This is two weeks of action in the playoffs, and many conversations around Dallas stars are different.
Before the stars started their last eliminatory series, they were on a sequence of seven consecutive defeats. Jason Robertson had just undergone an injury to the lower body, and Miro Heiskanen still did not seem particularly close to returning from his.
But two weeks later, the stars challenged the chances, eliminating the Colorado avalanche in seven games. They enter their second round series against the Winnipeg jets as a favorite, especially since these two injured players could return from match 1.
As much as some of the conversations are different two weeks later, the coach of the stars Pete Deboer still had to address the same reality against his team one day before he flies towards Winnipeg: the stars still have not won a match 1 under Deboer or from the Bulle of the Stanley 2020 Cup.
Until the stars can take this sequence of eight matches of match 1 – which was extended with a 5-1 defeat against Colorado on April 19 – Deboer will continue to face these same questions, perhaps every two weeks.
Dallas has an even more difficult test this match 1 against Winnipeg than in its last four, starting the series on the road against the jets, who have not yet lost an eliminatory match this year in Canada Life Center.
But the stars actually welcome the change of landscape.
“It's something different for us,” said Deboer. “I hope it changes the story.”
The stars were better at home than on the road this year, collecting 59 of their 106 points at home and 47 on the road. This remained the same in the playoffs because the stars won three of the four games at American Airlines Center, dropping two of the three in Ball Arena.
But while they enter Match 1 in Winnipeg, there is intrinsically less pressure. If the stars can win one of the first two games in Winnipeg, he is considered to steal one, and they only have to win on the ice at home from there.
Dallas also tends to improve as a continuous eliminatory series. The stars showed that in the first round against Colorado, where they only won extensive in 1-4 games before winning two multi-drum payment victories in 5-7 matches. Goalkeeper Jake Oettinger also improved over the series.
Deboer said he loved the chess match of an eliminatory series and made adjustments throughout – and in his career, he has excelled in this area. But the stars head coach could not do it in the regular season series against jets.
Even if these games looked like eliminatory caliber games, it looked more like a series of games separated per month, where the stars are already not thriving. It is not surprising that Winnipeg went 3-1 in four regular season meetings and preceded Dallas 13-5.
“I think that the playoffs are a different animal,” said stars striker Matt Duchene. “We did not like many of our games against them. But the qualifiers are different. They play an eliminatory style during the regular season, and we, sometimes, we did not adapt to this during the regular season, but we are now in the playoffs.”
The stars have undoubtedly increased their match since the start of the playoffs, and the victory of match 1 is far from their final goal in a series of seven games with a trip to the Western Conference final.
But if the stars can capitalize on their change of circumstances, they could make their lives much easier at the end of the series than in turn 1.
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