Ninety seconds after hearing Bishop fall on his sword, forward Andrew Cogliano absolved him and put the blame for what happened in the first period squarely on the skaters in front of him, saying the suggestion that they let Bishop down was "an understatement."
Dallas allowed five goals in a span of 9:50 to fall behind 5-0 with 5:33 remaining in the first. They allowed the last four goals in a stretch of 2:36, one second slower than the NHL record for the four fastest goals in playoff history, by the Montreal Canadiens against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1944 Semifinals.
"Our first 10 minutes was an absolute joke," Cogliano said. "[Bishop] will take the blame and put it on himself, but let's be honest, we were atrocious in the first 10 minutes. It was 5-0 with [five] minutes left in the period. This has nothing to do with our goalies. We're wasting our time if we're talking about our goalies. We have the luxury of having these two, and when [Bishop] is in the net we have full confidence in him. We let him down."
Maybe so, but then Bowness came to the podium for his Zoom press conference and he wouldn't let the forwards, defensemen or Bishop skate away with all the blame.
"We just clearly weren't ready to play, we weren't ready to compete," Bowness said. "Point your fingers at me and work your way down. Nobody was ready. To defend against that team, it takes hard work. We got outworked. There's no sugarcoating it. It was clear what was going on. We got outworked, we got outhustled and it starts with being ready to play. We weren't."
So now what?
For starters, the Stars still have a 3-2 lead in the best-of-7 series going into Game 6 in Edmonton, the West hub city, on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, SN, TVAS) after playing what was easily their worst game in the postseason, including the round-robin portion of the Stanley Cup Qualifiers.
"When your team is not ready you better take a look at yourself and what we did over the last 24 hours," Bowness said. "Let's take a good look at it. We had a good talk with them after the game and we'll address it again tomorrow."
He'll have to address the starting goalie for Game 6. Or maybe he already did.
Bishop didn't do anything to show he should get the start ahead of Khudobin, who made 20 saves on 22 shots in relief after starting the previous eight games because Bishop was injured and unfit to play.
In fact, Bowness said he thought about going back to Bishop to start the second period so he could give Khudobin more rest, but he nixed that idea when he saw how Khudobin was playing.
"The team wasn't playing well, we were getting bombarded, and he battled so hard in the net that it would have been tough to do [go back to Bishop]," Bowness said.
That battle is a good indication of where Bowness is leaning for his starter in Game 6, but the Stars will be in a heap of trouble if they find themselves again talking about blame and where it should go.
"Communicate with the guys and make sure we're ready to go," Stars captain Jamie Benn said of his role as a leader. "We weren't tonight."
