On the list of losses this season, the Stars coming up short against the Kings 3-2 Tuesday evening will likely end up being one of the least concerning results. This was the sort of game that happens to every team a handful of times over the course of an 82-game season. The Stars were on the road and made mistakes against a goalie on a six-game winning streak who was playing generally well.
With that being said, let’s take a look at some good (Jason Robertson) and bad (special teams) things from the game.
Good: Joe Pavelski’s pass
If there was anybody who needed a reminder as to why the Stars signed Joe Pavelski for a fifth season in Dallas, a goal in the second period was a great display. The closer Pavelski gets to the net, the more he treats it like his own office. Midway through the second period, Pavelski took a pass from Roope Hintz behind the net. As soon as he got the puck, Kings defenseman Mikey Anderson was attached to his hip. Once Pavelski got to the other side, Anderson tried to physically separate Pavelski from the puck.
To maintain possession in that situation would be impressive. To maintain possession and get the puck back up top to reset and give the Stars a chance to accumulate more offensive zone time would be even more impressive. To create a scoring chance would be ridiculous.
To execute a no-look pass to the slot through traffic, right on target for Robertson, well that’s just… Pavelski.
Robertson deserves a lot of credit here. If you watch how Robertson reads the play, it shows the kind of faith he has in Pavelski. With Pavelski being pressured the way he was, Robertson could have gone to the wall and made himself available for Pavelski to dish it out to and reset. However, Hintz was already coming across to do that so Robertson cut over the Kings defensive layer and went straight for the net.
As much as the individual skills and talents of Hintz, Robertson and Pavelski are a factor, it’s how much they’re in sync that helps elevate them to a different level — thinking the game becomes automatic when they have each other on the ice. All they have to do is focus on doing their own jobs because they know their linemate will do the same.
Bad: Ryan Suter’s defense
It was hard to miss Ryan Suter Tuesday night, and not in a good way. To be fair, not every part of it was Suter’s fault. For example, Colin Miller had a bad turnover and the Stars got caught in a bad change on the Kings’ first goal. But at the end of the day, Suter was not only on the ice for all three Kings goals (two even strength, one Kings power play) but he was pretty much the last person the puck got past before it got to Jake Oettinger.
There were plays that Suter should have made and plays where it may not have been on him but it would have been nice for the Stars to have him step up and cover for a gaffe, as he has done more than a few times this season. Tuesday night, he didn’t do much of either.
Good: Faceoff win
To be clear, that’s faceoff, singular. In the second period, Hintz won a clean draw and the puck trickled right back to Miro Heiskanen. From there, Heiskanen simply measured up, allowed the slot to get crowded with Hintz and Pavelski and fired a shot. Given the recent stretch of games, there was a good chance that the puck would have gotten deflected. Instead, Heiskanen was able to connect off of his stick, giving him his sixth goal on the season.
Bad: Faceoffs
There is value in winning faceoffs, as seen above. The Stars are the No. 3 faceoff team in the NHL, winning 55 percent of their draws on the season. Against the Kings, they won 43.7 percent of their faceoffs, including just 44 percent of the faceoffs in a third period in which they got dominated. The one that hurt the most was Luke Geldening winning just two of his 11 opportunities. Glendening is one of the best faceoff specialists in the NHL and has won 55.9 percent of his draws this season, so 18 percent against the Kings was an outlier that hurt the team.
Good: Jake Oettinger
The Kings were getting pressure on the Stars at various points in the game and Oettinger was solid for most of it. He made some great pad saves, blocked saves and used his stick to clear the puck out and avoid damage on passes to the slot. Especially given how easily the Stars let the Kings enter the zone at times, Oettinger did his part to keep the game within striking distance.
Bad: Third period
The Stars played one of their worst third periods of the season. They were outshot 13-5. There are plenty of other numbers that can further illustrate how bad things went in the final 20 minutes, but the shot counter is a pretty decent illustration. As mentioned off the top, this may have been frustrating to watch but that’s in large part because this Stars team has been so good in third periods. It’s usually either really slow starts or second-period chaos that bites the Stars. Against the Kings, it was the third period that sunk them.
Scoring distribution
1G (Robertson) — 2A (Hintz) — 1A (Pavelsky)
Benn — Johnston — Marchment
Kiviranta — Dellandrea — Seguin
Olofsson — Faksa — Glendening
1G (Heiskanen) — Lundkvist
Lindell — Hakanpaa
Suter — Miller
.914 save percentage (Oettinger)
Scoring plays were available online but with the game being streamed on ESPN, there were technical difficulties in recording video from the game feed. We’ll highlight three plays again tomorrow in Anaheim.
(Photo of Joe Pavelski against the Kings Tuesday: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)
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