The Dallas Stars ended a six-game losing streak with an impressive 4-1 win against the Washington Capitals at Capital One Arena on Wednesday.
Nathan Bastian draws back in because of the injury to Adam Erne last night. Bastian has played just two games over the past month but was excellent in four games during his AHL conditioning loan with the Texas Stars.
Casey DeSmith gets the start after playing 32 minutes of relief duty in Carolina. DeSmith has won 60% of his starts and has points in 81% of the games played. That's not only great, but it's better than Jake Oettinger, who has had a few tough games lately. I like that Stars coach Glen Gulutzan is rewarding DeSmith for coming in and playing well, giving Dallas somewhat of a chance against the Hurricanes.
On the blue line, Kyle Capobianco comes in for Alex Petrovic . Petrovic hasn't been a scratch since early in the season because he was playing really good, simple hockey, which is exactly what makes him effective. He is a big body, boxes out well in front of his own net, and makes excellent, quick, simple passes on the breakout. But when Thomas Harley and Nils Lundkvist went down with injuries, Petrovic started to try too much and got away from this game. And it showed.
To be honest, the entire Stars defense has struggled lately, and I think any of Ilya Lyubushkin , Lundkvist, or heck, even Harley could've come out as the scratch tonight.
I am a little surprised we didn't see more line changes. I know lines shift in-game, but Dallas is essentially rolling the same forward lines again despite really struggling lately. I do like that Bastian is getting a chance on the third line, but didn't see Capobianco playing on his off side with Harley as a pairing. Lyubushkin-Lundkvist makes me nervous, I am not going to lie.
I would also like to see Esa Lindell and Miro Heiskanen split up. I know they are elite together, no arguing that. But the rest of the blue line is struggling. Why not break up your top two and spread the wealth out a bit to help them out? I am interested to see how much shuffling we see mid game here.
Justin Hryckowian , duh.
Hryckowian signed a two-year contract extension with a $950,000 AAV this morning. The contract is one-way, meaning he will make the same salary whether he is in the AHL or NHL. That's huge, especially for a player who went undrafted out of college and earned every chance he has gotten in the Dallas system.
I wrote about Hryckowian on Tuesday, so check that out if you missed it. But essentially, he works hard and does absolutely whatever it takes to help his team win and have success.
Lyubushkin immediately took a penalty just over two minutes in despite Dallas desperately trying to take fewer minors.
But the good news is Radek Faksa took advantage of some terrible rebound control from Logan Thompson and scored a shorty. Dallas leads 1-0 against Washington , who has scored first more than any other team this year.
Dallas has gotten a few bounces lately, including the Faksa goal and a wide-open net missed by Washington on the back post.
Referee is handing out unsportsmanlike penalties to Washington for mouthing off after being kicked out of the faceoff circle. The Caps players apologized later, but I like the call, especially when players get so heated over something so small.
Hryckowian with a nice interchange to create a chance with Matt Duchene .
Capobianco absolutely DANGLED into a scoring chance, deking out two, maybe even three, Caps from the blue line straight down whatever main street is in D.C.
That was a much better period for Dallas. They created some chances, got a good bounce for the opening goal, and really weren't losing coverage in their own end like we've been seeing lately. Good start. Now, they need to find a way to solve the ol' second period.
Stars 1, Capitals 0
The Stars began the period with a line of Steel-Johnston-Rantanen and seemed to have shuffled lines up a bit, maybe even in the first period. I will list the full lines in a moment.
Steel – Johnston – Rantanen
Robertson – Hintz – Bourque
Hryckowian – Duchene – Blackwell
Bäck – Faska – Bastian
Lindell – Heiskanen
Harley – Lyubushkin
Capobianco – Lundkvist
These lines — which they changed to pretty quickly after listing the ones up top on the official game sheet, make a lot more sense to me.
Lyubushkin got into a scrum with Brandon Duhaime and left the game for repairs, bleeding from the bridge of his nose. He returned a few minutes later.
Harley made a play that we have grown accustomed to seeing from No. 55 before this season's slump. Harley used his elite skating to elude a checker at the blue line, beat him down the left side, and found Sam Steel on the backdoor. Best part… Steel buried it! Thompson should probably have intercepted this pass, as it was right across his crease in tight.
Former Boston College forward, Ryan Leonard , made such a smart play by faking a dump in and instead firing a shot to the far side of the net from the blue line. He nearly caught DeSmith cheating out of his net, but the netminder was just able to stretch right to left and turn it aside with the pad.
Duhaime now jumped on the ice for a faceoff with Alec Ovechkin 's line instead of his own trio… And the reason was to drop the gloves with Lyubushkin after their earlier scrum. Duhaime won the fight, and Lyubushkin went back to the room for more nose repairs. The TNT crew made a good point, asking why Lyubushkin would accept that fight? He's not much of a fighter and got controlled, although not really beaten up, in the scrap. Washington could use that boost after not really doing much in this game so far.
A Washington turnover at center ice led to a breakaway for Roope Hintz, but Thompson made a good save on the backhand. Hintz almost never dekes on breakaways. And even though he was coming in from a sharp angle, I am shocked he didn't go high glove or five hole, as he usually does.
Dallas with a huge penalty kill after Mikko Rantanen slashed the crap out of Justin Sourdif .
Stars 2, Capitals 0
Capobianco and Lundkvist are out here playing tic-tac-toe give-and-go hockey like they are out on the pond. Very skilled defenseman. I wish we saw that more from Lundkvist.
Harley nearly sprung Jason Robertson on a breakaway, but Washington made a great diving play to break it up after falling and turning the puck over at the blue line.
Stars only allowed 11 shots through 40 minutes, something opponents had done to them a lot lately. This is a great picture of how good they have been defensively tonight.
Thompson stopped Hintz twice in tight on the Dallas power play. Kept Washington within reach.
Robertson NAILED the right post past the blocker of Thompson. Chaos ensued, but the puck stayed out.
Steel has had one of his best games tonight. Washington bobbled a puck in its own end, Steel jumped all over it on the forecheck and found Wyatt Johnston in front to make it 3-0.
Steel dangled through the middle and nearly outwaited Thompson around to the left and tucked in a beautiful goal. Thompson got it with his stick in full scramble mode. It would've been Steel's second of the night.
DeSmith made another great save off a 6-on-5 faceoff, but the Caps reracked and Alex Ovechkin scored from… You know where. His spot. He then fist bumped his son through the glass after going through the line on the bench. Love that.
All three Dallas goals have come from right in front of the Washington net. Those are the tough areas you have to get to in order to have success. They haven't done it lately, but they did tonight, and it paid off.
Hintz scored a 3/4 ice empty-net goal to put the game away.
I am really impressed by this game from Dallas tonight. They defended super well, racked up 36 shots, scored four goals, and finally got off the schnide after losing six straight. Big win.
