DALLAS — Like the majority of the Dallas Stars, Matt Duchene is seeking his first Stanley Cup championship. But after their Game 5 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Friday night, he’s searching for reasons the conference’s top seed is one loss away from elimination.
“We haven’t had our best for other than probably Game 3,” he said after the Oilers’ 3-1 win gave them a 3-2 lead in the Western Conference finals. “We’ve been a bit disjointed offensively this whole series.”
The Stars averaged 3.59 goals per game in the regular season. They’ve scored two goals or less in their three losses in the series.
Forward Tyler Seguin said the Stars aren’t “connected” as a five-man unit on the ice. Duchene said they didn’t retrieve enough pucks in the offensive zone — and when they did, Dallas was far too tentative in setting up for scoring chances against Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner (19 saves).
“Sometimes when you want something so bad, you want to try and be too perfect. We need to trust our game,” Duchene said.
The Oilers, in their second straight victory, controlled play for the majority of the game. They limited the Stars to four shots on goal in the first period, and Dallas went 9:43 without a shot on goal in the second.
Dallas coach Peter DeBoer, asked about what one reported called a “lifeless” second period, responded by calling the description an attack on his team’s character.
“You can sit here and question our character if you want. You know what? I’m not going to do it. You go ahead and write whatever the f— you want,” DeBoer said.
The coach said Edmonton played “a perfect road game” in shutting down his team.
“If you’re going to draw a road game, that’s pretty much what you want to do, right?” DeBoer said. “They want to come out, get two power-play goals early in the game, get the lead and then defend well all night. So it’s tough to crack through.”
Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who scored those two power-play goals, said the key to defending the Stars is to not give them anything to work with by making mistakes.
“It starts with getting through the neutral zone, not turning pucks over and not giving them anything easy coming back at us,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “Sometimes you got to live to fight another day. You don’t need to be too aggressive.”
“Sometimes when you want something so bad, you want to try and be too perfect. We need to trust our game.”
Matt Duchene
Nugent-Hopkins also plays on the Edmonton penalty kill, which has not allowed a Dallas power-play goal all series. The Stars are 0-for-11, with five of those power plays coming in Game 1.
“There hasn’t been that many power plays this series. So you can maybe attribute a little bit of that [lack of success] to reps,” Seguin said. “But there’s no excuse at this time of the year. Sometimes the special teams need to win you the game, and theirs did tonight.”
The Oilers return home with a chance to advance to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2006. But the Stars believe they have a rally in them. Dallas was the best road team in the regular season and has gone 6-2 away from home in the playoffs. Plus, the Stars believe Edmonton has yet to see their best.
“We have the confidence that if we play our best game, then we can beat anyone. So it’s just a matter of us doing that next game,” said forward Wyatt Johnston, who scored his 10th goal of the playoffs in the loss. “I mean, we can’t lose another game for the rest of the series. Our backs are definitely against the wall.”
Daniel Miller is a sports fanatic who lives and breathes athletics. His coverage spans from major league championships to local sports events, delivering up-to-the-minute updates and in-depth analysis for sports enthusiasts.
