Dallas’ stars have woken up at the right time
The Dallas Stars have had an underwhelming performance from their top players in their first round series against the Colorado Avalanche. Going into Game 5, only Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn and Roope Hintz had scored out of any of their elite names.
But in Game 5, they finally got some more production from their big guns. Wyatt Johnston scored two, Mikko Rantanen scored one, Mason Marchment scored one, and Hintz got his second of the playoffs, and it played a huge role in their 6-2 win, giving them a 3-2 series lead.
Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk talked about the Stars’ stars showing up for the team in Game 5 on Daily Faceoff Live.
Frank Seravalli: The amazing part is they were all square before that without [their star players] really contributing in significant ways. If you go look at the Stars’ big gun scorers from the regular season, only three of them were on the board prior to Game 5.
I think the amazing part about watching this series really closely is how quickly it’s flipped. Go back to Game 2 when the Avs had a chance to to win both in Dallas to open up the series. Within that game, it flipped right there. But then if you walked out of Ball Arena on Saturday night after watching Game 4, and you saw how dominant the Avs were and MacKinnon was, you’re thinking this team is flying, there’s zero chance that they’re going to lose this series. You would have walked out of the arena thinking that that team is your cup winner this year.
Now they’re on the ropes and it happens in the blink of an eye. Not just to start that period, but you watch how the rest of it played out. Colorado draws to 3-2 and you’re thinking “we’re in OT here, this is happening”, and the Stars just pounce.
They’ve been opportunistic, they’ve been a lot of things. They’ve had some serious stick-to-itiveness considering that this is a team that’s playing without their top defense and without one of their best forwards in Jason Robertson.
Tyler Yaremchuk: The officiating is obviously a massive storyline in pretty much every series that’s going on right now because yt’s that time of year when every call is criticized. Gabe Landeskog saying some of the calls on the Avs were preseason level, but I sit there and think that the Stars went one for four on the power play, you lost the game 6-2. Take out the empty netter, it’s still a three-goal lead, take out the power play goal, it’s still a two-goal lead. That’s not why!
I look at this blue line for Dallas. You have Cody Ceci and Ilya Lyubushkin playing north of 20 minutes. You have Alex Petrovic, he didn’t score, they changed it to Marchment, but he’s playing 14:54. This Avs forward team being as deep as they are should be feasting on this blue line and they’re not, and I think that’s why you even saw some of the frustration from Nate MacKinnon last night screaming at Charlie Coyle on the bench.
Frank Seravalli: You’re right, Dallas did not figure out the right side of their defense. They have not figured out their defensive depth because the same thing is doing them in the year after year after the way things ended in the Western Conference Final. But the amazing part is they might beat the Avs and then get Heiskanen back for round two, and then who knows what happens after that? All bets are off.
You can watch the full episode here…