DALLAS — The air conditioner inside American Airlines Center was blasting, desperately trying to stave off the hot and humid Dallas air doing its best to seep through the cracks in the doors and windows. A frigid rink on a hot day is a sign of spring in the NHL, one of those harbingers of the playoffs that let you know the stakes have been raised. There are all sorts of little things like that around the rink — a more cramped locker room, a cryptic coach hiding his lineup from the press, every player using the phrase “this time of year” in every answer, an empty arena with 18,532 little white towels meticulously draped over the seats.
“I love the towels,” Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger said Saturday morning. “Makes it look great. Even the morning skate with all the towels just makes it feel like a big game.”
Oh, one more sign of spring: A player in a green hat standing in front of his locker stall, speaking softly, trying to explain — to reporters, to himself, to the heavens — that being down 1-0 in a series really isn’t a big deal. Yes, the only certainties in life are death, taxes, an Oilers-Kings first-round matchup, and the Dallas Stars losing Game 1. Saturday’s 5-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche was the eighth straight opener that Dallas dropped.
Eight hours before the puck even dropped, Stars coach Pete DeBoer was already playing defense, almost trying to preemptively calm everybody down — maybe even his own players — if the thing that always happens happened again.
“Absolutely,” he said when asked if winning Game 1 was important. “But we’ve also shown that it hasn’t slowed us down in the past. If you’re trying to get me to say Game 1 is a must-win for us, it’s not. We’ve shown it hasn’t (been). You always want to make your path easier, and winning Game 1 makes your path easier. But our group has a real resiliency to them, and they haven’t always traveled the easiest path. While we haven’t had ultimate success, we’ve had a lot of success around here.”
It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you. And it’s not defeatism when it’s inevitable. And so we heard all the usual things from the Stars on Saturday. It’s first to four, not first to one, Thomas Harley said. We’ve come back before, we can come back again, Roope Hintz said. We rebounded to beat Colorado a year ago, Wyatt Johnston said.
It’s all true. So was Harley’s assertion that this was the best game Dallas had played “in a month or two.” The score was hardly indicative of the game, as Dallas was inches away from tying the game 2-2 late in the third period before Devon Toews crashed the net and put in a Josh Manson feed. The Stars looked cohesive and dangerous. They had more high-danger scoring chances. They played pretty darn well. They’re worthy opponents for the Avalanche.
The problem isn’t the Stars. It’s the Avalanche. Dallas keeps bringing up last year’s six-game win over Colorado in an apparent effort to buck up themselves and their despondent fans, who are rending their garments over a meaningless seven-game losing streak to end the season. But those Avs aren’t these Avs. General manager Chris MacFarland’s daring and dramatic midseason overhaul of his roster has remade, reinvented and reinvigorated the Avalanche.
Colorado dressed a staggering 50 players this season. We’ve never seen a contender run through players like this. The Avalanche’s goaltending was terrible early in the season, so MacFarland swapped out his entire battery — out went Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen, in came Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood. The Avs had brilliant top-line players but were tissue-paper thin, top-heavy and easily handled by deeper teams. So MacFarland went out and added not just a second-line center in Brock Nelson, but a third-line center in Charlie Coyle and a fourth-line center in Jack Drury. He bolstered the blue line behind Cale Makar and Devon Toews by nabbing Ryan Lindgren from New York and steady old pal Erik Johnson from Philadelphia. It’ll be years before we can properly assess the shocking Mikko Rantanen trade, but Marty Necas has produced at a similar rate on the top line, and Drury has stabilized the bottom six.
Colorado-Dallas used to be megastars versus mega-depth. Now it’s depth versus depth.
“I cannot say enough about the moves that (McFarland) made to revamp our team,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “We came back with a lot of the same guys. … As a coach, we’re really lucky. We revamped the most major parts of our lineup. The two goalies right away, strength down the middle of the ice when you get Drury, Coyle, and Nelson. Added some grit and determination on the back end with Lindgren. All the pieces, including depth pieces, served a purpose. It’s never easy winning (in the) regular season; playoffs, it gets even harder every single round. They’ve put us in the best possible chance to succeed. We feel like we have a good team, and it’s up to us now to go play our best hockey for two weeks at a time for as far as you can possibly go and reward the organization for giving us those players.”
Dallas was dangerous, but Colorado looked more dangerous. Blackwood, making his playoff debut, outdueled Jake Oettinger, only giving up a goal when he lost his stick during a penalty kill in the third period. Nathan MacKinnon successfully lobbied for a critical high-sticking double-minor on Hintz that the officials initially missed late in the second period, then scored on the ensuing power play for a backbreaker of a goal, his first of two on the night. Throw in a little puck luck — Artturi Lehkonen’s accidental soccer goal while being hauled to the ice by Mavrik Bourque opened the scoring, with another goal deflecting in off a Dallas glove — and that’s how you win a Game 1, something the Stars haven’t done since the 2020 Western Conference final.
Blackwood was the real revelation. His quickness getting across the crease, his evident athleticism, more than made up for any lack of experience. If Colorado was going to have an Achilles’ heel in this series, it was in goal, simply because Blackwood was so untested. Well, he’s been tested. And he aced it.
“He’s an amazing goalie,” MacKinnon said. “I have a lot of trust in him, obviously. He made some huge saves tonight. It could have easily been 2-2 and all of a sudden it’s 5-1. It’s a completely different game with his saves.”
And so the Stars are left to wonder. Can they do it again? Will Miro Heiskanen, who was a surprise participant in Saturday’s morning skate, return in time to make a difference? Will Jason Robertson, who was spotted limping his way out of the arena after the game in a knee brace that covered his right leg from ankle to thigh, have any hope of returning before the fall? Will Rantanen step up and be the postseason monster he was for Colorado, or does he need MacKinnon by his side to reach that level?
The Stars are good. But are they good enough? They’re deep. But are they deep enough? They’re resilient. But are they resilient enough?
“Obviously, losing Game 1 is something we’re getting used to,” Harley said. “It’s not an enjoyable feeling, but we’ve been here before.”
“I guess the good news is we’ve come back and won more than our share of series,” DeBoer added.
They have. But not without Heiskanen. Not against this version of the Avalanche. The margin for error is just excruciatingly slim. So if this wasn’t a must-win for the Stars, Monday’s Game 2 now is.
Otherwise, they won’t be able to lose another Game 1 until next spring.
(Photo: Jack Gorman/Getty Images)