As sleepless nights go, Glen Gulutzan’s are better than most. As a first-year Stars coach (for the second time around!), he could toss and turn while worrying about the unbeatable Colorado Avalanche or, closer to home, the end-of-season injury for Tyler Seguin and the extended absences a month before playoff time for Mikko Rantanen, Roope Hintz and Radek Faksa.
That’s a lot of firepower (and one solid checking forward) to be missing up front, especially on top of the offseason losses of Mikael Granlund, Mason Marchment and Evgenii Dadonov.
Instead, for Gulutzan, the overriding concern is… lack of playing time for his forwards?
Against Vegas Tuesday night at the AAC, Arttu Hyry moved into the lineup in place of Nathan Bastian. That came after Bastian started Sunday’s comeback 4-3 overtime win over Chicago with the Stars’ first goal of the game. In fact, Bastian has three goals just since the end of the Olympic break.
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“It doesn’t make you sleep any better, these decisions to pull guys out, especially when they’re playing good,’’ Gulutzan said Tuesday. “That’s just the business. That’s what they pay you for to make these decisions, and we felt we needed a primary (penalty) killer in there for tonight.’’
Dallas needed all the defense it could muster because offense was a challenge for both teams Tuesday. The Stars successfully killed all three Vegas power play chances, and with all three goals coming in the second period, Jamie Benn’s redirection of a Wyatt Johnston power play shot tipped the game in Dallas’ favor, 2-1. The shortage of top scoring forwards allowed Benn — the league’s leading scorer 11 years ago — to move up to the No. 1 power play unit and score his first man advantage goal of the season.
“It seems like every night you’re talking about different guys chipping in,’’ Benn said. “And that’s what it takes. It takes a team who in in this league and it takes 60 minutes, sometimes 65.’’
After back-to-back overtime games, the Stars got it done in 60 against Vegas. Mostly, the club has handled its injury situation with a shrug of the shoulders. The worry any time the NHL decides to take a break and send its best players to the Olympics is injuries. It’s one thing for players to go play in a skate-around All-Star Game that has all the passion of an NBA All-Star dunkfest. But to fly to Europe and represent individual countries and play a handful of games at the highest intensity level is the opposite of that.
The Finns, which featured four Dallas players, won the Bronze Medal in Milan but flew home with little more than a vague announcement that Rantanen had sustained a lower-body injury on Feb. 20. He will miss a month at an important stretch of the season, and the news on Hintz — who suffered what appeared to be a hyperextended knee in a collision with Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon Friday — is even worse.
“(Rantanen) skated yesterday for the first time, so we’re hoping, you know, it’s the 10th today, so somewhere in a two or two-and-a-half week range, maybe we can have him back, ‘’ Gulutzan said. “Roope is nothing surgical, so that’s a real big plus. So, hopefully, we stay on that, a week-to-week timeline, and, hopefully, he can play before the playoffs.’’
Faksa, while not a scorer, has been a penalty killer and strong defensive forward for the club but suffered an upper body injury for Team Czechia and is expected to be out until just before the playoffs.
Other teams might fracture while losing two of their top three or four forwards, depending upon one‘s rankings of Jason Robertson and Johnston. The Stars have merely carried on. While a 5-4 overtime loss to Colorado Friday night stopped a 10-game win streak, the point they secured in that game means they took a 12-game points streak into Tuesday‘s game with their rival, the Golden Knights. Dallas has not suffered a regulation loss since Jan. 22 in Columbus.
With a 13-game points streak alive going into Thursday’s game against rival Edmonton, the Stars are three points ahead of Minnesota with 18 games to play. The winner of that battle (given that Colorado is refusing to be caught in the Central Division) will have home-ice advantage in a first-round playoff that features to be among the most contentious in the NHL.
The Stars figure to be much healthier by mid-April. But you never know exactly how things are going to play out in a physical, exhausting 82-game hockey season. So Dallas, wounded as it may be, keeps piling up the points as if no one is missing and these games mean everything.
“The one thing we’ve done this year is that all the guys feel they’ve got a little piece of this thing, and that’s important because you’re not going to win it with one line or two,’’ Gulutzan said.
When Oskar Bäck has your only even strength goal and when your top scoring line of Robertson and Johnston and Mavrik Bourque is on the ice defending for the final two minutes with Vegas having the extra attacker, that’s the definition of a team effort.
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