Well, this is it.
The playoffs. Meaningful hockey. Emphasis on “mean…. Let’s get it going.
Tonight the 6th place Calgary Flames will host the 15th place Dallas Stars for game one of a first-to-four round one series.
Let’s take a look at the projected lineups before we get into some keys to winning game one as well as some observations.
Flames lineup Courtesy of Pat Steinberg. @Fan960Steinberg
Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk Mangiapane-Backlund-Toffoli Dube-Jarnkrok-Coleman Lucic-Lewis-Ritchie Hanifin-Andersson Kylington-Tanev Zadorov-Gudbranson
Markstrom
Stars lineup Courtesy of Matthew DeFranks. @MDeFranks
Robertson-Hintz-Pavelski Benn-Peterson-Seguin Kiviranta-Faksa-Gurianov Raffl-Glendening-Radulov
Suter-Heiskanen Harley-Lindell Hanley-Hakanpà¤à¤
Oettinger Wedgewood
Depth Battle Each team has a strong first line. Calgary’s being Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk and Dallas’ being Hintz-Pavelski-Robertson. While making life miserable for that line will be crucial, the Flames can beat the stars by out-working Dallas’ injured depth. Radulov, Gurianov and Kiviranta haven’t been getting much done offensively in the past month— four points between the three of them. If the Flames can stay on top of them physically, there isn’t much hope those two lines produce a whole lot.
Soft Defence The entire Dallas Stars blue line has been in two fights since the beginning of 2020. Massive 6’6… 207lbs Janni Hakanpaa fought Brayden Schenn while on the Ducks last season and 6’3… Esa Lindell fought Dylan Larkin around that same time.
The Flames will be taking liberties with the Stars blue line and goalie Jake Oettinger as long as Milan Lucic, Nick Ritchie, Erik Gudbranson, or Nikita Zadorov maintains a presence.
Stepping into the Play One thing to take from the Flames’ 4-3 comeback victory over the Stars on February 1st was that the Stars had some issues both back checking and blocking up the passing lane when the Flames utilized their top speed. Kylington’s goal put an exclamation mark on that sentiment.
Refs are Establishing Varying Precedents (that will be abandoned in a week or two) In day one of the first round of the 2022 NHL Playoffs, we saw a bit of inconsistency in regards to officiating in each game. Kings-Oilers- 10 minors. 5 for each team. A few calls on the Kings weren’t exactly what you would expect in the playoffs. Soft infractions.
Hurricanes-Bruins- 6 minors and one misconduct. Standard playoff officiating.
Then the other two.
The Leafs-Lightning game featured 11 powerplays. Not so bad. What was more frustrating was the inconsistency of each call. Following Kyle Clifford’s game misconduct, Referees Dan O’Rourke, Brian Pochmara and Ghislain Hebert started assessing “make up calls… on the Tampa Bay Lightning. Four very light calls in a row that wouldn’t have gotten a second thought prior to the five minute Toronto PK.
Wild-Blues was about as for from playoff style reffing as it gets. Take a look.
So you have the Blues win where the refs are essentially calling everything they see, the Carolina win where the whistles are away, then the Kings and Leafs wins where the refs intervened in an attempt to manage the game.
You have to wonder what kind of memo got sent out to the refs prior to the post-season commencing.
Darryl Sutter backed up this point today. Per Wes Gilbertson:
Enjoy the game.
Trevor Neufeld
@Trevor_Neufeld