First shift 🏒
The Stars were in a bit of a tricky situation Thursday night.
After taking a 5-1 lead early in the third period against Winnipeg, the Victory Green boys saw the Jets come back strong to make it 5-4 with three minutes to play. Then Thomas Harley was whistled for a delay of game penalty, and Dallas had to rely on its penalty to seal the deal.
Two minutes later, Winnipeg managed just two shots on goal that were stopped by Jake Oettinger, and the Stars cruised to a season-opening victory.
When asked what it was like to experience a moment like that, veteran defenseman Esa Lindell shrugged and said that’s what they do.
“I feel like they have pressure there,” Lindell said. “We still have the advantage and we’ve been good in PKs, so we just trusted our system and it didn’t look like they had too many options in the last one.”
That’s part of the beauty of this team. Over the past three seasons under assistant coach Alain Nasreddine, Dallas ranks second in the NHL in penalty killing success rate at 82.6 percent. Lindell plays more shorthanded minutes than any player in the NHL, and he’s joined by a solid group of shorthanded forwards that includes Sam Steel, Colin Blackwell, Radek Faksa and Johnston.
“It’s a good group and we have a lot of confidence,” Faksa said.
The veteran forward, who played last season in St. Louis but returned to Dallas this summer, said there was a sense of calm under Nasreddine.
“It was a lot of pressure,” he said of the final killing. “They had the best power play in the league last year, and it was a huge moment. But we have confidence in each other and we get the job done.”
A big reason for this confidence lies in the preparation that Nasreddine puts the team through. The longtime assistant does excellent pre-scouting, Gulutzan said, and it shows on the ice.
“Nas has been doing it a long time, so he knows what look teams are going for,” Gulutzan said. “He tells them what the other team likes to do, and usually those looks show up, so the guys are very prepared.”
Steel said preparation brings calm.
“It helps a lot, because we’re really not surprised,” he said. “There is no panic.”
It’s a huge relief for Gulutzan, who takes over this season after serving as an assistant coach in Edmonton for the past seven years. When the Jets closed the gap and a controversial call led to Harley’s penalty, the team had a chance to collapse in Gulutzan’s second start behind the Dallas bench. But with players like Lindell on the ice, the temperature dropped pretty quickly.
“I think our coach should embrace it, because that’s not how I felt,” Gulutzan said when asked about Lindell’s feelings. “It just shows me that they are a very confident group because over the years they have proven that time and time again.”
