The Dallas Stars really just never had it tonight in a lopsided 6-3 loss against the Carolina Hurricanes at Lenovo Center on Tuesday.

Stars lines

  • Duchene – Johnston – Rantanen
  • Robertson – Hintz – Bourque
  • Hryckowian – Steel –  Erne
  • Bäck – Faksa – Blackwell
  • Lindell – Heiskanen
  • Harley – Petrovic
  • Lyubushkin – Lundkvist  

Top story

Mikko Rantanen.

Carolina booed the crap out of Rantanen tonight. Who hasn’t booed him though, right?

But at least this one sort of makes sense. Colorado doing it is just dumb.

Rantanen chose not to stay in Carolina after being traded there from the Avalanche last spring. Not many players choose not to go to or stay in Carolina. The Hurricanes have been one of the winningest teams during Rod Brind’Amour’s tenure, and it is reportedly both a fun place to play and a fun and motivating coach to play under.

But for Rantanen, it didn’t work, and he chose to move elsewhere. Lucky for Dallas.

Look, Rantanen doesn’t fit in Carolina. And I am not even diving into any potential family or personal reasons here. Let’s just look at the on-ice perspective.

The Hurricanes are a shot-heavy team. They almost always lead the league in shots and shot attempts percentage. They play direct, North-South hockey without a ton of creativity or playmaking through the middle of the ice. That is not Rantanen’s game at all. He is an elite passer with crazy-good vision, who loves to use open ice to find teammates or space himself to hammer home goals. He likes to be creative and feeds off holding onto pucks, being one of the toughest to knock off possession in the NHL. He is nicknamed ‘Moose’ for a reason.

Dallas plays with more “skill”. They did it under Pete DeBoer, and now they really do it under Gulutzan. Not only does Gulutzan welcome skilled plays and “being a hockey player,” but he also wants Dallas to play with the puck more. On the first day of camp, Gulutzan talked about his time in Edmonton, specifically the way they regrouped and kept possession, rather than dumping it in certain situations. Again, that feeds Rantanen’s game, and he has excelled this season under the tweaked system.

On the flip side, Logan Stankoven, who was traded to Carolina along with a few draft picks, fits the Hurricanes’ style to a T. Stankoven has a non-stop motor and loves to play direct hockey. He is playing center in Carolina because he drives a line to play that same way. He also loves to shoot the puck and gets to do so quite often with the Canes. Stankoven scored tonight, his second straight-game with a goal and his first against Dallas.

You got your boos in. Now, I think it’s time for everybody to just move on.

Live game notebook

Period 1

  • The Stars made history with their Finns… Again. After sending out all five Finns to start Game 2 of the Western Conference Final last spring — the first time since the NHL began tracking data — they now roll out all-Finnish alternate captains with Esa Lindell, Roope Hintz, and Miro Heiskanen each wearing an ‘A’. Funny part is they have another Finn who could easily wear the same letter, if not the ‘C’ in Mikko Rantanen.
  • Carolina jumped on Dallas early, unsurprisingly throwing shots on Jake Oettinger from every which angle. Oettinger did a good job controlling his rebounds.
  • Rantanen picked off a hopeful waist-high saucer pass with one hand on his stick and then juggled it to himself before it hit the ice. Hands.
  • Well, the Stars were doing a good job keeping Carolina to the outside and forcing shots from the angle. But then they gave Nikolaj Ehlers a breakaway and allowed another easy cross-ice pass to K’Andre Miller for an easy backdoor goal.
  • Just after the goal, Carolina got another great scoring chance with the Stars chasing back to their own net. That is the theme early. Too many mistakes and way too much getting caught either flat-footed or in the wrong spot, leading to them chasing a very fast Carolina team back toward their own net.
  • Sam Steel is absolutely cursed. He cannot score, no matter how golden the chance is. This time, Steel took a nice backhand pass through the slot from Adam Erne and even elevated on the forehand, but Brandon Bussi read it well, moved left to right, and snagged it in the glove. He showed it to Steel a bit after, too. I like when keepers do that.
  • Okay, maybe Bussi is just on one tonight. He just robbed Wyatt Johnston in tight, this time moving right to left and attacking the blade of Johnston off the pass by Heiskanen. For any goalie, getting out and cutting down the angle is key, especially on deflections and in tight chances. He did a great job pushing out and across, giving Johnston nothing to shoot at.
  • Wowwwwwww, the Stars caught a huge break. Bussi made a great save on the Dallas power play, again telescoping out. He lay prone on the ice, and no one could find the puck. But when he spun around in panic, not knowing where the puck was, he threw it from under his blocker into his own net. This, for sure, should’ve been blown dead. But Dallas gets off the 0-10 power play schnide in style. This was also one of the first times I have seen the NHL site list a goal as an “own” goal.

  • The tie didn’t last long. I’m not sure how Jake Oettinger did not see the point shot one-timer from Shayne Gostisbehere. But, he didn’t, and it beat him to the blocker side from a loooooong way out.
  • Erne didn’t see Alexander Nikishkin coming behind his own net, opening up to accept a pass behind the Dallas net. Because he didn’t see him coming, he kept his head down and opened right up into a whopping hit that pinned him to the boards and knocked him down. Someone, anyone, needs to give Erne a heads-up for the incoming freight train. Nobody did. Ouch. Erne stayed on the bench for now, although I don’t think the Stars can get to their dressing room without going on the ice anyway. So if he was hurt, he would have to wait until a whistle or a TV timeout.
  • Despite only having seven goals this season, former Stars forward Logan Stankoven scored his second in two games. This time, a BIG goal that likely felt very, very good against the team that traded him last season.
  • Carolina has started to jump all over the Stars, who are not skating well and look a full step behind.

Hurricanes 3, Stars 1

Period 2

  • The second started the same, if not worse, than the first ended for Dallas. Carolina had an extra gear, and Dallas looked lost.
  • Nils Lundkvist got burned around the outside by Seth Jarvis, who dipped his shoulder and attacked the net just like he did when he hurt his ribs. Jarvis just returned tonight after missing eight games.
  • Hurricanes continued to shoot, win the puck back, re-rack, and shoot again. But each time they did, the Stars got more and more lost in coverage, and eventually, Miller hammered a one-timer wide open in the slot for his second goal of the game. Yes, the guy who had two goals all season has two tonight. I feel like the Stars have some bad, last-second memories of Miller when he was in New York. Anyone else remember that?
  • Casey DeSmith is coming in to replace Jake Oettinger less than midway through the game. It’s the first pull for Oettinger under Glen Gulutzan. DeSmith just rejoined the team today after taking a leave of absence for a personal family matter. This makes tomorrow in Washington interesting. Will DeSmith get the start, or do they go back to Oettinger, who now has the rest of the night off (hopefully)?
  • Immediately after DeSmith came in, Jason Robertson was called for slashing, giving Carolina its fourth power play of the night already. Dallas has a penalty problem as of late. And it is NOT unrelated to the way they are playing. Not moving their feet, reaching with their sticks. Not the style of hockey they, or their coach, wants them to play.
  • DeSmith made four, maybe five, saves on the power play. As Razor said on the broadcast, “the home team is doing whatever they want right now. I mean, whatever they want.”
  • Dallas has zero shots in nearly 10 minutes of play in the second. That’s not great.
  • Add three posts to that and a couple of truly funky bounces (although one in their favor, too), and yeah, it’s been a night.
  • Dallas has steadied a bit here. They created some great looks on their power play and have pushed into the Carolina end. But they aren’t creating enough chaos or making life hard for Bussi. On the flip side, Carolina hasn’t scored in a bit, so take the win when you get it, eh?

Hurricanes 5, Stars 1

Period 3

  • Robertson-Johnston-Rantanen start the third on the same line. The team needs offense bad.
  • Rantanen did exactly what the Stars needed him to do and precisely what he has done consistently in his short Dallas tenure: Took over and tried to drag his team into the fight. He does this all the time, and no matter the score or situation, he always plays with intensity and passion… Sometimes too much of it. But Dallas needed something, anything to go right. Rantanen took on the entire Canes team (Miller especially), crashed the net, and slid a backhand in to put the Stars back within three.
  • Adam Erne is not on the bench to start the third. He did play an entire period after taking the big hit in the first, but now remains in the room.
  • DeSmith made a great save on a 2-on-1, moving quickly right to left and robbing Sebastian Aho after a perfect saucer pass. Thomas Harley has just not defended well this season, and allowing this pass is another big no-no. DeSmith bailed him out.
  • Dallas once again chased back to its own net — But, to be fair, they have had to open up to try and score a lot of goals in not a lot of time — and William Carrier made a drop pass and eventually scored on the rebound to make it 6-2.
  • Matt Duchene had a wide-open net and missed. Bussi looks to be well on his way to yet another win.
  • Rantanen’s point shot from distance hit the crossbar, and Johnston slapped the rebound out of mid-air to extend his league-leading power-play goal mark to 15. Johnston had just danced through the entire Hurricanes team and nearly scored a highlight-reel goal just before the power play.

Final: Hurricanes 6, Stars 3

This was an ugly game. But I think we can calm down on the plans to fire Gulutzan, trade Harley, or even axe Jim Nill. This is a SLUMP. Absolutely is. But these happen during a long 82-game season.

Let’s see how they handle it now, with only a month before the Olympic break.