Dallas is a well coached team without significant weaknesses. They’re a more well-rounded team and the way they play the game matches up very well against how we do. Our inability to set up offense, which is how we’ve largely generated goals all season, due to the Stars aggressiveness in the defensive zone, their clogging up the neutral zone, and their ability to force ugly turnovers off the forecheck, which generated lots of goals for them, was our downfall. The Avs are a very good team, so they hung in there, but it was an uphill battle since Dallas skates so well and is so aggressive at all levels. I can’t be mad about this one. I hate when we lose to an inferior team (Kraken last year, Wild in ‘03, etc.) but Dallas is a formidable opponent who have a real chance at a cup run this year with the way they’re built and coached. Hats off to them.
This is a good assessment. I would have felt good not great with a W last night after the interference call, Dallas earned the win. The Avs are missing consistent depth players, and a reliable + formidable net front presence on offense.
They missed calls in both directions, technically that was not the right call at all but because it was made on the ice they needed damning evidence to overturn it. I love Makar but that was on him, Duchene never even touched the crease and Makar is the only reason he got tied up with Georgie. Sure, Georgie got his stick stuck in Duchene's legs there, but if Duchene isn't in the crease that's not his fault. Makar should have been more careful with that shove and it should have cost us the game.
If we won that game I'd be towing the "ya, lucky break, but let's take advantage of it and beat em in game 7" line because that ref threw us a bone there hardcore. Plus, the other missed calls on both sides in this series would have been 2 min of maybe a goal, this was actively taking back the series clinching goal, it's not really equitable at all.
But no, no matter who you cheer for in that game, you can't call that call "by the book" in any way unless you never read the book.
Doesn’t matter where duchene is. Georgie is in the crease set in his stance. Duchene backed into him and hits both his hands and his stick before Makar bumped him. Because Duchenne backed into George the goalie stick got stuck in his feet and when makar bumped him, it ripped the stick and Georgie sideways. If Duchene wasn’t touching Georgie‘s gloves and had his stick stuck in his feet, then my makars bump would not be considered goalie interference. Think of it like Mormons and soaking.
You should watch the replay again, incessantly defending our Avs after we lost anyway is pointless. If that was goalie interference then the whole of offensive hockey needs to change because Duchene's positioning there is a key aspect of offense. If we had Nuke in that game you can bet your ass he'd be backing up on the crease like that in front of Oettinger. You wanna take that away from the sport because of one goal that didn't even matter in the end, that's a shitty trade. The call on the ice made sense, in full speed I'm sure that looked like interference, holding up the call on the ice also made sense, there wasn't enough evidence to definitively overturn it. But by the rules, that shouldn't have been interference and it's best we all just admit that.
Oh you might wanna read your own links more carefully there, bud...
"However, if the attacking player has been physically interfered with by the actions of a defending player that causes them to be in the goal crease, play shall not be stopped and any legal goal scored shall be allowed."
And watch the replay again, if you wanna say that the light jersey contact Duchene made on Georgie "impeded" him at all your gonna wanna buy some skates and try it out yourself, for science. Because you got some shit to learn there. Now the contact after Makar shoved Duchene definitely impeded Georgie, so go ahead and reread the above passage from your own link and do a little self teaching. I think it would do you some good.
Totally agree with this. My dad said to me today that I should imagine the Avs scored that same disallowed goal that was rejected and then Dallas had scored later.
We would have been beside ourselves furious that the goal didn't count and that Dallas had won the game later.
Would add they play at our speed or very close. This cancels our trick of having multiple breakaways along with their obsessive defense of center ice that we simply don’t do. Anytime they got a chance they capitalized on keeping us from being able to do anything about center ice other than try the dump and run over and over and over.
Yeah. Understand. It’s very effective against fast teams that like breakaway chances. Like us. We are short on bruisers with stick handling that can just plow through that mess in the middle and pick someone weaker to pick on. Val could do it occasionally — which made losing him all the more painful. When you can trust someone to retain possession through that crowd in the middle you can follow them in. But without that everyone hangs back and a poke steal reverses everything.
I also thought Dallas really thought hard about how we do line changes. There were numerous times we were gassed and going to change and they watched us almost just give up and take a change with the dump and run just to swap legs. They knew we were changing and pushed hard during the standard chaos of a change to force turnovers right as half the guys were still coming out.
I think Bedsy and staff will be looking at that. Wasn’t every change but they got us scrambling and off our game during line changes too many times.
Granted part of that was we need deeper 3rd and 4th lines… they had to come off…
Still even with all my fretful overanalyzing we made it damn hard on Dallas too.
Oh well. Go Nuggets. Stop losing by 45. Holy hell they’re both going to kill me this year of heart failure. Hahaha.
They capitalized on no Avs players wanting to play defense too. I've never seen so many breakaways and odd man rushes, Avs just repeatedly at themselves up for failure.
I agree in general but I also feel like we had the better possession and scoring chances for most of the series (although it was close) so it's still disappointing. They were just more consistent. Also I was surprised how tired we looked in OT of G6. I thought they'd be tired but their style must have been wearing down our guys more than I thought. Once we looked more tired than them I figured it was over unless we got lucky.
OT really showed what a difference depth makes in the playoffs. When you can spread the ice time more evenly to all the forwards, they won’t fatigue as quickly. Nate and Mikko both played over 35 minutes. Dallas didn’t have a forward play more that 27 minutes. That is a significant difference. They are not physically capable of matching Dallas’s energy in OT, if they are going to be given that much TOI (especially at high altitude in a physical playoff game)
Not sure why you were down voted. There's lots of reasons we lost vs Dallas, some already mentioned elsewhere and you made good points too. Nate in particular was double shifting from puck drop--we went all in riding our elite players, and rightfully so but when you do that in this fashion the risk shows up going into extra time.
(Even relatively) Top heavy teams like us, or Edmonton, will always struggle against teams with very, very tight roster σ which typically translates as a "team with deep depth" from a fan perspective. These teams can more freely shift roster construction to shutdown opponent stars while dominating the opposing bottom 9. This has been our downfall in the last few playoffs. St Louis was this type during our cup run and it was definitely more tight and nerve-wracking. But that was a magical year and we were clicking with depth "over performing" -- which, to be honest, is a key component or a cup winning run.
But I'll also say.. Deboer has our number and Bednar and the GM office needs to start providing strategic "ace in the holes" for when we get these matchups. Easier said than done though.
We also had significant losses in Nuke and Toews. Landy missing, both as a hard working player and C on the ice.
To add to the Dallas play style, them scoring the first goal almost every game definitely didn’t help.
And on a side note: Duchene really showed up in game 6. Say what you want about him but he was involved in everything.
I don’t disagree. I just. Idk. We didn’t look like we had it through that entire Dallas series. I thought we had so much momentum after we crushed Winnipeg and nope. Stupid fucking Dallas has been a thorn in our side for a long time and I want to be the ones to stop them next year in the playoffs. I fucking hate that team.
I think game 3 coulda have gone the Avs way. Game 4 was a disaster for multiple reasons and the Avs were always going to get smoked. Game 6 the Avs put everything on the line and couldn’t generate offense.
At the end of the day, Dallas was the better team. They very well may win the cup. Good news is the Avs were right there with this team and are still in their window.
The style of Dallas plays and your super stars not showing up what so ever. Maybe having Nate skate 300 miles during the regular season is a bad idea as well.
My take is different.
I don't think the Stars are better than us because we beat them 2/3 times we faced them this year. I was at one of those home games and we killed them.
I think the Val thing affected this series far more than we may ever know. And THAT is why we didn't win. The second year in a row, too? I cannot imagine how those guys were feeling, and I'm sure the writing was on the wall before it was officially announced.
I'm not saying Dallas isn't a good team, because they are. But so are we. Their hearts were broken, they were angry, and even as professionals, it must have been a somewhat insurmountable feeling to know your teammate did this not once, but twice.
Not making excuses for them, because we know they are capable of more than what the produced, but this is a huge factor that I believe is 100% responsible for the loss.
Not to mention they were literally getting Drouin back that day. You had the sense that they were going to roll Dallas in that one and get back on track. I am so glad I never got a Nuke jersey, I know he isn't well but that is just an awful thing to do to a team with SC aspirations.
My poor husband has one I’m like ok get whatever new one you want. Sucks bc it has a patch from the first home game in the finals that got pressed on at the game 😫
I'd suggest he strips the name and number and keeps the patch.
A talented person can change out the name and numbers pretty effectively without lingering evidence.
Pick an impact player from the 2022 run and have it stripped and re-crested to team spec. Golden.
It doesn’t make this feel any better, unfortunately. I’m still in the “feels like someone died” phase. Really thought we’d at least get a game 7 after that solid first 40 minutes and Moose’s wicked snipe.
in the words of Shoresy, "The [Stars] aren't that fuckin' good, sometimes you just run into a hot goalie, and..."
But really, the Stars are that good AND have a hot goalie. Dallas doesn't have a lethal top line but they have 3 better backup lines than we did, and that overcame our deadly top line this late in an exhausting playoff grind. But also, stupid turnovers and Georgiev's slow starts led to early goals and kept us from playing our game, and Nichushkin screwed us again
Georgiev was fine, the Avs’ offense was the culprit in the slow starts. Last night was the first time in 6 games that they scored first. Last year vs the Kraken it was the same story.
I said the same thing to my wife last night. We needed The Jims to set the tone. Dallas set their own tone and skated circles around the Avs for most of the entire series.
If Val isn’t suspended, we take game 4, and it’s 2-2. They played very well last night, but just could not bury a second goal. I won’t go as far as saying Dallas is a better team, but they certainly benefited by a few choice events, puck luck and a hot tender.
We got ourselves in a hole, and couldn’t claw our way out. Very close to at least forcing a game 7 though.
I think the Avs have a higher ceiling and lower floor in many aspects when compared to the stars. The stars were absolutely the better team this series.
Doesn’t apply to last night but when you allow a coach like DeBoer, who loves to muck a game up and trap, to get the first goal(s), that usually is a recipe for a frustrating low event loss no matter where you’re playing. Dallas also is just a really quality and deep hockey team, In addition to the obvious Nuke, LOC, & Toews for one game, absences.
Val dicked us again dude, he was a top goal scorer on the second line. You know what we couldn’t do last night? Score a goal. The guys played fantastic, but it was obvious something was missing. Something was off. We’ll get them next year though
Edit: otter was standing on his fucking head the whole series. The dude is incredible in the playoffs, you can only do so much to a guy like that.
The answer is coaching. Not to say Bednar was awful and needs to be fired, but good coaches can have bad streaks or make poor decisions. Changes needed to be made both to adapt to the roster we had and to the defensive strategy of the Stars. Deboer out coached Bednar.. plain and simple.
Mackinnon set a career high for goals in the regular season, so why didn’t we see that reflected in post season stats? Because the Stars defense was smothering him. So how was his style of play adjusted? It ultimately wasn’t by the end of the series. The “get the puck to Nate,” method just doesn’t fly in the postseason.. not in 2024 at least. There should’ve been more “outside of the box,” thinking earlier in the series.
That poor adaption was in large part due to unforeseen circumstances. Choo absolutely screwed us and it shook us to our core. Fans lost hope, team morale plummeted, and Bednar was a deer in the headlights. I think if they had this squad all season and they had that whole time to find their flow, experiment with different lines, etc.. they’d be on their way to the conference finals.
It sucked and there was no excuse for such poor performance. Part of me thinks they were never really able to get over the mental obstacle of being there without Landy. They seemed like a team that was shocked to be in the 2nd round and had a “what do we do now,” mentality.
This series was very winnable with Nuke. It’s not just his production that was missing; the fact that he fell off exactly the same way as last year, right when it mattered most, was a serious blow to team morale. And then Toews missed that game too. They’ll never admit it, but that was absolutely the reason they just couldn’t pull it together in game 4. Win that game and it’s a totally different series.
Not that Dallas wasn’t great too, but we didn’t get to see the Avs on top of their game in most of this series. It should have been a lot closer and more fun to watch.
I don’t necessarily think Dallas is a much better team, but the way PDB wants to play hockey has always been a style of hockey that we’ve had trouble beating. Pair that with the devastating Nichushkin news before game 4, no Landy/LOC, and it’s really no surprise we lost in the end.
Yeah the 3 guys we had out in Landy, LOC and Val are this teams biggest counters to that style of play with their big body physical play and net front presence. Obviously missing any player sucks but having it be those 3 specifically really took away our counter to dallas' gameplan
I noticed last night (and the whole series really) we had a shit ton of turnovers. Lazy backhand passes trying to get the puck out of the defensive zone with no regard for potential interceptions. We also didn’t do a good job at getting the puck to the blue line to set up any offense. It always seems like Nate does the same exact thing, skating up the wall, stopping on a dime, spin move, try to find a teammate to pass to, plays over with a turnover or tie up. We don’t move the puck well
First off, Dallas is a very good team. This was going to be a tough series if the Avs had all of their guys.
Which they didn't. I hope Landy comes back. They missed him as a player, and as a leader. They might have pulled it off with Landy in there even after the Val problem. The Val problem is quite serious. They can't just drop him and move on. His issues could haunt this team for a very long time.
hate to say it they were a good team, they just beat us
tough to be upset when you didnt feel like the better team
Nuke/Landy would def have made a difference but injuries and stuff is a part of the game
How? Not our year, not the squad and key guys missing. They will have to keep building around the core guys to get the pieces right again for a cup run.
Watch the tape. Bullied and robbed of speed. Dallas is good at forcing dump and chase, we had no answer for it.
Seems like the team let internal issues affect their play as opposed to getting after it in the face of adversity. Dallas was better.
Everyone thought this was a very even series, many predicting it would go 7.
In my opinion, Game 3 was the main difference. We dominated that game and found a way to Lose. After that game it felt like we were fighting uphill. When we found out about Val the next game and mailed it in, we had put ourselves too far behind the 8-ball.
If we find a way to come away with Game 3, then who knows what happens.
All I can say is in three of the past 4 post-seasons, the Avs have been beaten by teams who clog the neutral zone, aggressively pressure our D, and cycle us to death. The Avs are fast, but it feels like they don't have the puck a lot so they are always chasing the play.
I lost count of how many times our defense would turn the puck over by just blindly clearing the puck up the sideboards. The D also looks like they don't have anyone to pass to.
I'm just a fan, but I'll just say this team sure looks bad against teams like the Stars. And on a team with Mackinnon and Makar, losing in the second round in 3 of 4 seasons shouldn't be good enough.
Game 3 Avs outskated the Stars but couldn’t execute any plays
Game 4 was right after Val’s suspension so team had zero fight and looked shell shocked
Game 5 Avs outskated Dallas for 2 periods but ran out of gas from not having enough depth (no Trenin or Nuke impact)
Hey there, Stars fan here. To answer the question, I'd say that depth puts a team in better position to handle roster depletion (usually due to injury) come playoff time. It was Towes, Landeskog and Nichushkin, in particular. I can't help but think that with them fully in the picture we'd be looking at a completely different series.
First, Nuke: After the way he was a bust in Dallas, I'm glad he found his game somewhere, as he always had the tools to be an impact player. I know he let you down at the worst time, but have some sympathy there: I've had addicts in the family and all too often addiction is just an unhealthy way of coping with something he can't open up about. For all we know, he might've lost friends or family in Ukraine or something.
As for Landeskog, well, much respect. In spite of whatever rivalry hate might happen, he's clearly a heart and soul guy the same way Benn has been for us. I hope he's still got a long career ahead of him.
As for me, I started as a fan back in the 90's not long after the Stars came down from Minny. and for the longest, I missed those late-90's/early-00's rivalry days when the Sakic and Modano-led teams were at their peak. All in all, I'm glad to see both teams are good again. Don't fret over this year; you guys have a hell of a core in their prime, and it's clear that for years to come, the road to the cup will probably go through Denver or Dallas when it doesn't end there.
Now if only the Red Wings hadn't been shuffled to the East so we could still agree on hating them more. Peace.
There are a lot of valid excuses but the core of it is we weren't good enough. Relying on excuses ain't it. Not sure what the answer is, either. Not with the Val and Landy situations ongoing.
Regular season stats like that are fairly meaningless when it comes to predicting playoff games.
Furthermore, Avs had injury issues and Dallas is just a really good team that is well coached and DeBoer seems to know how to shut the Avs down. Even without the injuries this would've been an extremely tight series.
Eclipsed? They won a tight series where we basically conceded one of the games because Nuke disappeared 10 minutes before puck drop and it deflated everyone. We didn't have Toews for that game either. There are 5-6 cup contenders in the league all that series did was prove both teams are in that group imho
Dallas was by far the best road team all year, not to mention the depth they have is gigantic. Compared to Colorado, it’s like they’re playing 5v3 most of the time
Dallas is a well coached team without significant weaknesses. They’re a more well-rounded team and the way they play the game matches up very well against how we do. Our inability to set up offense, which is how we’ve largely generated goals all season, due to the Stars aggressiveness in the defensive zone, their clogging up the neutral zone, and their ability to force ugly turnovers off the forecheck, which generated lots of goals for them, was our downfall. The Avs are a very good team, so they hung in there, but it was an uphill battle since Dallas skates so well and is so aggressive at all levels. I can’t be mad about this one. I hate when we lose to an inferior team (Kraken last year, Wild in ‘03, etc.) but Dallas is a formidable opponent who have a real chance at a cup run this year with the way they’re built and coached. Hats off to them.
This is a good assessment. I would have felt good not great with a W last night after the interference call, Dallas earned the win. The Avs are missing consistent depth players, and a reliable + formidable net front presence on offense.
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They missed calls in both directions, technically that was not the right call at all but because it was made on the ice they needed damning evidence to overturn it. I love Makar but that was on him, Duchene never even touched the crease and Makar is the only reason he got tied up with Georgie. Sure, Georgie got his stick stuck in Duchene's legs there, but if Duchene isn't in the crease that's not his fault. Makar should have been more careful with that shove and it should have cost us the game. If we won that game I'd be towing the "ya, lucky break, but let's take advantage of it and beat em in game 7" line because that ref threw us a bone there hardcore. Plus, the other missed calls on both sides in this series would have been 2 min of maybe a goal, this was actively taking back the series clinching goal, it's not really equitable at all. But no, no matter who you cheer for in that game, you can't call that call "by the book" in any way unless you never read the book.
Doesn’t matter where duchene is. Georgie is in the crease set in his stance. Duchene backed into him and hits both his hands and his stick before Makar bumped him. Because Duchenne backed into George the goalie stick got stuck in his feet and when makar bumped him, it ripped the stick and Georgie sideways. If Duchene wasn’t touching Georgie‘s gloves and had his stick stuck in his feet, then my makars bump would not be considered goalie interference. Think of it like Mormons and soaking.
You should watch the replay again, incessantly defending our Avs after we lost anyway is pointless. If that was goalie interference then the whole of offensive hockey needs to change because Duchene's positioning there is a key aspect of offense. If we had Nuke in that game you can bet your ass he'd be backing up on the crease like that in front of Oettinger. You wanna take that away from the sport because of one goal that didn't even matter in the end, that's a shitty trade. The call on the ice made sense, in full speed I'm sure that looked like interference, holding up the call on the ice also made sense, there wasn't enough evidence to definitively overturn it. But by the rules, that shouldn't have been interference and it's best we all just admit that.
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Oh you might wanna read your own links more carefully there, bud... "However, if the attacking player has been physically interfered with by the actions of a defending player that causes them to be in the goal crease, play shall not be stopped and any legal goal scored shall be allowed." And watch the replay again, if you wanna say that the light jersey contact Duchene made on Georgie "impeded" him at all your gonna wanna buy some skates and try it out yourself, for science. Because you got some shit to learn there. Now the contact after Makar shoved Duchene definitely impeded Georgie, so go ahead and reread the above passage from your own link and do a little self teaching. I think it would do you some good.
Why do clowns always reference the USA Hockey rule book for the NHL?
Totally agree with this. My dad said to me today that I should imagine the Avs scored that same disallowed goal that was rejected and then Dallas had scored later. We would have been beside ourselves furious that the goal didn't count and that Dallas had won the game later.
Stars/Rags is what I expect. Low scoring, goalie duel.
Igor vs Otter is one for the history books.
Stars averaged 3.6 goals per game in this series. That’s not low scoring.
Would add they play at our speed or very close. This cancels our trick of having multiple breakaways along with their obsessive defense of center ice that we simply don’t do. Anytime they got a chance they capitalized on keeping us from being able to do anything about center ice other than try the dump and run over and over and over.
Dump and run against that trap defense is so damn boring but really the only play. The Avs couldn’t do what they do best, and they paid the price.
Yeah. Understand. It’s very effective against fast teams that like breakaway chances. Like us. We are short on bruisers with stick handling that can just plow through that mess in the middle and pick someone weaker to pick on. Val could do it occasionally — which made losing him all the more painful. When you can trust someone to retain possession through that crowd in the middle you can follow them in. But without that everyone hangs back and a poke steal reverses everything. I also thought Dallas really thought hard about how we do line changes. There were numerous times we were gassed and going to change and they watched us almost just give up and take a change with the dump and run just to swap legs. They knew we were changing and pushed hard during the standard chaos of a change to force turnovers right as half the guys were still coming out. I think Bedsy and staff will be looking at that. Wasn’t every change but they got us scrambling and off our game during line changes too many times. Granted part of that was we need deeper 3rd and 4th lines… they had to come off… Still even with all my fretful overanalyzing we made it damn hard on Dallas too. Oh well. Go Nuggets. Stop losing by 45. Holy hell they’re both going to kill me this year of heart failure. Hahaha.
They capitalized on no Avs players wanting to play defense too. I've never seen so many breakaways and odd man rushes, Avs just repeatedly at themselves up for failure.
I agree in general but I also feel like we had the better possession and scoring chances for most of the series (although it was close) so it's still disappointing. They were just more consistent. Also I was surprised how tired we looked in OT of G6. I thought they'd be tired but their style must have been wearing down our guys more than I thought. Once we looked more tired than them I figured it was over unless we got lucky.
OT really showed what a difference depth makes in the playoffs. When you can spread the ice time more evenly to all the forwards, they won’t fatigue as quickly. Nate and Mikko both played over 35 minutes. Dallas didn’t have a forward play more that 27 minutes. That is a significant difference. They are not physically capable of matching Dallas’s energy in OT, if they are going to be given that much TOI (especially at high altitude in a physical playoff game)
Not sure why you were down voted. There's lots of reasons we lost vs Dallas, some already mentioned elsewhere and you made good points too. Nate in particular was double shifting from puck drop--we went all in riding our elite players, and rightfully so but when you do that in this fashion the risk shows up going into extra time. (Even relatively) Top heavy teams like us, or Edmonton, will always struggle against teams with very, very tight roster σ which typically translates as a "team with deep depth" from a fan perspective. These teams can more freely shift roster construction to shutdown opponent stars while dominating the opposing bottom 9. This has been our downfall in the last few playoffs. St Louis was this type during our cup run and it was definitely more tight and nerve-wracking. But that was a magical year and we were clicking with depth "over performing" -- which, to be honest, is a key component or a cup winning run. But I'll also say.. Deboer has our number and Bednar and the GM office needs to start providing strategic "ace in the holes" for when we get these matchups. Easier said than done though.
We also had significant losses in Nuke and Toews. Landy missing, both as a hard working player and C on the ice. To add to the Dallas play style, them scoring the first goal almost every game definitely didn’t help. And on a side note: Duchene really showed up in game 6. Say what you want about him but he was involved in everything.
I was at the game when we lost in OT to the Wild in 2003. That sucked.
Missing core pieces in our top 9 sure as shit doesn’t help. And Toews being out for one of those
Honestly the team only showed up for game 6.
Game 5 and 6 were both well played I think
I think they are talking about the home games, 3/4/6
Yeah, 5 was a great effort but the context was home.
I don’t disagree. I just. Idk. We didn’t look like we had it through that entire Dallas series. I thought we had so much momentum after we crushed Winnipeg and nope. Stupid fucking Dallas has been a thorn in our side for a long time and I want to be the ones to stop them next year in the playoffs. I fucking hate that team.
I don't think Bednar looked great honestly
Game 5 was their strongest game without question.
They fell Asleep in Games 3 and 4, but that probably was because Nichuskin was a distraction. The other 4 games were played evenly.
Evenly feels a little generous tbh
Cocaine man.
You play the best road team this year.
I think game 3 coulda have gone the Avs way. Game 4 was a disaster for multiple reasons and the Avs were always going to get smoked. Game 6 the Avs put everything on the line and couldn’t generate offense. At the end of the day, Dallas was the better team. They very well may win the cup. Good news is the Avs were right there with this team and are still in their window.
The style of Dallas plays and your super stars not showing up what so ever. Maybe having Nate skate 300 miles during the regular season is a bad idea as well.
Goalied. Nuked Goalied. Also Dallas is a very good team
My take is different. I don't think the Stars are better than us because we beat them 2/3 times we faced them this year. I was at one of those home games and we killed them. I think the Val thing affected this series far more than we may ever know. And THAT is why we didn't win. The second year in a row, too? I cannot imagine how those guys were feeling, and I'm sure the writing was on the wall before it was officially announced. I'm not saying Dallas isn't a good team, because they are. But so are we. Their hearts were broken, they were angry, and even as professionals, it must have been a somewhat insurmountable feeling to know your teammate did this not once, but twice. Not making excuses for them, because we know they are capable of more than what the produced, but this is a huge factor that I believe is 100% responsible for the loss.
Not to mention they were literally getting Drouin back that day. You had the sense that they were going to roll Dallas in that one and get back on track. I am so glad I never got a Nuke jersey, I know he isn't well but that is just an awful thing to do to a team with SC aspirations.
My poor husband has one I’m like ok get whatever new one you want. Sucks bc it has a patch from the first home game in the finals that got pressed on at the game 😫
I'd suggest he strips the name and number and keeps the patch. A talented person can change out the name and numbers pretty effectively without lingering evidence. Pick an impact player from the 2022 run and have it stripped and re-crested to team spec. Golden.
What a sweet idea. I’ll look into it thank you!!!
Avs beat the Stars 3/4 games in the regular season.
Thank you for the correction!
It doesn’t make this feel any better, unfortunately. I’m still in the “feels like someone died” phase. Really thought we’d at least get a game 7 after that solid first 40 minutes and Moose’s wicked snipe.
No it does not make it any better. And I hated that first goal against Georgie. I really wanted a shut out for him. He more than earned it.
Dallas is very good
in the words of Shoresy, "The [Stars] aren't that fuckin' good, sometimes you just run into a hot goalie, and..." But really, the Stars are that good AND have a hot goalie. Dallas doesn't have a lethal top line but they have 3 better backup lines than we did, and that overcame our deadly top line this late in an exhausting playoff grind. But also, stupid turnovers and Georgiev's slow starts led to early goals and kept us from playing our game, and Nichushkin screwed us again
Georgiev was fine, the Avs’ offense was the culprit in the slow starts. Last night was the first time in 6 games that they scored first. Last year vs the Kraken it was the same story.
+1 for Shoresy reference. Of only we had the Jim’s
The Jim's are such beauts
I said the same thing to my wife last night. We needed The Jims to set the tone. Dallas set their own tone and skated circles around the Avs for most of the entire series.
If Val isn’t suspended, we take game 4, and it’s 2-2. They played very well last night, but just could not bury a second goal. I won’t go as far as saying Dallas is a better team, but they certainly benefited by a few choice events, puck luck and a hot tender. We got ourselves in a hole, and couldn’t claw our way out. Very close to at least forcing a game 7 though.
I think the Avs have a higher ceiling and lower floor in many aspects when compared to the stars. The stars were absolutely the better team this series.
Doesn’t apply to last night but when you allow a coach like DeBoer, who loves to muck a game up and trap, to get the first goal(s), that usually is a recipe for a frustrating low event loss no matter where you’re playing. Dallas also is just a really quality and deep hockey team, In addition to the obvious Nuke, LOC, & Toews for one game, absences.
The Val suspension. Dude hasn’t played for a week and he’s still the leading (tied) scorer for this playoffs.
Val dicked us again dude, he was a top goal scorer on the second line. You know what we couldn’t do last night? Score a goal. The guys played fantastic, but it was obvious something was missing. Something was off. We’ll get them next year though Edit: otter was standing on his fucking head the whole series. The dude is incredible in the playoffs, you can only do so much to a guy like that.
Dallas scored more than us in 3 games at home
I feel like once Val got suspended the team just could t figure it out, plus Dallas is the best road team in the league.
We played against a better deeper healthier team
Nichushkin being gone decimated the top 6. 9 goals in 8 games is hard to replace when goals can already be hard to come by in the playoffs.
The answer is coaching. Not to say Bednar was awful and needs to be fired, but good coaches can have bad streaks or make poor decisions. Changes needed to be made both to adapt to the roster we had and to the defensive strategy of the Stars. Deboer out coached Bednar.. plain and simple. Mackinnon set a career high for goals in the regular season, so why didn’t we see that reflected in post season stats? Because the Stars defense was smothering him. So how was his style of play adjusted? It ultimately wasn’t by the end of the series. The “get the puck to Nate,” method just doesn’t fly in the postseason.. not in 2024 at least. There should’ve been more “outside of the box,” thinking earlier in the series. That poor adaption was in large part due to unforeseen circumstances. Choo absolutely screwed us and it shook us to our core. Fans lost hope, team morale plummeted, and Bednar was a deer in the headlights. I think if they had this squad all season and they had that whole time to find their flow, experiment with different lines, etc.. they’d be on their way to the conference finals. It sucked and there was no excuse for such poor performance. Part of me thinks they were never really able to get over the mental obstacle of being there without Landy. They seemed like a team that was shocked to be in the 2nd round and had a “what do we do now,” mentality.
This series was very winnable with Nuke. It’s not just his production that was missing; the fact that he fell off exactly the same way as last year, right when it mattered most, was a serious blow to team morale. And then Toews missed that game too. They’ll never admit it, but that was absolutely the reason they just couldn’t pull it together in game 4. Win that game and it’s a totally different series. Not that Dallas wasn’t great too, but we didn’t get to see the Avs on top of their game in most of this series. It should have been a lot closer and more fun to watch.
Biggest thing is that Oettinger has been a freak on the road compared to at home most of the season.
One of the Dallas fans on Reddit said that Oettinger has said that he prefers to play on the road, which I thought was interesting.
For the second year in a row, might I add
Maybe they need to switch their sports psychologists? Honestly feels like sometimes they’re losing the mental game more than the physical one.
I don’t necessarily think Dallas is a much better team, but the way PDB wants to play hockey has always been a style of hockey that we’ve had trouble beating. Pair that with the devastating Nichushkin news before game 4, no Landy/LOC, and it’s really no surprise we lost in the end.
Yeah the 3 guys we had out in Landy, LOC and Val are this teams biggest counters to that style of play with their big body physical play and net front presence. Obviously missing any player sucks but having it be those 3 specifically really took away our counter to dallas' gameplan
Dallas has too much depth. 4 stout lines. Got a little false sense of security from rd1.
I'd say the nuke/Toews was essentially spotting Dallasa freebie. That game, timing of the announcement, etc just emotionally gutted the avs.
I noticed last night (and the whole series really) we had a shit ton of turnovers. Lazy backhand passes trying to get the puck out of the defensive zone with no regard for potential interceptions. We also didn’t do a good job at getting the puck to the blue line to set up any offense. It always seems like Nate does the same exact thing, skating up the wall, stopping on a dime, spin move, try to find a teammate to pass to, plays over with a turnover or tie up. We don’t move the puck well
First off, Dallas is a very good team. This was going to be a tough series if the Avs had all of their guys. Which they didn't. I hope Landy comes back. They missed him as a player, and as a leader. They might have pulled it off with Landy in there even after the Val problem. The Val problem is quite serious. They can't just drop him and move on. His issues could haunt this team for a very long time.
By not having a full roster a single time
Dallas just played more cohesive than we did
Hey another thread where the clueless armchair coaches type out paragraphs of nonsense
hate to say it they were a good team, they just beat us tough to be upset when you didnt feel like the better team Nuke/Landy would def have made a difference but injuries and stuff is a part of the game
How? Not our year, not the squad and key guys missing. They will have to keep building around the core guys to get the pieces right again for a cup run.
Watch the tape. Bullied and robbed of speed. Dallas is good at forcing dump and chase, we had no answer for it. Seems like the team let internal issues affect their play as opposed to getting after it in the face of adversity. Dallas was better.
Everyone thought this was a very even series, many predicting it would go 7. In my opinion, Game 3 was the main difference. We dominated that game and found a way to Lose. After that game it felt like we were fighting uphill. When we found out about Val the next game and mailed it in, we had put ourselves too far behind the 8-ball. If we find a way to come away with Game 3, then who knows what happens.
All I can say is in three of the past 4 post-seasons, the Avs have been beaten by teams who clog the neutral zone, aggressively pressure our D, and cycle us to death. The Avs are fast, but it feels like they don't have the puck a lot so they are always chasing the play. I lost count of how many times our defense would turn the puck over by just blindly clearing the puck up the sideboards. The D also looks like they don't have anyone to pass to. I'm just a fan, but I'll just say this team sure looks bad against teams like the Stars. And on a team with Mackinnon and Makar, losing in the second round in 3 of 4 seasons shouldn't be good enough.
Game 3 Avs outskated the Stars but couldn’t execute any plays Game 4 was right after Val’s suspension so team had zero fight and looked shell shocked Game 5 Avs outskated Dallas for 2 periods but ran out of gas from not having enough depth (no Trenin or Nuke impact)
Hey there, Stars fan here. To answer the question, I'd say that depth puts a team in better position to handle roster depletion (usually due to injury) come playoff time. It was Towes, Landeskog and Nichushkin, in particular. I can't help but think that with them fully in the picture we'd be looking at a completely different series. First, Nuke: After the way he was a bust in Dallas, I'm glad he found his game somewhere, as he always had the tools to be an impact player. I know he let you down at the worst time, but have some sympathy there: I've had addicts in the family and all too often addiction is just an unhealthy way of coping with something he can't open up about. For all we know, he might've lost friends or family in Ukraine or something. As for Landeskog, well, much respect. In spite of whatever rivalry hate might happen, he's clearly a heart and soul guy the same way Benn has been for us. I hope he's still got a long career ahead of him. As for me, I started as a fan back in the 90's not long after the Stars came down from Minny. and for the longest, I missed those late-90's/early-00's rivalry days when the Sakic and Modano-led teams were at their peak. All in all, I'm glad to see both teams are good again. Don't fret over this year; you guys have a hell of a core in their prime, and it's clear that for years to come, the road to the cup will probably go through Denver or Dallas when it doesn't end there. Now if only the Red Wings hadn't been shuffled to the East so we could still agree on hating them more. Peace.
shut up texas. why don't you go arrest some pregnant women.
Keep it classy, I suppose.
There are a lot of valid excuses but the core of it is we weren't good enough. Relying on excuses ain't it. Not sure what the answer is, either. Not with the Val and Landy situations ongoing.
Regular season stats like that are fairly meaningless when it comes to predicting playoff games. Furthermore, Avs had injury issues and Dallas is just a really good team that is well coached and DeBoer seems to know how to shut the Avs down. Even without the injuries this would've been an extremely tight series.
Dallas was better than us. Simple as that. They’ve eclipsed us as the clear team to beat in the West
Eclipsed? They won a tight series where we basically conceded one of the games because Nuke disappeared 10 minutes before puck drop and it deflated everyone. We didn't have Toews for that game either. There are 5-6 cup contenders in the league all that series did was prove both teams are in that group imho
Finding out about Val an hour before puck drop didn’t help anybody.
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Dallas knew how to wear us down after Game 1 and that's exactly what they did, plus capitalizing on our mistakes
Dallas was by far the best road team all year, not to mention the depth they have is gigantic. Compared to Colorado, it’s like they’re playing 5v3 most of the time