OK, so last night was fun.
Quinn Hughes basically ran Dallas out of the playoffs by himself with two delicious scoring plays, and this time the Stars can’t hang Otter out to dry because goaltending wasn’t the problem. They can’t scapegoat Jason Robertson either, since he and Wyatt Jonshon were basically the only guys scoring goals. Their even strength scoring was pretty much a no-show against the Wild, which led to just a horror show in the plus/minus column. Rantanen was -8, Heiskanen was -9. Their only plus guys were part timers … Bunting with +1 in 1 game, Nils Lunqvist with +1 in 4 games. Honestly, that’s just miserable. I figured rehiring Gulutzan would bite them, and he had no real adjustments to offer as his team got speed boated at even strength by a more top heavy team that should have offered some matchup options. Honestly, I loved it. Plus, I didn’t realize it had been 11 freaking years since the Wild got out of the first round. Good on ‘em.
Then Team Fun blasted Team Dreadfully Serious out west. Anaheim is playing pretty much exactly the way Florida played under Quenneville and you can’t deny that it’s fun to watch. Not sure it’s gonna hold up much longer because they really defend like they’re unfamiliar with basic concepts, but hey … chicks dig an odd man rush, right? Everything about the Oilers is like some sort of global crisis for whatever reason so it’s always nice to just be done with the drama. At least this year they didn’t make us loathe them all the way to the Finals only to lose to a team that everybody loathes even more. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, guys. I hope your off season sucks too.
