The playoffs are complicated. Each series is its own story, and each game is its own chapter encompassing a dozen moments and plot points. But the playoffs can also be simple. Each of those moments, those plot points, falls into one of two buckets: the things we observe and the emotions they inspire within us. That’s what we’re here to talk about.
What We Saw
This loss is gonna leave a mark, especially for Joe Pavelski. Seattle has been billed as the plucky underdog going into this series, but nothing could be further from the truth. In the regular season, the Kraken led the league in even-strength goal scoring. For their first postseason trick, they eliminated the defending Cup champs, the Colorado Avalanche, despite missing their leading goal scorer, Jared McCann. Now, thanks to this 5-4 overtime win on Tuesday, another series favorite is finding out the hard way just how serious this Seattle team is.
The Kraken’s roster holds up a mirror to Dallas’ flaws in ways Minnesota’s could not. That was the story of the night: watching the Stars get beat by Seattle as a group, then watching Pavelski almost beat Seattle all by himself. It’s probably going to be the winning formula for whoever wins this series: Seattle wins as a team, while Dallas wins with its best, one player at a time. If that reads like a slight against the Stars, well, how else would you describe the first period? Seattle destroyed the Stars in the territorial battle with all four lines, and all three defense pairs. Then Pavelski destroyed Philipp Grubauer.
And then the game went into overtime. All year, Dallas has lived on something of an edge. When Miro Heiskanen is not on the ice, the Stars were a below-average defensive team. Against Minnesota, the Esa Lindell-Jani Hakanpaa pair was outshot 83 to 59. Against Seattle, they were on the ice unsuccessfully breaking out of the zone when Yanni Gourde potted home the final dagger.
Same story on the other end. When the Stars’ top line is not on the ice, they are a below-average offensive team. Even with Pavelski scoring four goals in one game, nobody else could find enough chemistry with one another to beat Grubauer. The Kraken are about to challenge how comfortably Dallas can live on that edge.
The encouraging news is Pavelski is back, and he’s here to stay. He probably isn’t scoring four goals in another playoff game, but if he can’t carry Dallas, perhaps Roope Hintz can next. Or Jake Oettinger. Or Miro Heiskanen. (Until Jason Robertson finds his game in the postseason, he can’t be included on that list.) It’s not ideal, and it certainly doesn’t fit into cliches about how teams—not individuals—win games. But it might be Dallas’ best chance all the same. —David Castillo
What It Felt Like
It is important to remember that none of this was supposed to happen.
The 205th pick of an NHL Draft is not expected to sniff stardom nor staying power. Even one of those things is a triumph; both are a borderline miracle. Yet here Joe Pavelski stands, two months and change from his 39th birthday, still the epitome of each.
How? How did he stand toe to toe with the Kraken’s freneticism on his own, a lonely sentinel warding off a blitzkrieg? The oldest player on the ice was by far the best on Tuesday, as well as its savviest. But it is one thing to acknowledge how quintessentially Pavelski his four-goal barrage was: how thoroughly it leaned on his mastery of the angles, the crevices, the crannies, the timing. It is quite another to witness how unblemished his game remains—he remains—by age, and by rust in his first game back from the head injury suffered in Game 1 of the Minnesota series.
Because, by rights, the Kraken’s smash-and-grab job should have been enough. In the first period, Seattle struck fast and hard and with enough gusto to snatch the script for Pavelski’s comeback story and rip up any hope of a sunny ending. The Kraken’s Justin Schultz, Oliver Bjorkstrand, and Jordan Eberle racked up three goals late in the opening period, bringing Seattle to four total before the first intermission. That haul was even more impressive since they hadn’t done that all season, nor had Jake Oettinger given up that many first-period goals this year. All told, it was one hell of a feat, performed at warp speed, because, unlike Minnesota, the Kraken are willing and able to match the Stars in devil-may-care hockey.
And it would have decided this well before midnight had Pavelski not become the oldest player since Maurice “Rocket” Richard in 1957 to tally a four-goal game, either. (Richard was a comparably sprightly 35 years old at the time.) But he did, and so it didn’t. It was an all-time Dallas playoff performance, as much for drama as difficulty. Every piece felt special, even if the ending didn’t match. Pavelski was supposed to be the decider, not the hard-luck loser. Still, in a way, that’s fitting. “Supposed” had nothing to do with any of this. —Mike Piellucci
Authors
David Castillo
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