First Shift 🏒

The Stars are in the middle of their eighth playoff series in three years, so they seem pretty comfortable.

Yes, there will be a lot on the line on Saturday with a 3-2 lead in a best-of-seven series against the Winnipeg Jets with Game 6 at home, but coach Pete DeBoer said the team likes the pressure and the opportunity.

“I think, if anything, it’s exactly what I thought it would be,” DeBoer said of the back and forth in a series with the team that had the best regular season record in the NHL. “If you’re playing the Presidents’ Trophy winning team, the best team in the regular season, the best defensive team in the regular season…I mean, their analytics were very good on both ends of the puck. So we’ve gotten exactly what we expected to get. And so that’s why I don’t think there’s any surprise we’re in the spot we’re in and excited about a chance to win this at home in Game 6.”

The Stars battled through a tough Colorado series and won on home ice in Game 7. This is kinda like a Game 7, because Dallas has lost its last two games in Winnipeg and been outscored 8-0 in the process. In fact, the Stars are 5-1 at American Airlines Center in the playoffs with 3.83 goals per game and a GAA of 2.50. Winnipeg, meanwhile, is 0-5 on the road in the playoffs with 1.60 goals per game and a 5.00 GAA. It’s been night and day for both teams, but DeBoer said those are just numbers.

“Listen, our home rink is a big advantage for us. Our home crowd’s a big advantage for us. It has been my entire time here,” DeBoer said. “We have to approach this like a Game 7, even though we have the luxury of it not being a Game 7, and make sure that we know they’re going to be there, the fans are going to be there, that environment’s going to be there. We’ve got to take advantage of that.”

The Stars saw defenseman Miro Heiskanen return to the lineup two games ago after battling a lengthy absence caused by a knee injury, and DeBoer said the veteran leader looked better in Game 2 than he did in Game 1. Heiskanen saw his minutes go up to 18:33 from 15 in the first game, and that’s still significantly lower than the 25 or so he has played in past playoff runs.

“He started to do what he does,” DeBoer said. “He started to grab the puck and transition it up the ice and break down the other team’s defense, which is important in this series. Everybody is above everybody else, so you need that push from the back end, the Harleys, the Heiskanens, that’s a key piece.”

To give Heiskanen a cushion in his two games, the Stars have used an alignment of seven defensemen instead of the usual six. While there will be discussion of changing that back to six defensemen with 12 forwards, DeBoer said there still are advantages to having an extra guy on the blue line as Heiskanen shakes the rust off.

“I think it all depends,” DeBoer said. “If we go to 12 and six, we have to be comfortable that Miro is going to play 20-plus minutes a night and not just comfortably, but can he bring to the table what he brings to us with his skating and his transition and things at 20-plus minutes? I mean, we’ve done it two games, we won one and we lost one. I don’t see our group being fatigued. Miro’s gone from 15 to 18 minutes, so we’ll have to see how he feels tomorrow.”

One of the things taking a forward out of the lineup has done is given DeBoer the opportunity to scale up the minutes of playoff scoring leader Rantanen, so that’s also something that will be in the conversation.

Whatever happens, the game is expected to have some incredible intensity. The two teams battled physically in the third period in Game 5 and Stars captain Jamie Benn received a misconduct penalty and a $5,000 fine for an altercation with Winnipeg captain Mark Scheifele. DeBoer sees that as two familiar rivals getting to a good place in a series.

“I think that’s normal,” DeBoer said. “I mean, that hatred grows in a series as the games go on. And the deeper you get in the playoffs there’s a lot at stake. I think that’s the beauty of hockey, that’s what separates it from a lot of other sports is that physical emotion that the guys play with at this time of year.”