First Shift 🏒
Physicality is being dialed up in the Stars First Round playoff series with Colorado, and Dallas doesn’t mind.
While the two rivals showed a great amount of respect in early games, especially concerning the return of Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog from a three-year injury absence, the weight of reality has hit. The Stars are up 3-2 in the series and can send Colorado home with a win on Thursday, and that became clear in Game 5, as the two teams had several scrums late in a 6-2 Dallas win.
“We were much more competitive physically [Monday] night than we were in Game 4,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “That’s a big part of our game, particularly defensively. I thought the entire group was more competitive in that area. The penalties that we took were defending, which I don’t mind. If you’re battling in front of our net to help save a goal, no problem.”
Dallas is not known as the most physical of teams as it ranked 31st in the regular season at 15.1 hits per game. The Stars have upped that to 30.4 in the first five games of the playoffs. The Stars are trying to walk the line between hitting hard and not getting penalized and that has been a balancing act, but DeBoer said he likes what they are doing.
“I thought that was our best night for that,” DeBoer said of Game 5. “The penalties we did take were defending, which I don’t mind. It’s the one that are 200 feet from our net that we have to avoid.”
The Stars’ group of defensemen has been challenged all year. Rookie Lian Bichsel is listed at 6-7, 231 and has added a physical element after being called up from the minors. He is joined by Alexander Petrovic (6-5, 211), who also spent most of the year in the AHL. The top four have good size in Thomas Harley (6-3, 211), Esa Lindell (6-3, 217), Ilya Lyubushkin (6-2, 200) and Cody Ceci (6-3, 218).
"We’ve got some big men back there,” DeBoer said. “Lindell, Bichsel, Petrovic. Even Ceci, Lyubushkin and Harley. It's a big group of defenders, and I think they're hard to play against when our forwards are managing the puck. That group can really play a physical, hard game, and I thought they took a toll on some of their guys tonight."
Bichsel has been most notable. He had 155 hits in 38 games during the regular season and was in the middle of several skirmishes on Monday. He also revved up the crowd when he played to them in the penalty box late in the game. Forward Matt Duchene said that can also rev up the opposition, but it’s just part of the playoffs.
“You don’t want to give fuel to that,” Duchene said with a smile. “He might get a few extra ounces of body weight behind hits after that. He’s just got to deal with it now. Sometimes when you do that stuff in the moment, you have to prepare for what might come. Thankfully, he’s basically Goliath out there, so he can handle it.”
Fellow forward Rantanen said Bichsel was noticeable.
“It’s great,” Rantanen said. “He’s 7-feet tall or something with skates and 300 pounds, so I’m happy to be on his side. With the way he hits guys, it’s hard to go to the net when he’s on the ice. He boxes out really well. Sometimes he gets calls against him just because he’s so big. Smaller guys probably wouldn’t get those calls. So, he’s unfortunate a little bit on that sometimes, but it’s a physical game in the playoffs, and I think he feeds off that, and I think he’s quite great.”
DeBoer said he likes what he has seen from the 20-year-old.
“There’s no doubt he’s a physical presence and he takes a piece of everybody out there,” DeBoer said. “I think that’s what everybody wants at this time of year. He’s a hard guy to play against.”
And that helps make the Stars a hard team to play against.
“That’s playoff hockey,” DeBoer said. “It’s a war out there at ice level and there are a lot of individual battles every shift. It does bring your group together when you are standing up for each other.”
