Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Another day, another series, another opponent, and another challenge await the Texas Stars.
Tonight the Stars will again fight for their season when they host the Abbotsford Canucks in Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals. The Canucks took a 5-4 overtime win Wednesday night in Game 4 at H-E-B Center to take a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series. If Texas is successful tonight, they will be called upon to match this feat two more times if they are to advance to the Calder Cup Finals to face the Charlotte Checkers. Three one-goal losses, two of them in overtime, have left the Stars in this predicament.
While the process may not be all that much fun, they have shown before that they can extricate themselves from difficult situations.
For one, they came back home this week trailing the series, 2-0, and responded with a dominant 5-2 victory in Game 3 on Monday night. And one round ago, they fought off the Milwaukee Admirals on the road in the deciding Game 5 of the Central Division Finals. This is a roster with players who have shown that it can be comfortable playing under pressure.
Two standout players have been through these pressure situations before. Forwards Cameron Hughes and Kole Lind went to back-to-back Calder Cup Finals with the Coachella Valley Firebirds the past two seasons before coming to the Dallas Stars organization last summer as free agents. Two years ago, the Firebirds played elimination games against Tucson, Colorado (twice), and Calgary just to reach the Calder Cup Finals against Hershey. Then they played a Game 6 elimination game that they won and took the Bears to overtime of Game 7 before finally falling.
Captain Curtis McKenzie has been through these elimination games before. Defenseman Alex Petrovic just returned from pressure-packed Stanley Cup Playoff games with the Dallas Stars.
They have delivered nine goals in two games against Canucks goaltender Artūrs Šilovs, someone who has been nearly unbeatable at times this postseason. Forward Matěj Blümel has heated up with three goals in the two home games this week. They also have broken through what had been a nearly impenetrable Abbotsford penalty kill that had gone 39-for-40 in the postseason. But the Stars have gone 3-for-7 on the power play in the past two games. Petrovic is back from Dallas and looked sharp in Game 4. Magnus Hellberg provided an excellent relief effort Wednesday night, and it took Danila Klimovich’s dazzling effort to win the game for the Canucks.
So, this is hardly a hopeless situation, especially for a high-character, all-out team like the Stars. That is the message that head coach Neil Graham will be stressing to his players. He has shown that he will be critical of his team if it is deserved. There was nothing critical in his post-game comments Wednesday, however. This is a head coach who is proud of his players and what they have built for the past eight months together.
“We never stop playing,” Graham said. “We play to our identity, but you’ve got to give their team credit as well. It’s a heck of a series. Both teams, there’s stretches of probably four or five minutes where we’re going to score three goals, and then all of the sudden there’s stretches of four or five minutes where I’m like, ‘Geez, they might score three goals.’
“It’s two really good hockey teams. We’re down 3-1 and I think that’s the part that obviously is disappointing, but at the end of the day, if we won that game, I’d be saying, ‘Reset, take care of your body, and move on.’ We lose the game – ‘Reset, take care of your body, move on.’
“Game 5 is Game 5. Whether you won or lost today, you want to win Game 5, so we’ll reset and be ready for the next one.”
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.
