For roughly 40 minutes there, it looked like Game 5 was going to go the same way as the four before it.
The base ingredients were all there: Dallas was once again clogging up the Colorado Avalanche, not giving them any breathing room at 5-on-5, while simultaneously putting continuous pressure on Alexandar Georgiev. Jake Oettinger was shrugging aside most of everything that was sent his way, and when the Stars scored, you couldn’t help but feel it was the game winner.
And then, for the second consecutive home game, Dallas gave up three goals to the Avalanche in the third period. But hey, at least they were broken apart by a Logan Stankoven tip-in — otherwise it would have been the third consecutive home game in which Dallas gave up three goals straight (in total).
Perhaps that would have been enough had Dallas *checks notes* simply scored four goals already. But they only had two after two, and what’s more, the score was tied rather than Dallas having a lead. That was thanks to the Colorado power play, which converted on both of its first power plays after going scoreless with the man advantage over the past three games.
And that was kind of the story of the night, wasn’t it? No, I’m not talking about special teams (although Colorado won the battle, and the team that has has won each game so far this series) — I’m talking about the Stars’ best components in the series falling short in Game 5. The stellar penalty kill allowed Colorado to score twice, the first of which should have never happened as Artturi Lehkonen was given too much space as the first period clock was expiring. The second wouldn’t have even occurred had Chris Tanev, arguably the Stars’ MVP of the series, not taken a dumb cross-checking penalty after the whistle was blown (which had the duel punishment of keeping him off the ice for the kill).
Tanev, by the way, had a subpar game in general according to the #fancystats, although not as rough as Esa Lindell or Thomas Harley:
That was no doubt due to the other failing of the Stars: the inability to shut down the Avalanche’s top skaters, particularly in the third. Cale Makar, who had been held pointless in the past three games, had two of Colorado’s goals, whereas Nathan MacKinnon, who had only a single assist across that span, had a goal and an assist. That’s four different goals the duo contributed to, with only Casey Mittelstadt’s to start the third (which could have been defended much better) not giving either a point. And that’s not to mention Lehkonen and the rest of Colorado’s Top 6, which showed up in force:
Then there was Jake Oettinger, who has been stellar all series and was for most of the game, until that third period. Look, I’m not sure you could blame any of the first three goals against on him — maybe the first based on just pure reflex speed, but again, Lehkonen was left all alone in a high-danger spot for the one-timer. But the fourth goal, the eventual game-winner by Cale Makar that went five-hole? Yeah, he wants that one back.
I wrote after Game 2 that Oettinger was allowed one rough goal given the stellar performance he had put on. But while he had been solid throughout two periods, he wasn’t making sprawling saves for the most part, and even if he had, I should probably make an amendment to that original statement: you’re allowed a rough goal assuming you haven’t given up 3 or more already. Oettinger had, so he has to stop that second Makar goal, and he for sure can’t let MacKinnon wrist one past you with three minutes to go when you’re already down by one. You just can’t.
So in short, Dallas failed to close out the series because they failed to do the various things that allowed them to win three straight against Colorado to begin with. Makes sense, right? It certainly makes that Game 1 loss sting even more, as instead of a possible sweep, Dallas is now heading back to Colorado as part of Game 6.
Then again, as I’ve repeated ad nauseam in this space, winning four in a row against Colorado was always going to be a tough ask, regardless of when such a sweep was. You may recall last series in which Dallas encountered the same problem, beating the Vegas Golden Knights three times in a row before faltering in Game 6. But therein lies the key difference between the series: that was Game 6, and led to a winner-takes-all Game 7. Dallas still has the luxury of affording another loss before they’re on the ropes against Colorado.
Then again, if you drop another game against Colorado, even if it’s on the road, you have to start to sweat, right? While it’s not strictly a “must win,” Game 6, like Game 5, is definitely a “would really, really like to win.” Let’s just hope this next one turns out better.
• I actually hit almost every point I wanted to talk about above, which means only one bullet point this time around. Thankfully, it’ll end us on a positive note, as I want to talk about that beauty of a power play goal by Dallas:
In general, I Hate the drop pass, with a capital ‘H’. And yet, this is exactly why teams love to use it, because it sets up entries just like this. To start with, Miro Heiskanen is skating the puck up before sending it back to Joe Pavelski. Two important things happen because of this: 1) Lehkonen makes the ill advised decision to pinch towards Heiskanen as he skates up, leaving Jason Robertson alone on the wing, and the drop back allows Heiskanen to continue skating forward, but without having to worry about carrying the puck.
Pavelski notices the first point, and is able to send the puck straight up to Robertson, who proceeds to breakaway. At this point, all eyes were glued on Robertson, whether it was Georgiev, the Avalanche skaters, the broadcast, the fans in attendance, or the viewers at home. And who could blame us: Robertson is a top-end goal scorer, and the Avalanche just gave him a clean break away.
But now the second point factors in, as Heiskanen is able to turn on the jets and overtake Samuel Girard. If you watch the second replay from the above clip, you can see at the start that that Robertson very briefly glances to his left, to see if someone has joined him on the rush. And as soon as he notices Heiskanen, he not only looks away, but he taps the puck to his right, away from his teammate.
This subtle misdirection forces Georgiev to stay put and square off against Robertson rather than try and cheat and head over towards Heiskanen. And so when Robertson turns that into a backhanded pass, the Colorado netminder is just a step too slow in sliding back across his crease. Although, I’m not sure it would have mattered, given the finish Heiskanen put on the puck.
As soon as I watched that play, I thought to myself, “That’s one of the most beautiful goals I’ve ever seen.” And so I’m going to just keep thinking about it until Friday instead of the outcome of the game, thank you very much.
• Okay, I lied, or rather forgot about one other thing: it was sure nice to see Joe Pavelski get a goal finally. And Stankoven’s tip-in was also very reminiscent of his current billet dad’s signature scoring style. In short (no Stankoven pun intended), all three Stars goals were nice to watch — it’s just a shame those three weren’t enough.