up and put it in the hoop (or the goal, since this is hockey and basketball still kind of gives all us DFW citizens a bad taste in our mouth for reasons). It won’t be easy—the Jets were the best team in the regular season for a reason—but it is doable. If the Stars can pull it off, then wow, we’ve got another special run on our hands.

And this one might be different—because this time, Mikko Rantanen is a Dallas Star.

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Stars Advance to Western Conference Finals

For the third consecutive season, the Dallas Stars will be making a trip to the Western Conference Finals.

There’s no doubt that over the past six years, the Stars have been one of the most successful teams in hockey. That fact, however, comes with one important caveat: they still haven’t managed to win a Stanley Cup since 1999.

Perhaps that all changes in 2025, as the Stars won 2-1 on Saturday night in Game 6 against the Winnipeg Jets to win their second round series four games to two. Oh, how sweet that is.

Dallas had far and away been the better team throughout the entirety of the series prior to Game 6, but given the stinker that they laid in Game 5 up in Manitoba, there was some uncertainty regarding how well they were going to play back home. Those fears continued to manifest themselves as the team shot out of a cannon to start the contest but still didn’t manage to put any pucks into the back of the net.

It’s those types of starts that can be the most frustrating for a team and a fan. All the chances are there, it’s just the finishing touch that is lacking. What makes them all the more infuriating is that there’s always that lingering feeling that despite the immense pressure that your team has put on the opponent, it only takes one goal to swing the momentum completely.

On Saturday night at the American Airlines Center, that’s what appeared to be happening.

In the first several minutes of the second period of a scoreless game, Winnipeg remembered that they were the best team in hockey in the regular season and started to get their mojo back. With the Stars now on their heels, the Jets capitalized, as Mark Scheifele gathered up a rebound and shot it past Jake Oettinger to give Winnipeg a 1-0 lead.

Before I get into anything else, it’s important to talk about Scheifele’s game on Saturday night. Scheifele’s father, Brad, passed away during the night prior to Saturday, with Scheifele and the team finding out early in the morning. Obviously, Scheifele’s status for Game 6 was uncertain at that point, but he still decided to play to honor his father. Seeing him score that opening goal was extremely moving. It’s a cliché to call some things “bigger than sports” but Scheifele’s experience on Saturday absolutely was.

And then, after the game, with the Stars celebrating on the ice after Thomas Harley’s overtime goal sent Dallas into the Western Conference Final, Scheifele sat alone in the penalty box with his head down and shoulder’s slumped. One has to think that the weight of the world was on him in that moment, but not for long, as his teammates pulled him out of the box to let him know that he was loved and not alone.

The ensuing handshake line — one of the best aspects of the Stanley Cup Playoff experience — was also beautiful, as each Stars player and coach individually expressed their condolences to Scheifele.

With no easy way to transition from that tragic story, I’ll say this: Sports provide us with all the entertainment one can ask for, but it’s in the moments where real life invades the games that we all need to step back and remember that it is indeed just a game.

After that opening goal by Scheifele, the Stars were in an early hole, which was a tough pill to swallow given how good they played in the first period. On top of that, climbing out of the pit they’d been thrown in was going to be an incredibly difficult task as Winnipeg had played their best hockey when up in games.

The Stars managed to do it anyway.

Sam Steele — perhaps the most non-threatening forward on the Stars roster —propelled Dallas right back into the game when he collected a long rebound and shot it over Connor Hellebuyck’s glove. You could argue that that shot was one that Hellebuyck would like to have back, but it was still a great shot from Steele, and he was rewarded for it.

With the score still even at 1-1 as the third period waned, Steele made his presence known again when he managed to get behind the defense and attempted to score a breakaway goal with less than 30 seconds to go in regulation. Scheifele, who was the only reason that the game was level — at least from a Jets’ perspective — made a last-ditch effort to stop Steele and managed to trip him in the process. A penalty was called, and the crowd held their breath as they awaited word for whether a penalty shot was going to be awarded to Steele. On paper, it appeared that the play fit all the criteria for a penalty shot. But the referees on the ice felt differently, and the Stars were given a two-minute man advantage instead.

Once again, the Stars power play, which had been (and still is) the best in the playoffs thus far, had the opportunity to win a game. And win a game it did.

In the dying seconds of the two-minute Scheifele minor in overtime, the Stars shot the puck into the offensive zone, and Mason Marchment and Tyler Seguin battled for it against the boards. The puck bounced out to Seguin who saw a wide-open Thomas Harley in the slot. He passed it over to Harley, who then reared back just a little bit and shot it towards the net.

It went in.

The crowd erupted.

Thomas Harley jumped for joy.

The Stars were going to the Western Conference Finals, again.

There, the Edmonton Oilers are waiting. Last season, the Stars fell to the Oilers in that same round of the playoffs. Yes, a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals is on the line for both teams, but for the Stars there’s a little more at stake: redemption.

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Mission: Win Game 2

Don’t hesitate. Don’t settle. Just win.

After losing eight consecutive Game 1s, the Dallas Stars have turned around and won two in a row.

On Wednesday night, the Stars found themselves in a familiar place. They were down two goals early in the third period and were desperately searching for any sort of reprieve. Edmonton had dominated the ice all night, and it certainly didn’t look like they were going to let up anytime soon.

But sports, and especially hockey, can be funny sometimes. Just as they did in Game 7 against the Colorado Avalanche just a couple of weeks ago, the Stars rallied back from the 3-1 deficit, scoring three power-play goals in rapid succession in the third period to take a lead they’d never relinquish.

Miro Heiskanen from the left point with 19:28 left. 3-2.

Mikael Granlund from the right circle with 16:11 left. 3-3.

Matt Duchene from just to the left of the crease with 14:02 left. 4-3.

Boom, bang, pow.

No team left in the Stanley Cup Playoffs — and perhaps no team in the league itself — has the ability to turn it on like the Stars do. In a moment's notice, Edmonton went from sitting pretty, staring a 1-0 series lead in the face, to being caught with their pants at their ankles (metaphorically, of course).

With their comeback on Wednesday, the Stars became the first team in Stanley Cup Playoffs history to earn more than one win in regulation after trailing by at least two goals in the third period. The comeback kids? Nah, more like the comeback Finns. That was terrible. Ignore that joke everybody.

Anyway, it had to feel good for the Stars’ bench after the catastrophe that was Games 4-6 in last year’s Western Conference Final against these same Oilers. If you recall, the Stars went up 2-1 in that series before the bottom fell out of the offense, particularly on special teams, where Dallas went an abysmal 0-for-14 on the power play throughout the entire series. The Oilers won all three of those games to advance to the Stanley Cup Final, sending the Stars home unhappy.

It’s very clear that the mission this time around is to avenge last year’s catastrophic collapse. While that may have become evident to everybody during that masterful third-period comeback, it should’ve been clear the moment that Stars general manager Jim Nill started pushing all his chips to the middle of the table by trading first-round picks for Granlund, Cody Ceci, and, most importantly, Mikko Rantanen.

And hey, Rantanen didn’t even factor into any of the scoring on Wednesday night, and the Stars still won by three goals. The depth on this team is absolutely nuts. (Or bananas, if you’re allergic to nuts.)

But the job is not done. Yes, a 6-3 triumph in Game 1 does a lot to lift the spirits, but six more games potentially await between these two teams as they duke it out to decide who’s going to represent the West in the Stanley Cup Final.

Tonight, the Stars will play Game 2 against the Oilers. I don’t want to be hyperbolic when I say that this game is a big one, but it is. Given how Dallas has played on the road thus far this postseason — they’re just 2-4 away from the American Airlines Center through the first two rounds — it’s pretty important to win every game at home that they possibly can. So, that means beating the Oilers tonight.

The task will no doubt be difficult. While Edmonton came back from a two-game deficit in these playoffs back in the first round against the Los Angeles Kings, they certainly don’t want to have to repeat the feat again. Even with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, it’d still be hard.

If what Pete DeBoer and the Stars’ coaching staff sent out there in Game 1 is any indication of what they’ll do in Game 2, then Dallas will continue to throw out a 12/6 lineup with Alex Petrovic being a healthy scratch. Putting Petrovic on the bench is somewhat of a tough pill to swallow, given how good he was on that third pairing with Lian Bischel, but when Miro Heiskanen is the alternative option, somebody’s got to take a seat.

It’ll be interesting to see how DeBoer throws out his forwards, though. In the second period of Game 1, with the Stars scuffling and on their heels, DeBoer reshuffled the lines a bit. When that didn’t work, he recalibrated and went back to the original lines that started the game. Obviously, that worked, as the Stars scored five goals in the third period and won the contest.

I’d expect DeBoer to roll out the same groups as always, but it’ll be interesting to see what he does if the Stars come out of the gate slowly again. Will he shuffle the lines up again, or will he stay patient and wait out the struggles, knowing that at any moment his team can put the pedal to the metal? Based on my experience watching this team, I’d venture a guess and say that DeBoer will err on the side of patience.

Side note: Of the skills that a professional sports coach (heck, just any kind of coach, honestly) needs to have, patience might be at the top of the list. It becomes even more paramount when you have a group of players who are as good as the Stars are. Sometimes it just takes a little time for them to get into the groove of the game, and once they do, it’s all over for the other team.

So, the job is simple: win tonight at home and go up 2-0 in the series. It’ll put the Oilers in a hole that will be difficult to climb out of, and, most importantly, it gets the Stars one step closer to their ultimate goal of a Stanley Cup.

You might be thinking that everything that I’ve just written is painfully obvious, and to that, I’d say that you would be correct. Of course the Stars want to win Game 2! Why wouldn’t they? But given how Dallas has performed following playoff victories, I believe it’s still important to point out that going up 2-0 is much better than being tied.

The Stars have had a tendency to just settle for that split through the first two games of a series, and I believe it’s in their best interest not to do that tonight against the Oilers. While Winnipeg and Colorado were explosive and awesome in their own right, this Edmonton team is another beast, thanks mostly to the presence of McDavid and Draisaitl. Don’t take them lightly. If any team should know that, though, it’s the Dallas Stars.

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Mission: Failed

They hesitated. They settled. They didn’t win.

The mission was simple: win Game 2 at home against the Edmonton Oilers.

The Stars couldn’t do that.

With the series tied at 1-1, the task became even clearer: take Game 3 on the road.

The Stars couldn’t do that either.

It’s safe to say that the last two games Dallas has played have been complete disasters for two completely different reasons. In Game 2, the Oilers simply outplayed the Stars in what was a must-win game for them. Edmonton was better in every facet, and it showed in the box score.

Roope Hintz’s injury in the third period only made matters worse for Dallas. If the slashing penalty committed by Darnell Nurse on Hintz had been called a major instead of a minor, would the Stars have mounted a comeback and won the game? Probably not. It definitely wouldn’t have made up for the loss of their top-line center, who ended up not playing in Game 3, despite Oilers fans online crying wolf that Hintz was faking just to draw a major penalty (give me a break).

If the Stars gave it their best effort, even without Hintz, they were probably going to come out on top in any game. That’s just how good they are. So, when the Stars put up a much better performance, at least according to the eye test and the statistics, they beat Edmonton yesterday, right?

Nope. They lost 6-1 in what was a downright beatdown of epic proportions.

There’s no doubt that the Stars thoroughly outplayed the Oilers for much of the game, particularly in the second period when the shot disparity was 21-7 in favor of Dallas. Throughout the entirety of the game, the Stars put up 34 shots compared to Edmonton’s 24. And yet, only one puck hit the back of the net for Dallas.

The difference in the game was simple: one team had Connor McDavid, and the other did not.

McDavid is hands down the best player in the world and the best hockey talent I’ve seen with my own two eyes. His speed and puck handling, combined with his expert scoring ability, make him pretty much unstoppable. There are multiple times throughout every game of these playoffs where he’s taken on multiple defenders on a rush — much like Mikko Rantanen did in Game 7 against the Avalanche a couple of weeks ago — and then created a scoring opportunity out of thin air. This overtime winner against the Vegas Golden Knights from last round comes to mind:

He scored two goals yesterday, including one on a three-on-one breakaway to put Edmonton up 2-0. Then in the second period, with the Oilers on their heels and now only up by one goal, McDavid buried the metaphorical dagger from the right circle.

Add on several other Edmonton goals that came via the rush, which was Dallas’ kryptonite against these same Oilers last season in the Western Conference Final, and the score got really out of hand. But sometimes sports are weird, and the score doesn’t tell the full story, which was very much the case yesterday.

Take a look at MoneyPuck’s “Deserve to Win O’Meter,” which provides a glimpse at how the game was closer than the scoreboard suggests:

You can also take that graph with a grain of salt. It is just a computer running a bunch of simulations based on the statistics from the actual game, and the play happening on the ice matters much more. The one statistic it probably takes into account the most is expected goals. If victories were awarded based on that, then Dallas would be up 2-1 in the series, with the Stars having 2.97 expected goals yesterday compared to Edmonton’s 2.36.

But it still tells us that Dallas didn’t play terribly; it just got beaten by McDavid and some excellent goalkeeping by Oilers’ keeper Stuart Skinner.

Let’s talk about Skinner, who, in his first two games of the playoffs against the Los Angeles Kings, let in 12 goals. He was subsequently benched for backup Calvin Pickard and only got the job back after Pickard suffered an injury.

Since his return, Skinner has been excellent, and his performance in the last two games against the Stars, where he’s allowed just one goal on 59 shots, is reminiscent of his fantastic play in the Western Conference Final last season. If he’s going to play like this for the remainder of the series, then the Stars are going to have their hands full.

This piece has been very Oilers-heavy, and that’s the problem for the Stars right now. Nobody is stepping up. Save for a third period where they scored five goals in Game 1, the Stars have just two goals in this series. Rantanen has been pretty much invisible. Wyatt Johnston is a -16 in the playoffs, which is last in the league. Jason Robertson has only one goal. The Stars’ forward depth needs to get it going, because if not, they’ll be hitting the golf course very soon.

On Friday morning, I called for the Stars to take command and win Game 2. They obviously didn’t do that, and they obviously didn’t win Game 3. So, with a must-win Game 4 looming, it’s time for Dallas to dig deep.

The season hangs in the balance in Edmonton tomorrow night. If they win, they can head back to Dallas with the series even at 2-2, with two more games at home potentially on the docket. If they lose, they must reel off three consecutive wins against a team that employs Connor McDavid. Either route is tough, but it must be done if the quest for Dallas’ first Stanley Cup since 1999 is to be completed.

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I Think I’ve Seen This Film Before

And I didn’t like the ending.

WARNING: RANT INCOMING. PREPARE YOURSELVES ACCORDINGLY.

For the third consecutive season, the Dallas Stars made the Western Conference Final. And for the third straight year, it sure looks like the Stars are going to be heading home one round short of the Stanley Cup Final.

It’s disappointing, to say the least. The last two Western Conference Final losses were tough but also somewhat palatable. Vegas was very good in 2023 and subsequently went on to win the Cup. Edmonton straight up outplayed the Stars through Games 3-6 in last year’s edition, and while it wasn’t a good time at all, there were at least some clear signs of what Dallas needed to improve upon in the next campaign should it want to achieve its goals.

Obviously, things have not changed from last year’s loss to this season’s 3-1 series deficit. The power play that was so absent in last year’s series has been almost nonexistent since the third period of Game 1. Correction, it’s been a complete non-factor, as the Stars have scored just one lone goal on special teams—Jason Robertson’s goal from the slot in the second period of Game 4—since that third period barrage in the series’ opening contest.

This potential Western Conference Final loss is definitely more disappointing than the last two. The Stars went all in for this year’s run at a Cup, with the acquisitions of Mikko Rantanen and Mikael Granlund reinforcing the idea that the 2024-25 campaign was a make-or-break year for Dallas. If they can’t win three games in a row against the potent Oilers, then Rantanen and Granlund will have ultimately made no difference.

You might be screaming at me that it isn’t over until it’s over. Trust me, I hear you. “It ain’t over until the fat lady sings” and all that jazz. But given the Stars’ performance over the past three games, it’s just really tough for me to see a path to ultimately winning this series.

I’ll entertain the thought of it though because it’s a nice proposition. And while it will be tough, it has been done before. If, and it’s a big if, Dallas is to mount a furious comeback from down 3-1, the stars for the Stars need to shine, and they need to shine brightly. Right now, the Oilers’ best players are coming alive when everything matters the most. Connor McDavid scored two goals in Game 3, with Leon Draisaitl also having two tallies over the first four contests. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is on an unreal heater, with nine points through two goals and seven assists against Dallas.

That’s what the Stars are up against, and Mikko Rantanen, Jason Robertson, Matt Duchene, Wyatt Johnston, Mikael Granlund, and all the other awesome players that make up the roster need to pick up the pace, and they need to pick it up now.

The Stars are built to be a deep team that gets scoring from all over the ice. Right now, that is not the case, and frankly, it hasn’t been the case the entire postseason. Rantanen was the sole reason that Dallas got past the Avalanche and was a major factor in why the Jets were disposed of in six games. Mikael Granlund, Rantanen’s Finnish counterpart, was excellent with his hat trick against Winnipeg in Game 4 of that series but has been practically invisible against Edmonton. Other than that, the scoring has been few and far between, which is just the same old story from a year ago. Sigh.

We will see if Dallas can rewrite the history books and overcome the enormous odds that are in front of them. If they do, the 2024-25 Dallas Stars will be remembered fondly for years to come. If they don’t, then this will just be another chapter in a long book that is filled with disappointing end-of-season results.

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Okay, there’s my little mini-rant about why everything is a disaster. Let’s now dive into what actually happened in Game 4 of Stars-Oilers and why the signs are not looking good for the team from the Lone Star State.

Dallas started out the game with their hair on fire, racking up seven shots on net in the early going while Edmonton had only two. The chances were definitely there, but Stuart Skinner is just the best goalie on the planet right now, and nothing is getting past him. Tough scenes.

Right after the Stars had put up several good chances in a row, Jamie Benn drew a horrifically timed tripping penalty in the offensive zone. It was yet another poor play from the Dallas captain, who has played below his pay grade for the vast majority of the playoffs.

Tasked with stopping an Oilers power play that had scored in every game of the series, the Stars put up a valiant effort before Leon Draisaitl found his favorite spot and beat Jake Oettinger on the near post to put Edmonton up 1-0. For the 14th time this postseason, the Stars had let in the first goal. I would not advise doing this.

It was sometime before this that Roope Hintz, who was the victim of a dirty (maybe?) slash by Darnell Nurse in the waning moments of Game 2 that forced him to miss Game 3, was slashed on the same foot by Evan Bouchard away from the play. Fortunately, Hintz was fine, but the play was still so dirty, and the fact that a penalty wasn’t called is egregious. But it’s par for the course, as the league and its officials have continuously failed to protect the players throughout this postseason.

Anyway, down by a goal, the Stars continued to mount extreme pressure on Skinner and the Oilers with nothing to show for it throughout the rest of the first period. A penalty by Edmonton with seven seconds left in the frame gave the Stars a little bit of hope for the start of the second, but when that power play came up empty, things were starting to look bleak early for Dallas.

That first period was an encapsulation of the series as a whole in a lot of ways. Chances were plentiful for the Stars, yet it was Edmonton who had a lead at the end of it.

Here are some statistics, via Natural Stat Trick, that give a glimpse at just how different this series could be if Dallas was actually capitalizing on the opportunities presented to them: Through the first four WCF games, Dallas leads the expected goals 10.7 to 8.7 during 5v5 hockey. The actual goals favor Edmonton 9-3, however. Throughout all situations, the Stars still hold the advantage at 14.4 to 14.0. Yet again, the Oilers have all the riches, scoring 16 goals compared to Dallas’ eight.

Back to the game. Another Edmonton penalty later in the second awarded the Stars another chance, and they cashed in, thanks to a beautiful shot by Jason Robertson from the slot. The game was tied, and the Stars had life.

Sports, unfortunately, can change on a whim. After Mason Marchment committed a rash interference penalty, the Edmonton man advantage kicked into high gear, with Corey Perry — a wily veteran who’s been a pain in the side of pretty much every team in the league for his entire career — scoring a wide-open goal right in front of the net after a wonderful pass from Nugent-Hopkins (who else, right).

Just like that, the Stars were losing again, and that’s where they’d be for the rest of the game.

Edmonton played the third period beautifully, putting on a masterclass on how to keep a lead in the game’s final 20 minutes of action. The neutral zone was on lockdown as the Stars could barely get any clean entries across the blue line. Through the first eight minutes of the third period, Dallas had just one measly shot on goal. Even with their playoff lives on the brink, the Stars could barely muster any resistance.

With two and a half minutes to go, Jake Oettinger was pulled from his crease. Almost immediately, the Oilers buried an empty-netter to put the game away. Another goal with the netminder pulled followed, and that was that. The Stars had lost 4-1 and were down 3-1 in the series.

The Stars were outshot 13-4 in the third period, which is simply not good enough. When the lights have gotten the brightest here in the Western Conference Final, the Stars have continually failed to show up. It’s such a shame, especially since that’s when Dallas had played its best through the first two rounds of the playoffs.

Dallas’ season is on the line in Game 5. It’ll be win-or-go-home for Dallas on Thursday night at the American Airlines Center. Somebody is going to have to step up, because if not, the boys will be packing up their bags and heading off to Cancun.

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Season Over, Dreams Over

Maybe next year.

Making it to the Western Conference Final three years in a row is definitely something to be proud of. Losing in the Western Conference Final in embarrassing fashion three years in a row is definitely not something that I’d want to hang my hat on, though.

Tonight, the Dallas Stars’ season ended after a catastrophic 6-3 defeat to the Edmonton Oilers in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final. From the start of the game, it was extremely clear that whatever the Stars had cooked up in the hours following Game 4 and heading into Game 5 was not going to work. Edmonton just had the juice, and they put on an absolute clinic.

Through eight minutes of play, the Stars were down 3-0, and Jake Oettinger had been pulled from his net. DeBoer had already called his timeout, and everybody in the AAC was down in the dumps. Heck, anybody within a 100-mile radius of the building was probably absolutely bummed. Dallas had mounted zero resistance to anything that the Oilers were throwing at them, and it was apparent to all watching that the clock had run out on the 2024-25 Stars.

Putting up that effort in an elimination game on home ice is just not acceptable. Since Game 2, where the Oilers won 3-0 in a dominant shutout, Dallas seemed checked out. After losing Game 3 on the road, it seemed like they just resigned themselves to their fate. I know that that’s not reality—these are professional athletes who pour their heart and soul into what they do—but it definitely seemed like the entirety of the team, with a few exceptions, decided that it was time to hit the links and call it a season.

I say all this knowing that the Stars did put up a decent effort after putting themselves in a massive hole. Jason Robertson scored midway through the first, and Roope Hintz made it a one-goal game on a power play halfway through the second period. But after Connor McDavid did Connor McDavid things and cushioned the Oilers’ lead back up to two goals via a breakaway where he simply outskated everybody in the building, it was string music in Dallas.

Now we’re all left wondering what could’ve been these past three seasons. What if Dallas could’ve just won Games 1 and 2 against Vegas in 2023 when both those contests went into overtime? What if they hadn’t blown a 2-0 lead in Game 4 against Edmonton last year and instead went up 3-1 in the series? Finally, what if the offense and penalty kill hadn’t disappeared these past several days, and instead of packing up their bags and heading to the beach, the Stars were preparing for a Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers? We’ll never know. I wish we did.

Other than those wishes upon a star, some major questions face the Stars this offseason. Now is probably not the time to start all the hypotheticals about Jamie Benn’s future or whether Pete DeBoer is on thin ice, but those talking points will enter the atmosphere sooner rather than later. That’s just the nature of losing in the postseason. It only gets worse when it’s the third consecutive year that it’s happened.

Maybe it’s time to get back to what happened on Thursday night. Every time the Stars even put up a hint of retaliation, the Oilers found a way. After McDavid scored that breakaway to make it a two-goal game again, Dallas and the American Airlines Center came alive when Robertson put his second puck of the game into the back of the net under a minute into the third period. It was 4-3, and the Stars once again had life.

Until they didn’t. Just a couple of minutes later, Evander Kane threw a centering pass right in front of the net that took a bad bounce off Esa Lindell’s skate and past Casey DeSmith. Get a goal, give a goal. Definitely not what you want to be doing when your season is on the brink.

Sports can be continuous gut punches over and over again. That’s certainly what the last four games for the Stars were. Ever since Edmonton decided that they wanted to win this series, that’s what was going to happen. And that’s a shame, because this Stars roster definitely, at least on paper, seemed to have what it took to win the franchise’s first Cup since 1999.

Now, the hockey world shifts its attention away from the Stars. The Edmonton Oilers and the Florida Panthers will face off in the Stanley Cup Final for the second consecutive year, with the Oilers looking to become the first Canadian franchise to win a Stanley Cup since the Montreal Canadiens did it in 1993. I’m sure that’ll be a blast to watch, with storylines galore and the best stars in the sport like McDavid and Matthew Tkachuk creating moments that we’ll all remember forever. I just wish that it was the Stars who were going to be there instead.

But as I said earlier, pondering the what-ifs will only cause damage to one’s mental psyche. It won’t stop me from doing it, though, as all I wanted was for this Stars team to get the job done. I’ll have to wait one more year for that to happen.

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Stars Fire Pete DeBoer

Dallas isn't complacent, that's for sure.

The Dallas Stars announced earlier this morning that head coach Pete DeBoer has been relieved of his duties, effective immediately.

Woah.

One week ago, the Stars’ season ended in heartbreaking fashion to the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Finals. It was the third consecutive year that Dallas had reached that point, with DeBoer being at the helm for every single year that the team managed to achieve that feat.

In that game, he made the bold, but rash, decision to pull starting goalie Jake Oettinger just seven minutes into the game. Down by two goals, and with the season on the line, DeBoer made a move that was intended to light a fire under his team. Instead, all he seemingly did was give the front office ammunition to cut ties with him one week later.

DeBoer was in a tricky spot, one slightly of his own creation. He’d pulled every lever he possibly could, and decided to throw a Hail Mary that got picked off in the end zone. In the process,DeBoer might’ve alienated Oettinger, the franchise goalie, as he headed into the final year of his contract. That’s not an attractive place to be, and in the case of DeBoer v. Oettinger, the Stars sided with the man that they just signed to an 8-year contract extension last summer: Oettinger.

Over these last seven days, there have been rumblings that players were not pleased with how DeBoer had handled some particular moments during this postseason run, with the decision to pull Oettinger in Game 5 of the WCF being chief among them. Still, when owner Tom Gaglardi came out shortly after the season ended and proclaimed that firing DeBoer was not on the table, it appeared that that was that. Here’s the full quote from Gaglardi, courtesy of the The Dallas Morning News:

“They wanted to know if Pete [DeBoer] was out, they said the rumor up there was that he was out,” Gaglardi said last Friday. “Are you kidding me? He’s a top three, top five coach in the league. You think I want to be going into the coaching market right now, do you see who’s getting hired? Pete’s a seasoned coach. I’m just one voice in the discussion but I don’t see [firing] Pete being on anyone’s agenda.”

Still, exactly one week later, Pete DeBoer is out, and the Stars find themselves on the hunt for a new head man.

But why? Was it really all because of the Oettinger move? Was it because of some poor messaging during the postseason? Or was it because he failed to bring the team that ownership and the front office labeled as Stanley Cup worthy to that ultimate goal?

Maybe it’s all of the above. Maybe it’s just one of those reasons. I’m sure we’ll know soon enough, perhaps even as soon as when general manager Jim Nill speaks to the media later this afternoon.

For me, the crux of the issue is simple: Pete DeBoer was here for three seasons, and the Stars reached the Western Conference Finals in all three of those campaigns. While that’s an achievement in itself, each and every time it appeared that the Stars were regressing once they reached that milestone.

In 2023, Dallas went down 3-0, then fought tooth and nail to claw its way back, only to fall in six games to Vegas. In 2024, the Stars went up 2-1 and had a two-goal lead in Game 4 before the offense completely shut down for the rest of the series and the Oilers won three in a row to move on. Then, in 2025, well, it sucked. The offense was poor, the defense was all over the place, and the stars for the Stars continually failed to show up. In all of the exit interviews that DeBoer conducted following the end of the season, he inferred that even though on paper this team was the most talented he’d had in Dallas, it was still lucky to reach this point due to the quality of its play.

I’d agree. And in the eyes of the front office, that was on DeBoer. This roster was already well-positioned to compete for a Stanley Cup prior to the season, and then added Mikko Rantanen and Mikael Granlund to the mix in February and March to bolster its chances. Even then, it wasn’t good enough. It probably should’ve been.

Coaching in the NHL is a fickle game. You rarely see coaches be in one place for a super long time, especially Pete DeBoer. He’s been employed every season since 2008-09, but has been fired a whopping five times over that stretch. There’s no doubt that he’s a good coach in this league, but man, he sure does seem to wear out his welcome really fast.

In Dallas, the Stars were always really good under DeBoer. Over the past three seasons, the Stars had the best record in the NHL (149-68-29) and made three consecutive Western Conference Finals. But in a league where success, and success now, is paramount, and for a team that desperately needs to win soon, even what DeBoer could offer was seemingly not worth the Stars’ while.

Who the Stars go to now is an excellent question. In order for this to even be a lateral move, you’d have to think that the target is one that’s highly regarded. Is that person out there, though? That’s the question, as the Stars have gotten themselves into the coaching search game fairly late. With Boston filling their head coaching vacancy yesterday, all the positions around the NHL have been filled, and most of the attractive candidates have found their footing somewhere.

It’ll be interesting to see what Dallas decides to do. It’s clear, though, that Jim Nill and Tom Gaglardi are not complacent. They, probably more than anybody, desire for the Dallas Stars to be champions once again. Whatever moves they have to make to get the Stars to that point is what they’re going to do. I certainly hope they’re correct about this one.

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The Dallas Stars announced earlier this morning that head coach Pete DeBoer has been relieved of his duties, effective immediately.

Woah.

One week ago, the Stars’ season ended in heartbreaking fashion to the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Finals. It was the third consecutive year that Dallas had reached that point, with DeBoer being at the helm for every single year that the team managed to achieve that feat.

In that game, he made the bold, but rash, decision to pull starting goalie Jake Oettinger just seven minutes into the game. Down by two goals, and with the season on the line, DeBoer made a move that was intended to light a fire under his team. Instead, all he seemingly did was give the front office ammunition to cut ties with him one week later.

DeBoer was in a tricky spot, one slightly of his own creation. He’d pulled every lever he possibly could, and decided to throw a Hail Mary that got picked off in the end zone. In the process,DeBoer might’ve alienated Oettinger, the franchise goalie, as he headed into the final year of his contract. That’s not an attractive place to be, and in the case of DeBoer v. Oettinger, the Stars sided with the man that they just signed to an 8-year contract extension last summer: Oettinger.

Over these last seven days, there have been rumblings that players were not pleased with how DeBoer had handled some particular moments during this postseason run, with the decision to pull Oettinger in Game 5 of the WCF being chief among them. Still, when owner Tom Gaglardi came out shortly after the season ended and proclaimed that firing DeBoer was not on the table, it appeared that that was that. Here’s the full quote from Gaglardi, courtesy of the The Dallas Morning News:

“They wanted to know if Pete [DeBoer] was out, they said the rumor up there was that he was out,” Gaglardi said last Friday. “Are you kidding me? He’s a top three, top five coach in the league. You think I want to be going into the coaching market right now, do you see who’s getting hired? Pete’s a seasoned coach. I’m just one voice in the discussion but I don’t see [firing] Pete being on anyone’s agenda.”

Still, exactly one week later, Pete DeBoer is out, and the Stars find themselves on the hunt for a new head man.

But why? Was it really all because of the Oettinger move? Was it because of some poor messaging during the postseason? Or was it because he failed to bring the team that ownership and the front office labeled as Stanley Cup worthy to that ultimate goal?

Maybe it’s all of the above. Maybe it’s just one of those reasons. I’m sure we’ll know soon enough, perhaps even as soon as when general manager Jim Nill speaks to the media later this afternoon.

For me, the crux of the issue is simple: Pete DeBoer was here for three seasons, and the Stars reached the Western Conference Finals in all three of those campaigns. While that’s an achievement in itself, each and every time it appeared that the Stars were regressing once they reached that milestone.

In 2023, Dallas went down 3-0, then fought tooth and nail to claw its way back, only to fall in six games to Vegas. In 2024, the Stars went up 2-1 and had a two-goal lead in Game 4 before the offense completely shut down for the rest of the series and the Oilers won three in a row to move on. Then, in 2025, well, it sucked. The offense was poor, the defense was all over the place, and the stars for the Stars continually failed to show up. In all of the exit interviews that DeBoer conducted following the end of the season, he inferred that even though on paper this team was the most talented he’d had in Dallas, it was still lucky to reach this point due to the quality of its play.

I’d agree. And in the eyes of the front office, that was on DeBoer. This roster was already well-positioned to compete for a Stanley Cup prior to the season, and then added Mikko Rantanen and Mikael Granlund to the mix in February and March to bolster its chances. Even then, it wasn’t good enough. It probably should’ve been.

Coaching in the NHL is a fickle game. You rarely see coaches be in one place for a super long time1, especially Pete DeBoer. He’s been employed every season since 2008-09, but has been fired a whopping five times over that stretch. There’s no doubt that he’s a good coach in this league, but man, he sure does seem to wear out his welcome really fast.

In Dallas, the Stars were always really good under DeBoer. Over the past three seasons, the Stars had the best record in the NHL (149-68-29) and made three consecutive Western Conference Finals. But in a league where success, and success now, is paramount, and for a team that desperately needs to win soon, even what DeBoer could offer was seemingly not worth the Stars’ while.

Who the Stars go to now is an excellent question. In order for this to even be a lateral move, you’d have to think that the target is one that’s highly regarded. Is that person out there, though? That’s the question, as the Stars have gotten themselves into the coaching search game fairly late. With Boston filling their head coaching vacancy yesterday, all the positions around the NHL have been filled, and most of the attractive candidates have found their footing somewhere.

It’ll be interesting to see what Dallas decides to do. It’s clear, though, that Jim Nill and Tom Gaglardi are not complacent. They, probably more than anybody, desire for the Dallas Stars to be champions once again. Whatever moves they have to make to get the Stars to that point is what they’re going to do. I certainly hope they’re correct about this one.

Making it to the Western Conference Final three years in a row is definitely something to be proud of. Losing in the Western Conference Final in embarrassing fashion three years in a row is definitely not something that I’d want to hang my hat on, though.

Tonight, the Dallas Stars’ season ended after a catastrophic 6-3 defeat to the Edmonton Oilers in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final. From the start of the game, it was extremely clear that whatever the Stars had cooked up in the hours following Game 4 and heading into Game 5 was not going to work. Edmonton just had the juice, and they put on an absolute clinic.

Through eight minutes of play, the Stars were down 3-0, and Jake Oettinger had been pulled from his net. DeBoer had already called his timeout, and everybody in the AAC was down in the dumps. Heck, anybody within a 100-mile radius of the building was probably absolutely bummed. Dallas had mounted zero resistance to anything that the Oilers were throwing at them, and it was apparent to all watching that the clock had run out on the 2024-25 Stars.

Putting up that effort in an elimination game on home ice is just not acceptable. Since Game 2, where the Oilers won 3-0 in a dominant shutout, Dallas seemed checked out. After losing Game 3 on the road, it seemed like they just resigned themselves to their fate. I know that that’s not reality—these are professional athletes who pour their heart and soul into what they do—but it definitely seemed like the entirety of the team, with a few exceptions, decided that it was time to hit the links and call it a season.

I say all this knowing that the Stars did put up a decent effort after putting themselves in a massive hole. Jason Robertson scored midway through the first, and Roope Hintz made it a one-goal game on a power play halfway through the second period. But after Connor McDavid did Connor McDavid things and cushioned the Oilers’ lead back up to two goals via a breakaway where he simply outskated everybody in the building, it was string music in Dallas.

Now we’re all left wondering what could’ve been these past three seasons. What if Dallas could’ve just won Games 1 and 2 against Vegas in 2023 when both those contests went into overtime? What if they hadn’t blown a 2-0 lead in Game 4 against Edmonton last year and instead went up 3-1 in the series? Finally, what if the offense and penalty kill hadn’t disappeared these past several days, and instead of packing up their bags and heading to the beach, the Stars were preparing for a Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers? We’ll never know. I wish we did.

Other than those wishes upon a star, some major questions face the Stars this offseason. Now is probably not the time to start all the hypotheticals about Jamie Benn’s future or whether Pete DeBoer is on thin ice, but those talking points will enter the atmosphere sooner rather than later. That’s just the nature of losing in the postseason. It only gets worse when it’s the third consecutive year that it’s happened.

Maybe it’s time to get back to what happened on Thursday night. Every time the Stars even put up a hint of retaliation, the Oilers found a way. After McDavid scored that breakaway to make it a two-goal game again, Dallas and the American Airlines Center came alive when Robertson put his second puck of the game into the back of the net under a minute into the third period. It was 4-3, and the Stars once again had life.

Until they didn’t. Just a couple of minutes later, Evander Kane threw a centering pass right in front of the net that took a bad bounce off Esa Lindell’s skate and past Casey DeSmith. Get a goal, give a goal. Definitely not what you want to be doing when your season is on the brink.

Sports can be continuous gut punches over and over again. That’s certainly what the last four games for the Stars were. Ever since Edmonton decided that they wanted to win this series, that’s what was going to happen. And that’s a shame, because this Stars roster definitely, at least on paper, seemed to have what it took to win the franchise’s first Cup since 1999.

Now, the hockey world shifts its attention away from the Stars. The Edmonton Oilers and the Florida Panthers will face off in the Stanley Cup Final for the second consecutive year, with the Oilers looking to become the first Canadian franchise to win a Stanley Cup since the Montreal Canadiens did it in 1993. I’m sure that’ll be a blast to watch, with storylines galore and the best stars in the sport like McDavid and Matthew Tkachuk creating moments that we’ll all remember forever. I just wish that it was the Stars who were going to be there instead.

But as I said earlier, pondering the what-ifs will only cause damage to one’s mental psyche. It won’t stop me from doing it, though, as all I wanted was for this Stars team to get the job done. I’ll have to wait one more year for that to happen.

WARNING: RANT INCOMING. PREPARE YOURSELVES ACCORDINGLY.

For the third consecutive season, the Dallas Stars made the Western Conference Final. And for the third straight year, it sure looks like the Stars are going to be heading home one round short of the Stanley Cup Final.

It’s disappointing, to say the least. The last two Western Conference Final losses were tough but also somewhat palatable. Vegas was very good in 2023 and subsequently went on to win the Cup. Edmonton straight up outplayed the Stars through Games 3-6 in last year’s edition, and while it wasn’t a good time at all, there were at least some clear signs of what Dallas needed to improve upon in the next campaign should it want to achieve its goals.

Obviously, things have not changed from last year’s loss to this season’s 3-1 series deficit. The power play that was so absent in last year’s series has been almost nonexistent since the third period of Game 1. Correction, it’s been a complete non-factor, as the Stars have scored just one lone goal on special teams—Jason Robertson’s goal from the slot in the second period of Game 4—since that third period barrage in the series’ opening contest.

This potential Western Conference Final loss is definitely more disappointing than the last two. The Stars went all in for this year’s run at a Cup, with the acquisitions of Mikko Rantanen and Mikael Granlund reinforcing the idea that the 2024-25 campaign was a make-or-break year for Dallas. If they can’t win three games in a row against the potent Oilers, then Rantanen and Granlund will have ultimately made no difference.

You might be screaming at me that it isn’t over until it’s over. Trust me, I hear you. “It ain’t over until the fat lady sings” and all that jazz. But given the Stars’ performance over the past three games, it’s just really tough for me to see a path to ultimately winning this series.

I’ll entertain the thought of it though because it’s a nice proposition. And while it will be tough, it has been done before. If, and it’s a big if, Dallas is to mount a furious comeback from down 3-1, the stars for the Stars need to shine, and they need to shine brightly. Right now, the Oilers’ best players are coming alive when everything matters the most. Connor McDavid scored two goals in Game 3, with Leon Draisaitl also having two tallies over the first four contests. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is on an unreal heater, with nine points through two goals and seven assists against Dallas.

That’s what the Stars are up against, and Mikko Rantanen, Jason Robertson, Matt Duchene, Wyatt Johnston, Mikael Granlund, and all the other awesome players that make up the roster need to pick up the pace, and they need to pick it up now.

The Stars are built to be a deep team that gets scoring from all over the ice. Right now, that is not the case, and frankly, it hasn’t been the case the entire postseason. Rantanen was the sole reason that Dallas got past the Avalanche and was a major factor in why the Jets were disposed of in six games. Mikael Granlund, Rantanen’s Finnish counterpart, was excellent with his hat trick against Winnipeg in Game 4 of that series but has been practically invisible against Edmonton. Other than that, the scoring has been few and far between, which is just the same old story from a year ago. Sigh.

We will see if Dallas can rewrite the history books and overcome the enormous odds that are in front of them. If they do, the 2024-25 Dallas Stars will be remembered fondly for years to come. If they don’t, then this will just be another chapter in a long book that is filled with disappointing end-of-season results.

Okay, there’s my little mini-rant about why everything is a disaster. Let’s now dive into what actually happened in Game 4 of Stars-Oilers and why the signs are not looking good for the team from the Lone Star State.

Dallas started out the game with their hair on fire, racking up seven shots on net in the early going while Edmonton had only two. The chances were definitely there, but Stuart Skinner is just the best goalie on the planet right now, and nothing is getting past him. Tough scenes.

Right after the Stars had put up several good chances in a row, Jamie Benn drew a horrifically timed tripping penalty in the offensive zone. It was yet another poor play from the Dallas captain, who has played below his pay grade for the vast majority of the playoffs.

Tasked with stopping an Oilers power play that had scored in every game of the series, the Stars put up a valiant effort before Leon Draisaitl found his favorite spot and beat Jake Oettinger on the near post to put Edmonton up 1-0. For the 14th time this postseason, the Stars had let in the first goal. I would not advise doing this.

It was sometime before this that Roope Hintz, who was the victim of a dirty (maybe?) slash by Darnell Nurse in the waning moments of Game 2 that forced him to miss Game 3, was slashed on the same foot by Evan Bouchard away from the play. Fortunately, Hintz was fine, but the play was still so dirty, and the fact that a penalty wasn’t called is egregious. But it’s par for the course, as the league and its officials have continuously failed to protect the players throughout this postseason.

Anyway, down by a goal, the Stars continued to mount extreme pressure on Skinner and the Oilers with nothing to show for it throughout the rest of the first period. A penalty by Edmonton with seven seconds left in the frame gave the Stars a little bit of hope for the start of the second, but when that power play came up empty, things were starting to look bleak early for Dallas.

That first period was an encapsulation of the series as a whole in a lot of ways. Chances were plentiful for the Stars, yet it was Edmonton who had a lead at the end of it.

Here are some statistics, via Natural Stat Trick, that give a glimpse at just how different this series could be if Dallas was actually capitalizing on the opportunities presented to them: Through the first four WCF games, Dallas leads the expected goals 10.7 to 8.7 during 5v5 hockey. The actual goals favor Edmonton 9-3, however. Throughout all situations, the Stars still hold the advantage at 14.4 to 14.0. Yet again, the Oilers have all the riches, scoring 16 goals compared to Dallas’ eight.

Back to the game. Another Edmonton penalty later in the second awarded the Stars another chance, and they cashed in, thanks to a beautiful shot by Jason Robertson from the slot. The game was tied, and the Stars had life.

Sports, unfortunately, can change on a whim. After Mason Marchment committed a rash interference penalty, the Edmonton man advantage kicked into high gear, with Corey Perry — a wily veteran who’s been a pain in the side of pretty much every team in the league for his entire career — scoring a wide-open goal right in front of the net after a wonderful pass from Nugent-Hopkins (who else, right).

Just like that, the Stars were losing again, and that’s where they’d be for the rest of the game.

Edmonton played the third period beautifully, putting on a masterclass on how to keep a lead in the game’s final 20 minutes of action. The neutral zone was on lockdown as the Stars could barely get any clean entries across the blue line. Through the first eight minutes of the third period, Dallas had just one measly shot on goal. Even with their playoff lives on the brink, the Stars could barely muster any resistance.

With two and a half minutes to go, Jake Oettinger was pulled from his crease. Almost immediately, the Oilers buried an empty-netter to put the game away. Another goal with the netminder pulled followed, and that was that. The Stars had lost 4-1 and were down 3-1 in the series.

The Stars were outshot 13-4 in the third period, which is simply not good enough. When the lights have gotten the brightest here in the Western Conference Final, the Stars have continually failed to show up. It’s such a shame, especially since that’s when Dallas had played its best through the first two rounds of the playoffs.

Dallas’ season is on the line in Game 5. It’ll be win-or-go-home for Dallas on Thursday night at the American Airlines Center. Somebody is going to have to step up, because if not, the boys will be packing up their bags and heading off to Cancun.

The mission was simple: win Game 2 at home against the Edmonton Oilers.

The Stars couldn’t do that.

With the series tied at 1-1, the task became even clearer: take Game 3 on the road.

The Stars couldn’t do that either.

It’s safe to say that the last two games Dallas has played have been complete disasters for two completely different reasons. In Game 2, the Oilers simply outplayed the Stars in what was a must-win game for them. Edmonton was better in every facet, and it showed in the box score.

Roope Hintz’s injury in the third period only made matters worse for Dallas. If the slashing penalty committed by Darnell Nurse on Hintz had been called a major instead of a minor, would the Stars have mounted a comeback and won the game? Probably not. It definitely wouldn’t have made up for the loss of their top-line center, who ended up not playing in Game 3, despite Oilers fans online crying wolf that Hintz was faking just to draw a major penalty (give me a break).

If the Stars gave it their best effort, even without Hintz, they were probably going to come out on top in any game. That’s just how good they are. So, when the Stars put up a much better performance, at least according to the eye test and the statistics, they beat Edmonton yesterday, right?

Nope. They lost 6-1 in what was a downright beatdown of epic proportions.

There’s no doubt that the Stars thoroughly outplayed the Oilers for much of the game, particularly in the second period when the shot disparity was 21-7 in favor of Dallas. Throughout the entirety of the game, the Stars put up 34 shots compared to Edmonton’s 24. And yet, only one puck hit the back of the net for Dallas.

The difference in the game was simple: one team had Connor McDavid, and the other did not.

McDavid is hands down the best player in the world and the best hockey talent I’ve seen with my own two eyes. His speed and puck handling, combined with his expert scoring ability, make him pretty much unstoppable. There are multiple times throughout every game of these playoffs where he’s taken on multiple defenders on a rush — much like Mikko Rantanen did in Game 7 against the Avalanche a couple of weeks ago — and then created a scoring opportunity out of thin air. This overtime winner against the Vegas Golden Knights from last round comes to mind:

He scored two goals yesterday, including one on a three-on-one breakaway to put Edmonton up 2-0. Then in the second period, with the Oilers on their heels and now only up by one goal, McDavid buried the metaphorical dagger from the right circle.

Add on several other Edmonton goals that came via the rush, which was Dallas’ kryptonite against these same Oilers last season in the Western Conference Final, and the score got really out of hand. But sometimes sports are weird, and the score doesn’t tell the full story, which was very much the case yesterday.

Take a look at MoneyPuck’s “Deserve to Win O’Meter,” which provides a glimpse at how the game was closer than the scoreboard suggests:

You can also take that graph with a grain of salt. It is just a computer running a bunch of simulations based on the statistics from the actual game, and the play happening on the ice matters much more. The one statistic it probably takes into account the most is expected goals. If victories were awarded based on that, then Dallas would be up 2-1 in the series, with the Stars having 2.97 expected goals yesterday compared to Edmonton’s 2.36.

But it still tells us that Dallas didn’t play terribly; it just got beaten by McDavid and some excellent goalkeeping by Oilers’ keeper Stuart Skinner.

Let’s talk about Skinner, who, in his first two games of the playoffs against the Los Angeles Kings, let in 12 goals. He was subsequently benched for backup Calvin Pickard and only got the job back after Pickard suffered an injury.

Since his return, Skinner has been excellent, and his performance in the last two games against the Stars, where he’s allowed just one goal on 59 shots, is reminiscent of his fantastic play in the Western Conference Final last season. If he’s going to play like this for the remainder of the series, then the Stars are going to have their hands full.

This piece has been very Oilers-heavy, and that’s the problem for the Stars right now. Nobody is stepping up. Save for a third period where they scored five goals in Game 1, the Stars have just two goals in this series. Rantanen has been pretty much invisible. Wyatt Johnston is a -16 in the playoffs, which is last in the league. Jason Robertson has only one goal. The Stars’ forward depth needs to get it going, because if not, they’ll be hitting the golf course very soon.

On Friday morning, I called for the Stars to take command and win Game 2. They obviously didn’t do that, and they obviously didn’t win Game 3. So, with a must-win Game 4 looming, it’s time for Dallas to dig deep.

The season hangs in the balance in Edmonton tomorrow night. If they win, they can head back to Dallas with the series even at 2-2, with two more games at home potentially on the docket. If they lose, they must reel off three consecutive wins against a team that employs Connor McDavid. Either route is tough, but it must be done if the quest for Dallas’ first Stanley Cup since 1999 is to be completed.

After losing eight consecutive Game 1s, the Dallas Stars have turned around and won two in a row.

On Wednesday night, the Stars found themselves in a familiar place. They were down two goals early in the third period and were desperately searching for any sort of reprieve. Edmonton had dominated the ice all night, and it certainly didn’t look like they were going to let up anytime soon.

But sports, and especially hockey, can be funny sometimes. Just as they did in Game 7 against the Colorado Avalanche just a couple of weeks ago, the Stars rallied back from the 3-1 deficit, scoring three power-play goals in rapid succession in the third period to take a lead they’d never relinquish.

Miro Heiskanen from the left point with 19:28 left. 3-2.

Mikael Granlund from the right circle with 16:11 left. 3-3.

Matt Duchene from just to the left of the crease with 14:02 left. 4-3.

Boom, bang, pow.

No team left in the Stanley Cup Playoffs — and perhaps no team in the league itself — has the ability to turn it on like the Stars do. In a moment's notice, Edmonton went from sitting pretty, staring a 1-0 series lead in the face, to being caught with their pants at their ankles (metaphorically, of course).

With their comeback on Wednesday, the Stars became the first team in Stanley Cup Playoffs history to earn more than one win in regulation after trailing by at least two goals in the third period. The comeback kids? Nah, more like the comeback Finns. That was terrible. Ignore that joke everybody.

Anyway, it had to feel good for the Stars’ bench after the catastrophe that was Games 4-6 in last year’s Western Conference Final against these same Oilers. If you recall, the Stars went up 2-1 in that series before the bottom fell out of the offense, particularly on special teams, where Dallas went an abysmal 0-for-14 on the power play throughout the entire series. The Oilers won all three of those games to advance to the Stanley Cup Final, sending the Stars home unhappy.

It’s very clear that the mission this time around is to avenge last year’s catastrophic collapse. While that may have become evident to everybody during that masterful third-period comeback, it should’ve been clear the moment that Stars general manager Jim Nill started pushing all his chips to the middle of the table by trading first-round picks for Granlund, Cody Ceci, and, most importantly, Mikko Rantanen.

And hey, Rantanen didn’t even factor into any of the scoring on Wednesday night, and the Stars still won by three goals. The depth on this team is absolutely nuts. (Or bananas, if you’re allergic to nuts.)

But the job is not done. Yes, a 6-3 triumph in Game 1 does a lot to lift the spirits, but six more games potentially await between these two teams as they duke it out to decide who’s going to represent the West in the Stanley Cup Final.

Tonight, the Stars will play Game 2 against the Oilers. I don’t want to be hyperbolic when I say that this game is a big one, but it is. Given how Dallas has played on the road thus far this postseason — they’re just 2-4 away from the American Airlines Center through the first two rounds — it’s pretty important to win every game at home that they possibly can. So, that means beating the Oilers tonight.

The task will no doubt be difficult. While Edmonton came back from a two-game deficit in these playoffs back in the first round against the Los Angeles Kings, they certainly don’t want to have to repeat the feat again. Even with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, it’d still be hard.

If what Pete DeBoer and the Stars’ coaching staff sent out there in Game 1 is any indication of what they’ll do in Game 2, then Dallas will continue to throw out a 12/6 lineup with Alex Petrovic being a healthy scratch. Putting Petrovic on the bench is somewhat of a tough pill to swallow, given how good he was on that third pairing with Lian Bischel, but when Miro Heiskanen is the alternative option, somebody’s got to take a seat.

It’ll be interesting to see how DeBoer throws out his forwards, though. In the second period of Game 1, with the Stars scuffling and on their heels, DeBoer reshuffled the lines a bit. When that didn’t work, he recalibrated and went back to the original lines that started the game. Obviously, that worked, as the Stars scored five goals in the third period and won the contest.

I’d expect DeBoer to roll out the same groups as always, but it’ll be interesting to see what he does if the Stars come out of the gate slowly again. Will he shuffle the lines up again, or will he stay patient and wait out the struggles, knowing that at any moment his team can put the pedal to the metal? Based on my experience watching this team, I’d venture a guess and say that DeBoer will err on the side of patience.

Side note: Of the skills that a professional sports coach (heck, just any kind of coach, honestly) needs to have, patience might be at the top of the list. It becomes even more paramount when you have a group of players who are as good as the Stars are. Sometimes it just takes a little time for them to get into the groove of the game, and once they do, it’s all over for the other team.

So, the job is simple: win tonight at home and go up 2-0 in the series. It’ll put the Oilers in a hole that will be difficult to climb out of, and, most importantly, it gets the Stars one step closer to their ultimate goal of a Stanley Cup.

You might be thinking that everything that I’ve just written is painfully obvious, and to that, I’d say that you would be correct. Of course the Stars want to win Game 2! Why wouldn’t they? But given how Dallas has performed following playoff victories, I believe it’s still important to point out that going up 2-0 is much better than being tied.

The Stars have had a tendency to just settle for that split through the first two games of a series, and I believe it’s in their best interest not to do that tonight against the Oilers. While Winnipeg and Colorado were explosive and awesome in their own right, this Edmonton team is another beast, thanks mostly to the presence of McDavid and Draisaitl. Don’t take them lightly. If any team should know that, though, it’s the Dallas Stars.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are not for the faint of heart. They will knock you down and drag you along, all while berating you to no end. The hockey postseason is built to destroy your soul, with only the fearless and strong prevailing.

In other words, the Stanley Cup Playoffs will change a person.

That’s not to say the incredibly taxing journey can’t be rewarding in the end. It absolutely can be for all those involved—but only one team will claim the ultimate prize once it’s all said and done. Whatever team is standing above the wreckage at the conclusion is truly the only one that can look back on the experience fondly.

So, that’s what we’ve all gotten ourselves into. And as I watched the Dallas Stars win Game 3 against the Winnipeg Jets yesterday afternoon by a score of 5-2, I reminded myself that there’s still a long road ahead in the pursuit of glory. Yesterday’s matinee victory was extremely satisfying, yes, but it also painted an extremely clear picture of just how difficult the remaining games in this series are going to be.

The 5-2 final score was not indicative at all of how gritty a win that was for the Stars. Had it not been for a (controversial) goal by Alex Petrovic in the third period, followed by a spectacular finish by none other than Mikko Rantanen, this game would have been a battle until the very end. But that’s not how the cookie crumbled yesterday, and the Stars are perfectly okay with that outcome.

A quick aside before fully diving into yesterday’s game: I apologize for not posting a recap of Game 2. A late-night game on Friday followed by a busy Saturday that started early meant no post was written for that contest. It was a horrid game from a Stars perspective, and honestly, not much needs to be said about it. Anyway, onto Game 3, which was much more pleasant to digest.

As William Shakespeare famously wrote in Hamlet, “To kick, or not to kick, that is the question.” Okay, maybe that’s not exactly what Shakespeare wrote 400 years ago, but it’s close enough. It’s certainly applicable to what happened yesterday in downtown Dallas. Did Alex Petrovic kick the puck into the net, and should the goal have been disallowed because of that?

Let’s focus first on that third period, which started deadlocked at 2-2. While Dallas never trailed in the game—it opened the scoring on a Roope Hintz goal in the first period, and after Winnipeg tied it, Thomas Harley snapped one in to regain the Stars’ one-goal advantage—it almost felt like a Winnipeg win was inevitable. I’ve watched enough Stars games over the years to know just how fickle a tie game can be. One second a team is holding steady, and the next, it’s down by two goals after being caught with its pants down a couple of times. That’s exactly what happened to Winnipeg yesterday.

It’s totally understandable that the Jets and their fans are irked about the Petrovic goal, which resulted from a “kick” by the Stars’ defenseman. Here’s the play in question:

According to everything I read regarding the specific rule, it felt like the Jets had some credence to argue that it shouldn’t have been a goal.

Here’s the rule:

A puck that deflects into the net off an attacking player’s skate who does not use a distinct kicking motion is a legitimate goal. A puck that is directed into the net by an attacking player’s skate shall be a legitimate goal as long as no distinct kicking motion is evident. The following should clarify deflections following a kicked puck that enters the goal:

1. A kicked puck that deflects off the body of any player of either team (including the goalkeeper) shall be ruled no goal.

2. A kicked puck that deflects off the stick of any player (excluding the goalkeeper’s stick) shall be ruled a good goal.

3. A goal will be allowed when an attacking player kicks the puck and the puck deflects off his own stick and then into the net.

4. A goal will be allowed when a puck enters the goal after deflecting off an attacking player’s skate or deflects off his skate while he is in the process of stopping.

The clause most applicable to the Petrovic goal is the second one, which suggests that if the puck deflected off Connor Hellebuyck’s stick and not anyone else’s, the goal should be disallowed. Of course, that wasn’t the case. The officials (after over seven minutes of deliberation with the Situation Room in Toronto1) ruled that while there was a distinct kicking motion, it was Hellebuyck’s actions that ultimately caused—or in their words, “propelled”—the puck into the goal.

If that doesn’t make much sense, here’s the NHL’s official explanation:

The Situation Room initiated a video review to further examine if Alexander Petrovic kicked the puck into the Winnipeg net. Video was then used to determine if the puck made contact with Petrovic’s stick prior to it entering the net. After looking at all available replays, video review supported the Referee’s call on the ice that Connor Hellebuyck propelled the puck into his own net.

Finally, here’s some thoughts from Elliotte Friedman:

Friedman said on the 32 Thoughts podcast this morning that the league is really trying to stick with the calls made on the ice. Wherever possible, the NHL wants to avoid disallowing goals. It’s an understandable stance—taking goals off the board via video review isn’t fun for anyone, and it disrupts the flow of the game.

I’ll say this: It’d be hard to convince me that what Petrovic did with his skate was a legitimate kick. The spirit of the rule is to prevent players from intentionally using their skates to kick the puck into the net like a soccer ball. Unfortunately, the wording of the rule can be interpreted loosely enough to call what Petrovic did a “kick.” I call bull hockey on that. Yes, he angled his skate, causing the puck to go airborne, but I firmly believe he was trying to kick the puck to his stick and simply whiffed.

Oh well. It doesn’t matter anyway. The goal counted, and it gave the Stars a 3-2 lead. The Jets could protest all they wanted, but at the end of the day, it was their job to respond—and they didn’t.

Pretty much immediately after the officials upheld the Petrovic goal, the Stars struck again via Rantanen’s ninth (!) goal of the playoffs. It was his third point of the day—he assisted on the Hintz and Petrovic goals—bringing his postseason total to a league-leading 18 points (Connor McDavid, the best hockey player on the planet, is in second place with 16). The run Rantanen is on right now is unlike anything I’ve seen in Dallas sports in a long time. In recent memory, only Adolis García’s tear through the 2023 postseason compares to the heroics Rantanen is delivering.

With the score 4-2 and the American Airlines Center ready to explode, it was all over for the Jets. They put up a decent effort, but Jake Oettinger—who’s currently making a case to be the best American goalie—shut down any resistance Winnipeg mustered.

That added pressure by Winnipeg ended up biting them in the butt. They got caught behind the play after a turnover, which resulted in a two-on-one with Jamie Benn and Evgenii Dadonov. After they couldn’t finish the play, Wyatt Johnston bore down on the net and finished the job to give the Stars an insurance goal.

There’s a lot that could be said about the Stars’ Game 3 win against the Jets. Now up 2-1 in the series, Dallas has a chance to take a stranglehold on this second-round matchup with a win tomorrow night. Given that the Jets have yet to win on the road this postseason, it’s certainly in the cards. Just remember: the Stars were up 2-1 on Colorado last round, and that series went the distance. Also recall last year’s Western Conference Final against Edmonton, where Dallas went up 2-1 and didn’t win another game as its season floundered to the finish line. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen this time around.

The ball is in Dallas’ court, and it’s their job to pick it up and put it in the hoop (or the goal, since this is hockey and basketball still kind of gives all us DFW citizens a bad taste in our mouth for reasons). It won’t be easy—the Jets were the best team in the regular season for a reason—but it is doable. If the Stars can pull it off, then wow, we’ve got another special run on our hands.

And this one might be different—because this time, Mikko Rantanen is a Dallas Star.

It’s safe to say that with Luka Dončić’s departure from DFW, there was a gaping hole in the “who is the best player in the city?” argument. Ever since Dončić arrived in 2018, there really wasn’t a discussion to be had regarding who was the cream of the crop in Dallas.

While there’s no way anybody could eclipse the star power and prestige that Dončić brought to the Metroplex, somebody still had to take the mantle of “best player” sooner rather than later. The easy bet would’ve resided at AT&T Stadium — the home of the Dallas Cowboys — where DFW sports stars are born and bred. Nobody, and I mean nobody, outdoes the Cowboys when it comes to publicity, so it was easy to assume that there would be some kind of PR campaign to elevate a member of that team to “best player in the city.”

The other Arlington residents — the Texas Rangers — also employ a superstar who brought the city its first championship since 2011 in Corey Seager. Without his heroics throughout the 2023 postseason, the Rangers don’t win that World Series, plain and simple.

But I don’t think the answer to the “who is the best player in DFW” question resides in Arlington. In fact, that dude plays in the exact arena that Dončić did for his entire NBA career until February 1 — except he doesn’t play on hardwood. He’s a member of the Dallas Stars.

Over the Stars’ last four Stanley Cup Playoff games, Mikko Rantanen has eight goals and six assists for a playoff-leading 14 points.

In Game 7 of the Stars’ first-round series against the Colorado Avalanche, it was Rantanen’s hat trick in the third period that helped lift Dallas out of a 2-0 hole and into the second round.

And in Game 1 of the second round in Winnipeg last night, Rantanen did it again. His natural hat trick — with all the goals coming in the second period — was the deciding factor in a close 3-2 victory for Dallas over the Jets.

Right now, Mikko Rantanen is the Dallas Stars.

Mikko Rantanen is Dallas sports.

Don’t get me wrong — last night was an incredible team win in many regards, with the Stars’ penalty kill going 4-for-4. But it was Rantanen’s magic that ultimately delivered the goods.

In my 22 years of watching sports in this city, I’ve never quite seen a stretch of play as awesome as the one he’s on right now. Rarely do we get to say in this town that we have one of the best — but we do now. Who would’ve thought that we’d still be able to say that even after Dončić was dealt away right under our feet?

Let’s not forget the other incredible feat accomplished by Dallas last night: it was the Stars’ first Game 1 victory since September 19, 2020 — Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals in the bubble against the Tampa Bay Lightning. In the intervening period between then and now, Dallas was 0-8 in Game 1s.

Winning the first game of any series is undoubtedly a good thing, but it’s in no way an indication of whether a team will go on to win the series as a whole. As you may well remember, the Stars ended up losing that 2020 series to the Lightning in six games. What you might remember even better is that the Stars lost Game 1 a little over two weeks ago to the Colorado Avalanche — and it’s not the Avalanche who are playing in the second round.

Regardless of any semantics about whether winning Game 1 will result in a trip to the Western Conference Finals or not, the story of last night — and the story of this entire playoff run so far for the Dallas Stars — is Mikko Rantanen. If there were any doubters remaining about whether that trade was a good move by the Stars, they were extinguished in the last two games. He’s been that good.

Jason Robertson returned to the lineup for Dallas last night, which was an extremely positive sign. His name didn’t feature on the scorecard, but he played a completely fine game, and there wasn’t really any sign of fatigue or pain from him.

Now the Stars just need to get Miro Heiskanen back, and their arsenal will be fully stocked. When Dallas traded for Rantanen at the deadline, it did so hoping that one day later in the season this loaded roster would be completely healthy and ready to unleash fury on the rest of the league. With Tyler Seguin back from hip surgery and Robertson now patched up, the Stars are one step closer to realizing that dream.

Stars head coach Pete DeBoer said that Heiskanen should be ready sometime during the second round. Whether that’s for Game 2 tomorrow or not, he didn’t say. Nevertheless, his imminent return is exciting.

The Stars have done a decent job patching up the blue line through the first three weeks of the playoffs, with Thomas Harley and Esa Lindell bearing the majority of the load. Harley has been a workhorse since January — outside of Heiskanen, he led the team in average time on ice at 23:23 throughout the season — and since Heiskanen went down, he has proven to fans in Dallas and across the league that he’s a top-tier defenseman.

When Heiskanen returns, somebody on the blue line is inevitably going to have to move over. The likely candidates are the third pairing of Lian Bichsel and Alex Petrovic, but even that might be somewhat hard to stomach. While the pair haven’t been otherworldly, they’ve been more than suitable and have frankly outplayed expectations. Unfortunately for one of them — probably Petrovic — Heiskanen is a top-five defenseman in the NHL, and somebody’s going to have to scoot on over.

All this talk about Rantanen and Robertson’s and Heiskanen’s potential returns to the lineup has overshadowed Jake Oettinger’s role in Dallas’ success so far this postseason. Last night in particular was a shining example of why the Stars are so lucky to have a goalie as reliable as Oettinger.

Don’t get it twisted: Oettinger outdueled Connor Hellebuyck yesterday evening. For all of Hellebuyck’s historic struggles in the playoffs, he’s still the best goalie in the world and is about to win his third Vezina. When he is at his best, there’s no one like him.

And while Hellebuyck wasn’t swimming in the swamp pit like he was in the Jets’ first-round series against the St. Louis Blues, he was completely formidable last night in Game 1. He was good—but Oettinger was better.

Of the 31 shots that Winnipeg flung Oettinger’s way, he stopped 29 of them. When the pressure was really on late in the third period and Winnipeg was throwing everything they had at him, Oettinger once again stood tall.

I mean, look at the absolute chaos in the picture above. If you can believe it, the puck didn’t find its way into the back of the net after all that. Thanks, Jake!

So, next time you hear a Stars fan complaining about Oettinger’s performance in net, just remember: it could always be worse. He’s never going to lose the Stars a game, and he’s the definition of reliable. That’s not the case for every team’s goalie situation remaining in the playoffs (I’m looking at you, Edmonton).

There can be a tendency for teams that don’t have home-ice advantage to be content with a split on the road. With Dallas winning Game 1 in Winnipeg, I really hope that’s not the case. While going up 2-0 isn’t necessarily a death blow — especially to a team as good as the Jets — it’s certainly close to it. Imagine if the Avalanche had shut down the Stars in Game 2 of the first round and headed back to Denver up 2-0. I don’t think that series winds up in Dallas’ favor if that’s the case.

So, the goal is simple: win tomorrow. If the Stars can manage that feat, they’ll be sitting really pretty come Sunday afternoon when they play Game 3 in Dallas.

I’m starting to think that the Dallas Stars trading for Mikko Rantanen was a really good move.

One hundred days ago, on January 25, Rantanen was a member of the Colorado Avalanche — until he wasn’t. In a stunning move that almost nobody in the NHL saw coming, Rantanen — who had spent the entirety of his decade-long career in Denver — was shipped off to the Carolina Hurricanes. In return, the Avalanche received Jack Drury and Martin Necas.

Now, on Saturday, as a member of the Stars, Rantanen scored a hat trick in Game 7 of Dallas’ first-round series against the Avalanche to send the Stars to the second round.

Never in a million years did anyone expect this to happen 100 days ago—least of all Rantanen himself. The Finnish superstar had made it extremely clear over the last several months that he expected to spend the rest of his career in Denver, even with his contract set to expire at the end of the season. But circumstances changed, and Rantanen is now locked into an eight-year, $96 million deal with Dallas. As such, his three goals in the third period on Saturday night kept the Stars’ season alive.

Hollywood couldn’t have scripted it any better.

I have to admit, when Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon made it 2–0 early in the third period, I thought the Stars were cooked. Given how they had played up to that point, I wasn’t entirely off base. Colorado had controlled much of the game, and I would’ve been stunned if the Stars could mount a comeback strong enough to scale the Avalanche mountain. There was just no way, in my mind, that MacKinnon and Cale Makar were going to let up with 19 minutes left.

But they did.

It was a catastrophic collapse by the Avalanche, highlighted by Rantanen putting the Stars on his back against his former team.

With 12 minutes to go, Rantanen, who was double-shifting at the time and playing with Dallas' fourth line, skated into the offensive zone and used a (probably illegal) screen by Sam Steel to get open in the high slot. That’s a spot where a player as good as Rantanen rarely misses. He fired it past Mackenzie Blackwood, bar-down, to cut the Avalanche lead in half.

The tying goal came on a power play, when Rantanen decided to take on three Colorado players head-on. He bolted into the offensive zone, past Ryan Lindgren, Valeri Nichushkin, and Samuel Girard. After blowing by all of them, he wrapped around the net but couldn’t complete the wraparound himself. The puck fluttered off his stick, then off Girard’s skate, and into the net. Tie game.

It’s easy to chalk that goal up to bad luck for the Avalanche, but that bad luck doesn’t happen unless Rantanen puts in the effort to get there in the first place.

And the rest is history. A controversial penalty (which wasn’t all that controversial if you ask me — though Avalanche fans might kill me for saying that) set the Stars up with a power play late in the third. They capitalized, thanks to a beauty of a one-timer from Wyatt Johnston.

Now up 3–2, all Dallas had to do was hang on. Shot after shot came their way, but Jake Oettinger was up to the task, making stop after stop after stop. With every glove save in the final 90 seconds, the crowd at American Airlines Center roared. How the roof didn’t come off that building is beyond me, because man, that place was loud.

Rantanen’s hat trick was completed when Tyler Seguin cleared the zone, allowing him to skate down the ice unimpeded and bury the puck into the empty net. Three goals to seal the deal, and four points in a single period for the second consecutive game. Wow. He’s the first player in NHL history to accomplish that feat.

Even more impressive: through four games against Colorado, Rantanen had managed just one measly point — a secondary assist on Seguin’s OT-winner in Game 3. Flash forward to the end of the series, and he leads all players in playoff points with 12. How in the world? He’s just that special, folks.

It’s safe to say that without Rantanen, the Dallas Stars would likely be sitting on their couch next week instead of jumping on a plane to Winnipeg for the second round. Considering they were without Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson — two of their best players — it was a minor miracle the series even got to Game 7. To win it altogether is a blessing from on high.

Now it’s on to Manitoba for the Stars, where the Jets just beat the St. Louis Blues in their own Game 7 — a thrilling double-overtime classic. The Jets won the Presidents’ Trophy for the best record in the league and will be a formidable test for a banged-up Stars team that just came through a war. How will it turn out? As I often say when asked questions like that: I have no idea. What I do know, however, is that the Stanley Cup Playoffs are the best. And a Stars vs. Jets series is almost guaranteed to be some top-tier entertainment.

One final thought before I wrap up this euphoric reflection on the Stars’ 4–2 win in Game 7: Saturday night is why we do sports. The countless lows are only made worth it by the glorious highs that sometimes follow. There’s never a guarantee that glory will come — but it’s the hope that it might that keeps us going.

These small victories are what make hockey so incredible. Winning a Stanley Cup is unbelievably difficult, and advancing to the second round is an achievement in its own right. So, bask in it while you still can. You never know when the journey will end — whether in a sad handshake line or a champagne-filled locker room. The good deserves to be celebrated at all times, even if it’s just the first round.

That being said, buckle up, everybody, because this ride is just getting started. Bring on Winnipeg. Bring on Vegas. Bring on Edmonton. You know what? Bring everybody on.

It’s time to bring the Cup back to Dallas.

The Stars are without Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson, yet they still lead their opening-round series against the Colorado Avalanche three games to two. How in the world?

Compound those absences with the fact that coming into Game 5 last night, the big dogs — namely Mikko Rantanen, Wyatt Johnston, Mikael Granlund, and Matt Duchene — hadn't made their mark on the series just yet, at least on the scoreboard. To have the series tied while getting little to no production from the top players was a remarkable feat, but it was time for them to show up and make their presence known.

That’s exactly what they did last night.

Nine seconds into the game, Johnston raced past a lazily skating Nathan MacKinnon and beat him to an entry pass that had bounced off the boards. He then fired it on net from a bizarre angle, catching Colorado goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood completely by surprise. The shot somehow found the back of the net, giving the Stars a 1–0 lead with less than ten seconds off the clock.

Perhaps that shocking goal set the tone for the Stars — and for Blackwood and company — for the rest of the night. Colorado, to its credit, didn’t back down after the opening goal, swarming in search of an equalizer throughout the first period. Thanks to some stingy work by Jake Oettinger, though, that goal never came.

Instead, the Stars added another tally late in the first period on yet another blunder by Blackwood. After a turnover by the Avalanche in their own defensive zone, Thomas Harley snapped a shot toward Blackwood, which he stopped with his blocker. The puck went flying into the air, and Blackwood seemingly forgot that what goes up must come down. That’s exactly what the puck did, bouncing off the back of Blackwood’s sweater and into the net for Dallas’ second goal of the night.

Prior to Game 5, Stars head coach Pete DeBoer was asked about the lack of production from Rantanen and the other star players on the roster. He said that “it’s time now” and that he thought “these guys are all due.” He was right.

A little over a minute into the second period, the Avalanche’s offensive pressure backfired, as the Stars caught them sleeping on the back end and created a two-on-one rush. It was the two Finnish stars — Rantanen and Roope Hintz — who connected, with Hintz dishing a beautiful pass to a cutting Rantanen, who buried it with ease. It was Rantanen’s 35th career postseason goal — and his first with Dallas. Was it poetic that his first with his new team came against the squad where he’d scored the other 34 of his Stanley Cup Playoff goals? I think so.

Even down 3–0, the Avalanche were still dangerous, as evidenced by the back-to-back goals they scored within a 2:27 span. Artturi Lehkonen scored the first after Martin Nečas fired a puck on net, and Lehkonen was able to tip it past Oettinger. The second came off a beautiful shot from MacKinnon, who beat Duchene and then easily fired one into the back of the net.

After those two goals from Colorado, the momentum had completely swung. From my seat back home, it looked like an equalizer from the Avalanche was just an eventuality. It was not — thanks in part to a dumb play by Sam Malinski.

Mark Lazerus, a senior NHL writer at The Athletic, correctly pointed out that Malinski’s elbowing penalty on Sam Steel was the turning point of the game. Colorado was going to tie it up — we were all certain of it — but then Malinski immediately put Dallas on the power play with a really, really stupid penalty. Here it is for yourself:

The puck is long gone, yet Malinski still decides to elbow Steel in the face. That’s just not good hockey, folks.

The ensuing man advantage for the Stars resulted in a little insurance — thanks to a beautiful goal from Johnston, his second of the game. He was set up by an even more beautiful pass from Duchene, who swung the puck across the crease to Johnston, leaving him with a wide-open net to finish the play.

Then, with momentum back on Dallas’ side, Mason Marchment tipped in an Alex Petrovic shot from the point to give the Stars a three-goal lead once again. One quick note on that Marchment goal: Tyler Seguin did an excellent job maintaining possession behind the net on that play. Had he not done so, Colorado likely takes control of the puck there, and that goal doesn’t happen. Seguin was awarded a secondary assist for his efforts.

For the rest of the game, everything pretty much held serve. Colorado was awarded some chances in the third period thanks to a cross-checking penalty by Lian Bichsel, but Oettinger and his penalty-killing unit were able to snuff out the danger with relative ease — except for when Cody Ceci lost his skate blade and had to defend on one knee for about ten seconds. It’s funny in hindsight, but in real time, it was a freaky moment that could’ve ended in disaster for the Stars.

An empty-netter by Hintz capped off the night for Dallas as it cruised to a 6–2 win in Game 5 to take a 3–2 series lead.

I wrote in my Game 4 recap on Sunday morning that, despite the lackluster performance by the Stars in their 4–0 shutout loss in Denver on Saturday night, they were in a good spot. Without Heiskanen and Robertson, being tied through four games was probably the best-case scenario.

Now, the Stars are just one win away from advancing to the second round for the third season in a row. There’s no doubt that they’re in a fantastic position, but the job is not finished. As Bob Sturm will tell you, it’s the first to four, not one, or two, or three.

The Avalanche are really good. Despite not getting standout performances from Brock Nelson, Martin Nečas, and Valeri Nichushkin, they’ve still managed to give Dallas a formidable test. That’s mostly because MacKinnon and Cale Makar are just that good — and not to be trifled with.

So, as the Stars head to Denver to try and win Game 6 — and with it, the series — just remember that this rollercoaster ride isn’t over. The Avalanche are not going down without a fight. In fact, I believe Game 6 will be the toughest test for the Stars so far this series. You thought the desperation Colorado showed in Game 4 was intense? Well, get ready to see what a team fighting like an animal backed into a corner looks like on Thursday night.

It’s going to be stressful, but that’s what the Stanley Cup Playoffs are all about.

I’d like to think Pete DeBoer was just as baffled by the Stars’ Game 4 performance in the Western Conference Quarterfinals as I was. Based on the photo above, he looked every bit as confused and incredulous — maybe even more so.

Last night was simply not good enough in so many ways.

It was clear from the moment the puck dropped to when the final horn sounded that the Avalanche had more to give than the Stars did yesterday evening in Colorado’s 4-0 win in Denver. That was exactly what Colorado needed, of course, given that it was down 2-1 in the series — and going down 3-1 would have been catastrophic to its chances of moving on. As such, the Avalanche proved to be the much more decisive, quick, and ready team because of their pure desperation to win.

It was a shame that the Stars couldn’t match that energy. Dallas had the opportunity to grab this series by the scruff of the neck, but instead, Colorado reclaimed some momentum as the series heads back to Texas for Game 5 on Monday. It’s now a best-of-three, and luckily for the Stars, they still maintain home-ice advantage, which is so crucial this time of year.

The Stars were down 2-0 at the end of the first period, but they probably deserved slightly better than that. When both sides played 5-on-5, it was pretty evenly matched, with Dallas maybe even outplaying the Avalanche to a certain extent. Special teams, however, were where the Stars left a lot to be desired.

Mikko Rantanen drew a high-sticking call at the 13:29 mark of the first period, giving Dallas a man advantage early in the game. While nothing came of that power-play opportunity, the Stars did manage to put some pressure on the Avalanche and goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood. Unfortunately, there was nothing to show for it on the scoreboard.

About five minutes later, Colorado defenseman Devon Toews put a puck over the glass in his own defensive zone, drawing a delay-of-game penalty that put the Stars back on the power play. Given how the initial two minutes of the Stars’ power play went earlier in the period, it was safe to assume they’d be able to at least keep the score deadlocked at zero. Nope. Thomas Harley mishandled a pass near the blue line, and Logan O’Connor — who’d been in the penalty box for the high-sticking call on Rantanen earlier in the game — pounced, racing the length of the ice and beating Jake Oettinger blocker-side to give Colorado a lead it would never relinquish.

The rest of the man advantage resulted in absolutely nothing for the Stars, and even-strength play resumed for nearly the remainder of the period with no further damage allowed.

That was until the Mason Marchment experience kicked into gear.

As I chronicled in the Game 3 recap (and as Robert Tiffin of Stars Thoughts wrote last Wednesday night), the Marchment experience is something like no other. He was the sole reason the Stars were on the power play heading into a do-or-die overtime in Game 3, and he was also the reason the Stars won that game after he beautifully set up Tyler Seguin to bury the game-deciding goal.

Last night, he was also the reason the Stars went into the first intermission down 2-0 instead of just one. But should he have been?

After a rush allowed Marchment to put a shot on net (Blackwood smothered it with ease), he “elbowed” Cale Makar in the face.

You tell me: Is this elbowing?

Regardless, Dallas was on the penalty kill for the first time, and while it took a while for the Avalanche to capitalize on the Marchment “mistake,” they eventually did via a beautiful Nathan MacKinnon one-timer that skirted through Oettinger to put Colorado up 2-0.

Given that Dallas didn’t score a goal last night, any deficit would’ve been a decisive one — but that goal in the waning seconds of the first period felt like a gut punch. When MacKinnon fired that puck on net, there were just four seconds left on the penalty and 24 seconds remaining in the period. Who knows how the game turns out if Dallas heads into the break just down one instead of two? It probably still ends in defeat given how poorly they played in the second period (don’t worry, that’s what I’m talking about next), but that’s not a certainty.

OK, let’s talk about that disastrous second period. I have one word to describe that 20 minutes of hockey: bad.

Terrible.

Awful.

Lousy.

Dreadful.

Atrocious.

Careless.

Unacceptable.

Maybe I have more than one word to describe it. (Yes, those are the results when you type in “bad” into an online thesaurus.)

Colorado outshot Dallas 22-5 in the second period and maintained control of the puck for what felt like the entire frame. When a team dominates possession, hockey people like to say that the “ice is tilted.” Well, that adage certainly felt right last night, as it seemed that any time the Stars attempted to regain control of the puck, they were skating uphill while the Avalanche were going downhill. In other words, the Stars were skating a 0.5x speed while the Avalanche were going 1.5x. It was tough to watch.

If not for a herculean effort from Oettinger, the Stars could’ve easily found themselves trailing 7-0 — or worse — by the end of the second period instead of just 3-0. He turned aside 21 of the 22 shots he faced, standing tall as the Avalanche furiously swarmed. By the time the horn sounded and both teams took the walk into their respective dressing rooms, he looked gassed and defeated. He gave his team everything he had. His teammates didn’t return the favor.

Stars head coach Pete DeBoer opted to sit Oettinger for the third period and gave backup goalie Casey DeSmith the reins. On its face, it’s a questionable decision to sit a goalie who had been standing on his head for most of the game. At the time, the score was 3-0, which is obviously a big deficit in hockey but not an insurmountable one, especially in the playoffs. But DeBoer wanted to give his starting goalie a rest heading into a crucial Game 5 on Monday. And given how the team was playing, it was probably obvious to him — and to everyone else — that a three-goal deficit was going to be too much to overcome.

It, of course, was, as the Avalanche added another tally midway through the third period to bring the score to 4-0. Colorado was the more determined team from start to finish. That’s pretty much the end of the story.

If I’m looking for any silver linings — as I’m prone to do sometimes — it’s that the Stars would’ve absolutely taken a 2-2 series split at the start, especially since Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson have not been available. Despite being down arguably their two best players, the Stars have still been able to compete with a fully healthy Avalanche team that even got Gabriel Landeskog back after 1,039 days of missed time.

Side note: Landeskog’s story is objectively pretty cool. Prior to last night, he hadn’t scored a goal since June 20, 2022, which was Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final — a series that Colorado ended up winning. Because of multiple knee surgeries — all stemming from a knee injury he suffered in 2020 — Landeskog hadn’t been able to play in a game since that series. But he returned in Game 3 to a raucous ovation from the Denver crowd last Wednesday evening. When he scored last night, man, that place was roaring. Once I took my Stars-tinted glasses off, it was a pretty amazing and emotional sports moment.

Nobody said that winning a Stanley Cup was going to be easy. The Stars, more than most teams in the league, should know this. The road is filled with potholes, and it’s bound to give teams bumps and bruises — both figuratively and literally — as they attempt to reach ultimate glory.

Losing in that fashion last night was obviously not ideal, but I encourage everyone to take a step back and look at this series from a 10,000-foot perspective. Dallas is in a good spot. Now it’s their job to capitalize on it.

Disney on Ice, take a seat, because the Stars and the Avalanche have dethroned you.

Before the Stars got ready to play the Avalanche last night in Game 3 of the Western Conference Quarterfinals, I like to imagine that the hockey powers that be asked the Stars what they’d like to deliver to their fanbase. I then like to think that this is what they responded with:

“Yes, I’d like to order one more stressful hockey experience for my fanbase, please. Preferably one where their hearts skip multiple beats and they almost tear their hair out because they’re so nervous.”

At least that’s what I was feeling. Anybody else?

Entering Game 3 with a split in the first two contests was a welcome sight, especially given how poorly Dallas had played over the last month of the season and how awful Game 1’s outing was. The euphoria of Colin Blackwell’s OT winner on Monday evening that delivered the Stars the 4-3 victory quickly faded away once the puck was dropped on Wednesday evening. It was time to settle in for another potentially gut-wrenching experience. Luckily for me and Stars fans everywhere, it was once again an experience that ended up proving extremely rewarding.

Robert Tiffin put it best: last night was the Mason Marchment experience turned up to 100.

Marchment continually made his presence known, for better and for worse. With the third period winding down tied at one (and everybody’s heart rate entering the stratosphere), Marchment took a disastrous high-sticking double minor that forced his teammates to kill off four minutes — 3:20 of which would be in do-or-die overtime — of a terrible penalty. After Dallas killed off the first 40 seconds of it to end regulation, Marchment and the rest of the team walked into the locker room for what would be a pivotal 15 or so minutes of strategizing and resting. For Marchment, however, it was probably agony. Imagine sitting there pondering a potential game-losing mistake for what probably felt like forever. Everything was taken out of Marchment’s hands, at least until the Stars could rise to the occasion and stymie the Avalanche power play.

It was a task that on its face appeared untenable. How in the world could the Stars stop Nathan MacKinnon and company from finding the back of the net for over three minutes while being a man down? As overtime commenced, I was asking myself that same question. What I forgot, though, was that the Stars’ penalty kill had suffocated the Avalanche all series (Dallas had already killed off four other Colorado minors in the game prior to Marchment’s high-sticking penalty), and that wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.

For the first two or so minutes of overtime, Colorado couldn’t get their power play unit set up to do any damage. Some excellent work from Esa Lindell, alongside some unusual carelessness with the puck by MacKinnon, aided the Stars in getting through the first couple of minutes of danger. But with the power play winding down, the Avalanche turned up the pressure, and it almost worked out. Had it not been for some excellent work by Jake Oettinger — who was spectacular last night and deserves a lot of credit for where the Stars are so far in this series — and the left leg of Lindell, Dallas would’ve lost the game.

Just look at this play by Lindell. Oettinger couldn’t smother a rebound after MacKinnon put one on net, allowing Artturi Lehkonen to pounce on the puck and shoot it toward the wide-open goal. If Lindell hadn’t been standing in the way, that puck crosses the line, and the Denver crowd erupts with happiness as the Avalanche take a 2-1 series lead. But Lindell blocked it with his left leg, sending the puck careening harmlessly outside the post to keep the game alive.

And then, just two minutes later, Mikko Rantanen (he was also so, so good last night) fought for the puck in the Stars’ zone and sent it down the ice to Marchment, who furiously fought off Devon Toews to keep control of the puck. Once he won that battle, he passed it to a charging Tyler Seguin, who kicked the puck off his blade to his stick and sent it past Colorado keeper Mackenzie Blackwood to win the game.

There he was again. Yes, it was Rantanen who had to wrestle the puck away from the Avalanche first, and it was Seguin who buried the game-winner, but it was Marchment who acted as the middleman and kept the play alive. A couple of minutes before that heroic effort, Marchment was shamefully sitting in the penalty box, biding his time. Now he was part of the jubilation, jumping up and down with Seguin and the rest of the squad as they celebrated winning Game 3. Sports are crazy, man.

Winning back-to-back games via overtime scores is improbable enough, but what’s even crazier is that the Stars find themselves up 2-1 in the series and in control despite having led for only 70 seconds throughout the first three games. Meanwhile, the Avalanche have led for over 90 minutes of game action but have only one win to show for it. To steal a quip from Ron Washington, the longtime manager of the Texas Rangers and now the head man for the Los Angeles Angels who always had a knack for an awesome phrase, “That’s the way hockey go.”

The Stars now find themselves in control with a 2-1 series advantage. With two days off before Game 4, there will be plenty of time to celebrate back-to-back overtime thrillers and winners. But the job is not finished. Colorado is still a formidable force, and there’s no doubt that they’ll give it all they’ve got on Saturday night in Denver.

Before the Stars touch the ice again, two more days of Stanley Cup Playoff action will pass them by.

Tonight, the reigning champion Florida Panthers look to go up 2-0 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. With Matthew Tkachuk returning for Florida, the Panthers are poised to continue to be in the conversation for another run at a championship.

Up north, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators will play Game 3 of the battle for Ontario. The Leafs took both games in Toronto, but the Senators are feisty, and I wouldn’t count them out if I were you. Plus, this is the Maple Leafs we’re talking about. You think the notorious chokers are just going to win this series nice and easy? No way.

Late at night is when the Western Conference matchups kick into gear. The Vegas Golden Knights and the Minnesota Wild are tied at 1-1 heading into Game 3 in St. Paul. Matt Boldy has been exceptional for the Wild; he has three goals through the first two games, including the opening score in Game 2 back on Tuesday night. However, the Golden Knights are not a team that should be taken lightly (as a Stars fan, I know this all too well). That team is so talented and so deep that seeing them in the conference finals and potentially in the Stanley Cup would not be a surprising outcome.

The Winnipeg Jets — the winner of the President’s Trophy this season — and the St. Louis Blues round out Thursday night in what’s essentially a win-or-go-home game for St. Louis. Winnipeg won both games up in Manitoba in fairly dominant fashion and could take a stranglehold of this series if it wins tonight. Personally, I don’t know who to root for in this one. Both teams are fairly large rivals of Dallas — St. Louis especially. How about everybody loses? Sounds good to me.

On Friday, the Washington Capitals, Carolina Hurricanes, and Los Angeles Kings seek to go up 3-0 in their series against the Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils, and Edmonton Oilers, respectively. That latter matchup between the Kings and Oilers has been very surprising, with Los Angeles outscoring Edmonton 12-7 so far.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are magical, what can I say? It’s the best postseason tournament in all of sports.

Jumping from regular-season hockey action into the Stanley Cup Playoffs is always a major leap for me in terms of adrenaline. Sure, watching the Stars play the Sharks in the middle of January is exciting and comes with plenty of thrills (even despite the Sharks being absolute bottom feeders). But the playoffs are just different, and last night was a testament to how exciting — or paralyzing — postseason hockey can be.

Four absolute bangers of games emerged from the rubble of what was a chaotic and exhilarating Monday evening of hockey. Every contest was a one-goal affair, with two going to overtime and another reaching its climax in the final minutes of regulation. The superstars played like the superstars they are, and surprising depth pieces emerged as heroes. It was everything one could’ve asked for in a hockey night, and as it crescendoed around midnight, my heart was racing and I couldn’t stop smiling.

The Stars desperately needed to pull out the win last night. Coming into Game 2 against the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas had lost eight consecutive games and hadn’t won since April 2.

That pitiful streak had taken the wind out of the sails of a team that had appeared to be soaring into the playoffs once again. Perhaps this would be the year the squad finally breaks through the conference finals barrier and returns to the promised land. Is it finally time to avenge the losses to Vegas and Edmonton in 2023 and 2024, respectively? Are we going to be partying like it’s 1999? That’s what the fanbase had been pondering prior to the abysmal lapse in play over the last several weeks. After it, the cries were the exact opposite (in fact, there might’ve actually been some tears). It was starting to look like the dream season that was promised was going to come crashing down sooner rather than later.

Losing 5-1 in Game 1 of the first round to the Colorado Avalanche last Saturday certainly didn’t help quell the frustration inside or outside the locker room. As such, it was imperative to come out in Game 2 and deliver a win. If the Stars couldn’t do it, their season might have been toast.

Fortunately, they got it done via a 4-3 overtime victory, thanks to some fantastic effort by the fourth line and Colin Blackwell, who buried the game-winning goal.

Blackwell was an unlikely hero, all things considered. In a series that features heavyweights like Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Cale Maker, and Wyatt Johnston, having Blackwell deliver the OT winner was a surprise. But the playoffs are all about the unexpected — and last night was certainly that, on all fronts.

There’s no telling if the Stars will now bulldoze their way into the next round or if yesterday was just a blip on the radar and the Avalanche will roll on instead. In a sport that features a puck on ice, who knows what’s going to happen in any given game? Compound that with two teams that seem to be playing really good hockey at the moment, and the uncertainty doubles. Maybe even triples.

It certainly didn’t hurt the Stars’ chances of advancing, though. In fact, without the win yesterday, Dallas was probably a sitting duck. Yes, they managed to claw their way out of a 2-0 series hole last year against the Golden Knights, but many Stars players have gone on record about how much that series drained them. To win the Stanley Cup, your season has to extend all the way into June. Having a first-round series that completely sucks the life out of a team isn’t a recipe for winning the ultimate prize — and if I’m the Stars, I’m doing everything in my power to get out of this as quickly as possible, while still picking up victories, of course.

For my money, the Stars are in a good spot. As last night’s game progressed, it was clear they were skating better than Colorado — a welcome sight. Through the first two games of the series, Dallas has steadily played a more well-tuned game. That’s the exact opposite of what they’d been doing during the last two weeks of the regular season. It appears the team has finally taken its medicine and learned its lesson.

Seeing the Stars win the Stanley Cup is something I’ve yearned for a long time. After the Rangers — it’s well documented that they are my first and most loved sports franchise — the Stars are the team I want to see win it all the most. With how much success they’ve had over the last decade or so, it’s kind of unfathomable that they haven’t yet. They’ve gotten oh-so-close so many times that I have to think the fantastical end of the journey is coming soon.

The regular season didn’t end the way I — or the team — wanted it to. After trading for Rantanen at the deadline, Dallas treaded water until the wheels fell off in early April. It was obvious to me that chemistry issues, as well as injuries to key defensive pieces, helped make the stretch run of the season the disaster that it was.

Now that the monkey is off their back and the team has finally won a game, I hope the floodgates open and they start performing the way they’re capable of on Wednesday night in Game 3 against Colorado. I need it. This fanbase needs it. Most importantly, this city needs it.

I hope that distance makes the heart grow fonder.

Needless to say, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here. There are a variety of factors behind the extended absence, the most glaring being my newfound commitment to being a college graduate who has to find ways to make the ever-elusive commodity that is money.

Despite that loss of time, I still watch my fair share of sports. If you ask my wife, she’ll tell you that’s all I do still, which I swear is not true. She’ll point out the constant blabbering about Jerry and Stephen Jones’ ineptitude, or how Wyatt Langford and Adolis García both had a mild oblique strain during the last couple weeks of Rangers’ Spring Training. She’d pinpoint how I can’t stop watching or talking about the Dallas Stars and my somewhat newfound love for hockey.

What she’d say I’ve ranted to her the most, however, is the despicable trading of Luka Doncic to the Lakers on February 1.

To say that the DFW Metroplex desperately needed a lifeline after The Trade would be the understatement of the millennium. Luka was the embodiment of DFW sports in so many ways, and to see him shipped off for what equated to a box of scraps, some stale candy, and a pat on the back was disheartening to say the least. I’d go as far as calling it heartbreaking, which is not a term I throw around lightly. I was heartbroken. Just ask my wife.

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about how baffling that maneuver was by the Mavericks’ front office. If Mavericks’ GM Nico Harrison has his way, I’ll understand one day. Unfortunately for him and the organization he works for, I don’t think I ever will.

Fortunately for me and so many other residents of this wonderful metroplex, the Mavericks aren’t the only source of sports that we have the privilege to indulge in. Besides the Cowboys, who are a wreck in their own right at the moment (can we please spend some money in free agency Jerry?), the Rangers and the Stars are the shining beacons of DFW sports at the moment. The Stars in particular have been a ray of sunshine that has been much needed during this time of distress.

Just a handful of days ago, the Stars made the biggest splash of the trade deadline by acquiring Mikko Rantanen. Rantanen, a 28-year-old Finnish forward who had spent his entire career with the Colorado Avalanche before being unexpectedly traded to the Carolina Hurricanes just several weeks ago, joins an already loaded Stars roster that’s looking to win its first Stanley Cup since 1999. Dallas has gotten close recently but still hasn’t been able to fully summit the mountain. Will the acquisition of Rantanen push the Stars over the top? I sure hope so. This city needs it. It needs it bad.

I read an article by the great Bob Sturm and Ralph Strangis the other day about how the Stars have the opportunity to take possession of the DFW sports fan here in winter and spring given the recent turn of events for the professional basketball team. That article was written before the trade. I believe, and I’m sure Sturm and Strangis would agree with me, that that sentiment rings even more true now after gaining possession of a talent like Rantanen. The Stars have the opportunity to give this city what it so desperately wants and needs: another taste of the ultimate glory. If they can accomplish that, or at least get close to it again, I believe they’ll continue to win over a lot of hockey-skeptics that aren’t so sure about this whole puck-and-stick sport that we all adore.

Winning a Stanley Cup is extremely hard. It’s arguably the hardest championship to win in all North American sports, which is one of the reasons why the playoffs that lead up to it are so full of drama and excitement. There’s nothing like watching your team score the winning goal in overtime of a game seven. It’s pure euphoria and ecstasy. The equivalent heartbreak when your team is the one that loses in that situation is unimaginable.

Dallas’ path to the Stanley Cup will no doubt be difficult. The NHL’s Western Conference is loaded. The Winnipeg Jets have consistently been good all season long. The Colorado Avalanche are still loaded despite the mid-season loss of Rantanen. The Edmonton Oilers employ Connor McDavid, the greatest hockey player in the world. The Vegas Golden Knights are really good too, which is hard to admit given the fact that I loathe them with all of my being. Once they somehow get through all that, the matchup in the Stanley Cup Final will be a test as well. It’s a tough road, but if the Stars can do it, man oh man would that be sweet. Even just giving us fans a sniff of it would be fantastic as well.

Sports are ultimately about hope. Whether the Stars win the Stanley Cup or not is not of consequence to me right now, even with Rantanen’s addition and their recent stretch of good play. I’m just glad that they’re putting in the effort to give DFW sports fans hope for now and the future. Hope is what the Mavericks ripped away from us at 11:12 PM CT on February 1, 2025. I’m glad that the Stars have decided to provide it instead.