NHL Playoffs Night 13: Just Another Brick In The Wallstedt
Getting to the end of the first round, where another two teams bit the dust for very different reasons.
Wild 5 - 2 Stars (Wild win series 4-2)
Everyone's going to point to the Stars "struggles" at even-strength in the six games, with them scoring just four goals at 5-on-5 and all. Seeing as how Jesper Wallstedt threw a .960 at them at full strength over six games, I'm not sure exactly what else they were supposed to do. The 11.34 xG they generated over six games is basically the same rate of chances that the Sabres have put up, it's way higher than either the Lightning or Canadiens are managing, and most importantly, it's actually higher than the Wild produced. It will be of little solace to Dallas, but they just got goalie'd.
While the TNT broadcast beseeched the Stars to get more pucks on net, because that's the one of the three buttons all hockey analysts have to hit, along with "be more physical," and "get traffic," it's just not something the Stars have done all season. They trust their d-men, especially Heiskanen and Harley, to make a play with their feet or hands to get a better look than some flung wrister from 65 feet. The Wild deserve credit for basically staying at home in their spots in the defensive zone, and providing a second layer whenever the Dallas point-men created a lane around the first layer of Wild defenders. It's why the Stars tried banking pucks off the endboards or going to sharp angles at the circles/goal line, but Wallstedt was on to everything.
There will be more ink spelled about how the Wild's depth beat the Stars depth, but the latter ran into the same problems the top six did, which was Wallstedt playing out of his mind. They mostly had the better of the shifts and chances than their counterparts. If there's one thing that might stick out on the autopsy, it's that Mikko Rantanen just didn't do much, and he spent most of Game 6 braining himself flopping around like a toddler desperate for attention, trying to draw a call. He wasn't helped by having his center be Matt Duchene instead of Roope Hintz, because Duchene is a weasel-faced loser.
We'll get more into it in the Stars Denouement below, but Glen Gulutzan could have done more to free Wyatt Johnston of the presence of Eriksson Ek, as that matchup didn't go the Stars way at all. But if the Stars wanted a coach who was, y'know, aware, they probably wouldn't have fired Pete DeBoer. John Hynes is hardly a genius, but he was able to at least crawl to the middle ground of figuring out that if he could keep the rest of the game even enough, Quinn Hughes will make enough happen to win. So it proved, given what Wallstedt was doing.
Ducks 5 - 2 Oilers (Ducks win series 4-2)
What struck me most about this one was that once the Ducks got up 3-1, the Oilers were just kind of resigned to their fate, coach. Maybe it's as simple as they're out of gas. They've played just as much hockey the past two seasons as the Panthers, and had they resided in the Atlantic instead of the Pacific, they too might have spent the season getting their dicks kicked in and missed the playoffs. Instead, they were able to rise just high enough on the tide of sewage out west to get back to the postseason.
Either way, the Oilers just didn't have a lot of starch in this one. McDavid is hurt, Draisaitl is probably as well, and there isn't much else here. As for the Ducks, they're far deeper, and way better on the blue line, which means they can toe the line of being just barely defensive responsible enough while always pushing for offense. That's how Joel Quenneville is doing it now, play just enough defense while always in the starter's blocks to take off the other way. The Oilers just can't match that, and they looked decidedly plodding all series. Jake Walman and Mattias Ekholm against the likes of LaCombe, Mintyukov, Carlson... c'mon now.
It also didn't hurt that, somehow, Connor Ingram was much worse than Lukas Dostal, which really took some doing. Dostal did the Grant Fuhr thing, where his team is creating so much they only require a couple big saves to beat the other goalie that's bleeding from every orifice. He could look like shit the rest of the time.
Stars Denouement
The Stars are just kinda weird, man. It feels like they've been an omnipresent contender, and yet you can't say they've ever really been all that close to a Cup. Three straight conference final appearances, sure, but it's not like they ever really made the Oilers or Knights sweat when they got there. And now they've moved backwards, though that's mostly due ot playing in the most stacked division. They probably would have waltzed out of the Pacific.
Before they look forward, they probably need to look backward a bit. It may have become untenable with Pete DeBoer, who probably couldn't recover from bus-tossing the roster and shirking responsibility after last year's exit. The players may not ever look at a coach the same way again. But even though DeBoer definitely comes with a sell-by date before his players are giving him the Full Metal Jacket soap-in-the-towel treatment, he still gets some of the best results in the league. To go from him to Glen Gulutzan is some WWE booking.
Gulutzan had already been fired by this organization, and spent the interim just as an assistant. It's not like he coached another team and showed real growth or had turned a new leaf. He was just riding around on McDavid's coattails. He's not a big enough idiot to cost the Stars another 100+ point season, but he certainly didn't have any answers in this series. At least he finally figured out to bar Tyler Myers from the premises by Game 6.
The Stars don't need to panic. Johnston is 22. Robertson is 26. Heiskanen and Harley are still in their prime. Same goes for Oettinger. That's a quality spine. But they need to churn some of the bottom of the roster. Jamie Benn is toast. They shouldn't need Tyler Seguin so badly, especially as his lower half will be completely reconstructed come training camp. That's enough of Matt Duchene. Money's a little tight, they only have a $11M in cap space, and Robertson is going to take most if not all of that. Seguin only has a year left, and no legs. Can they convince him to move to some tax shelter/retirement home? Or do they think that this time, for sure, he'll stay healthy all the way through April and May with a knee and hip made out of plaster?
It's only going to get tougher for the Stars. They can't really take much of a leap forward, Utah is only going to get better, and it's unlikely Minnesota is going anywhere. Colorado definitely isn't. This is the braintrust that thought acquiring Myers was a good idea, hiring Gulutzan was an upgrade from DeBoer. Losing Seguin and Hintz for the playoffs was a problem, and they may just run it back. Should they, they can't complain when they get the same nothing out of it.
Oilers Denouement
It's not much of a leap to say the Oilers are in a unique and unenviable position. Any other team, they would probably try to do what the Penguins did (though the Pens might have done it accidentally). Just admit they're going to have to take a step back for a year or two, do whatever is needed to eat Darnell Nurse's contract, probably Nugent-Hopkins's too, see if Savoie, Podkolzin, and Emberson can grow into major roles, and also groom whatever they could get back for the players mentioned above. Maybe even Isaac Howard.
If they were really spiky, they would probably see what's out there for Bouchard and get a young, actual puck-mover back. Could Utah or Philadelphia be convinced they're just a Bouchard away, if they only look at his point-totals?
But they can't do that, can they? They're on the McDavid Clock. It may have even already run out. If he looks over Stan Bowman's work in detail, it almost certainly will have. Oilers fans can only hope he doesn't have that attention to detail off the ice.
So Bowman is going to have to swing for the fences. Except he doesn't have a bat. An RNH-for-Filip Gustavsson trade makes all the sense in the world for both sides, though maybe the Wild will still be convinced they're set down the middle with Eriksson Ek and whatever fuckwit they dig up. The Oilers can let every free agent they have walk, but that's still not enough cap room to really make a splash, and it's not a free agency pool that any team could make a splash in, anyway. It's just a pool to crack one's skull at the bottom of. Somehow, Bowman has stuck them with Tristan Jarry for another two years.
Perhaps an extended summer is all they need, along with finally solving the goaltending. Or perhaps McDavid is going to put them out of their misery this summer instead of next. The Ducks aren't perfect, but they're also unlikely to get worse. The rest of the division is bongwater, however. Maybe the Oilers are content to let that benefit them, and then hope they just have a puncher's chance in the muck.
And also pray that's good enough for McDavid once again.
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Sam Fels