GDT: [Game #53] Dallas Stars vs. Los Angeles Kings - 7:30 PM CT (BS-SW)

[Johno]

GAME #53 – 3/2/2022 – 7:30 PM CT – BS-SW
American Airlines Center

Your Dallas Stars vs. the Los Angeles Kings
★ 29-20-3, 61 pts ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ 29-18-7, 65 pts ★


STATS

Stars

Kings
Iafallo - Kopitar - Kempe
Moore - Danault - Arvidsson
Grundstrom - Byfield - Brown
Lemieux - Lizotte - Kaliyev

Anderson - Doughty
Maatta - Roy
Bjornfot - Durzi

Quick

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Click to read more...

 

[MBTendy]

Didn’t realize but these next 4 games will be huge.

LA, WPG, MIN, and NSH.

 

[BG44]

Didn’t realize but these next 4 games will be huge.

LA, WPG, MIN, and NSH.

I think they'll probably go at least 0.500 despite 3 being on the road. The PP to me is a slump and not them reverting to suck. I may not have really much faith in sustained 5 on 5 scoring right now, but I can't really see them playing below 0.500 for long stretches with the current goaltending, Robo-Hintz-Pavs, and the PP.

Even though the last 7 homes games they've not been nearly as dominant and they've been quite erratic, I think they probably have a good chance tonight.

 

[Captain Awesome]

I think they'll probably go at least 0.500 despite 3 being on the road. The PP to me is a slump and not them reverting to suck. I may not have really much faith in sustained 5 on 5 scoring right now, but I can't really see them playing below 0.500 for long stretches with the current goaltending, Robo-Hintz-Pavs, and the PP.

Even though the last 7 homes games they've not been nearly as dominant and they've been quite erratic, I think they probably have a good chance tonight.

I'd be much more confident in saying the current goaltending is unsustainable. I like Jake Oettinger, but it's bad practice to rely on elite goaltending in general, and especially for a guy that young. He hasn't been that consistent so far in his NHL career, which really is just par for the course for a typical NHL goalie anyway. Fatigue is also an issue here, they are giving him a ton of games all in a row, I don't think he's ever gotten this kind of workload in his entire hockey playing career. If he is just average, the PP continues to slump, and the 5 v 5 play stays as mediocre at it's been all year, I could see them sliding. Take away the elite powerplay and this team is bottom third in the league most nights.

The funniest thing about this team is that they constantly find new ways to be mediocre. If the PP slumps, Oettinger is elite. If Oettinger/Holtby are just being average, the PP is elite. Such perfect balance that they have a 0 goal differential, equal amount of goals scored for and against.

Home/road splits seem to be experiencing a bit of regression to the mean. The road game results aren't as bad as they once were, and the home games aren't as good. I haven't really looked into PP sustainability at all, but it's been consistently good this year.

 

[BG44]

I'd be much more confident in saying the current goaltending is unsustainable. I like Jake Oettinger, but it's bad practice to rely on elite goaltending in general, and especially for a guy that young. He hasn't been that consistent so far in his NHL career, which really is just par for the course for a typical NHL goalie anyway. Fatigue is also an issue here, they are giving him a ton of games all in a row, I don't think he's ever gotten this kind of workload in his entire hockey playing career. If he is just average, the PP continues to slump, and the 5 v 5 play stays as mediocre at it's been all year, I could see them sliding. Take away the elite powerplay and this team is bottom third in the league most nights.

The funniest thing about this team is that they constantly find new ways to be mediocre. If the PP slumps, Oettinger is elite. If Oettinger/Holtby are just being average, the PP is elite. Such perfect balance that they have a 0 goal differential, equal amount of goals scored for and against.

Home/road splits seem to be experiencing a bit of regression to the mean. The road game results aren't as bad as they once were, and the home games aren't as good. I haven't really looked into PP sustainability at all, but it's been consistently good this year.

Jake Oettinger is has been consistent this year. He's 17-6-1 with a 2.25 GAA and 0.923 Save%. Outside of those 2 pulls, he's been steady. Now, I agree that's not a guarantee it continues, but it's also not some obvious conclusion he's about to fall off a cliff.

I think you sort of contradicted yourself here though slightly illustrating how mediocre the team is. The idea they are about to fall off a cliff and play less than 0.500 hockey would be a new development. All year long, regardless of what part of the team went into a slump (goaltending, road vs. home stretches, PP, etc.), a different part of the team picked up and kept them above 0.500.

I'm not saying I like it or this is a good thing. 60% of this season is gone, and they aren't a consistent or good team. Being pessimistic about their current play though doesn't take away from the fact that most of the teams directly below them are worse and less consistent. Winnipeg for example blew multiple shots over the past 2 weeks to stay relevant. The 8th team and possibly even the 7th team in the Western Conference are probably not going to be strong teams. There are no serious signs that the rails are about to fall off either though. 8th or 9th is still firmly where they're headed with outside chances at 7th or 10th/11th. There's no single team now that's clearly playing well over Dallas' head. Edmonton is essentially playing the same level of inconsistency. Winnipeg like Dallas has had the tendency to blow games against lesser competition and fallen short against playoff teams like Dallas to get back in the mix.

 

[FirstRowUpperDeck]

Among goalies with over 20 games, Otter is 6th in both SV% and GAA. I would have to look it up, but I bet almost every goalie gets pulled twice in a year and probably goes into a 2-3 game losing streak from time to time. I mean, sometimes, we tend to overlook the reality of the NHL when complaining about the consistency of certain players.

Now, I agree on the team consistency, and have related it to football teams, who just can't seem to go more than a few plays without shooting themselves in the foot with penalties, drops, turnovers, etc. Yeah, there are good players and nice plays on all teams, but the top teams produce those plays 90% of the time, and the playoff strugglers produce them maybe 66% of the time.....but not always at the right times, LOL.

As someone said, the West looks a bit weaker this year, and all those mid pack teams (like the Stars) seem to be down a bit. So, it's still a big race, highly dependent on their best play of the year happening now, and also on a bit of luck. Like all years, I guess. It's probably why we watch and post here.

 

[BG44]

 

[Captain Awesome]

Jake Oettinger is has been consistent this year. He's 17-6-1 with a 2.25 GAA and 0.923 Save%. Outside of those 2 pulls, he's been steady. Now, I agree that's not a guarantee it continues, but it's also not some obvious conclusion he's about to fall off a cliff.

I think you sort of contradicted yourself here though slightly illustrating how mediocre the team is. The idea they are about to fall off a cliff and play less than 0.500 hockey would be a new development. All year long, regardless of what part of the team went into a slump (goaltending, road vs. home stretches, PP, etc.), a different part of the team picked up and kept them above 0.500.

I'm not saying I like it or this is a good thing. 60% of this season is gone, and they aren't a consistent or good team. Being pessimistic about their current play though doesn't take away from the fact that most of the teams directly below them are worse and less consistent. Winnipeg for example blew multiple shots over the past 2 weeks to stay relevant. The 8th team and possibly even the 7th team in the Western Conference are probably not going to be strong teams. There are no serious signs that the rails are about to fall off either though. 8th or 9th is still firmly where they're headed with outside chances at 7th or 10th/11th. There's no single team now that's clearly playing well over Dallas' head. Edmonton is essentially playing the same level of inconsistency. Winnipeg like Dallas has had the tendency to blow games against lesser competition and fallen short against playoff teams like Dallas to get back in the mix.

I was just illustrating that it wouldn’t take much to see them slip, to be fair they actually were .500 for a good chunk of the season, the first 10ish games or so if memory serves, I don’t really think it’s going to happen, but I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if it did.

The numbers for oettinger are nice, IMO, the play has been average for large chunks of the season, though obviously been very good lately. I don’t really blame him, maybe he needed a bunch of games to find consistency, he was basically just playing every once in a while between holtby starts despite not playing any worse than holtby did.

It’s pretty much Dallas, Edmonton, Nashville for those last two spots like you mentioned at this point. I don’t know if Dallas is better than Edmonton, I guess past experience would lead me to bet against Dallas in situations like this, but these aren’t the same players that blew seasons going down to the wire, so who knows?

 

[WhoahNow]

I do love me some Kopitar. Him and Barkov are my fav players

 

[JeffP]

Game scheduled for 7:30.
ESPN+ LA feed, up by 7:15CST.. DAL feed, scheduled to start at 8. Sounds about right I guess :\

How does this sort of thing work anymore?
Imagine having a time-intensive network tv job and being meh about timeliness.

 

[ugrakarma]

Bah where are the silver helmets?

 

[ugrakarma]

Bad turnover leading to a goal. The same old.

 

[JeffP]

Where’s the Kiviranta-Faksa-Radulov line we purposely put together to never play since we’d like to score more? If we’re never going to put Radulov with talent, we may as well bury him at the bottom.

 

[Kcb12345]

That was a great pass by Peterson

 

[JeffP]

Kings announcers capable of recognizing a missed call against

 

[ugrakarma]

Scoring from some of the scrambles would be nice.

 

[ugrakarma]

Stars' PP well is global warming dry.

 

[starsfan86]

Ohh Miro.

 

[ugrakarma]

Glendening!

 

[Smelling Salt]

I need bleach for my eyes watching this PP

 

[ugrakarma]

I need bleach for my eyes watching this PP

I can loan a cheese grater if that doesn't work.

 

[Elysian]

How the hell do they even up calls there?

 

[hairylikebear]

Who did Harley punch? lol

 

[JeffP]

we suck at passing
but we insist on doing it

 

[Spotty 2 Hotty]

All those folks in front of the net and Klingberg just skated right back out to the blueline.