GoldAppleCorps

Look. Game 5 was a clown show. Not defending that. This game has been a thoroughly contested effort where the best player in the world got 2 early. We gotta get another one by Skinner. The Oilers completely shut down their offense. Have to make them pay for that!

Pull Otter if you have to. This has to score!

It's not my old assed legs, but the Oilers are attempting a 30 minute PK. Only way to break that is by out skating them. Gonna be exhausting.

The refs aren't going to call everything. When your power play is this weak, the other team is gonna play like bullies. They don't fear getting called.

The last time the Stars won the Cup, we were tied at 2 games apiece in the Western Conference Finals with the Colorado Avalanche. We had the home game for Game 5, and we got boat raced 7-5. We won the next 2 games with 4-1 scores. I want to believe the last 10 minutes of Fridays game was us tearing the seal off the goal.

We got a little bass in our voice there at the end. Gonna take some funky luck to change the outcome in the 3rd

Cycle down low! Draw them out!

We're not gonna put 3 shots on net for the rest of this game.

That wasn't an "Edmonton player". That was Connor McDavid - the most perfect hockey player ever! If he got dinged, we'd have to stop the playoffs until he could return.

Get the puck out of the zone! Again, we make a sideways pass that gets fumbled. The result is a frantic shooting gallery.

We can score goals with anybody. We can grind and claw with the best of them. What we can't do is withstand our own good fortune. The cloud in my head says that Tanev will be "day to day" until he returns late September to (somebody's) training camp. Edmonton knows we spread out high and look to the middle on our PP. Stop throwing the puck into the center knot of bodies. They're standing there waiting for it. FFS, get low and press toward the net. Make them come get it.

Gonna take a LOT of stones to leave Skinner in net.

We're all sports fans here, and we've all seen it before. You gear up for a really tough game. Your game plan is to fight and scratch until the end. Then, the game starts, and you quickly put a knot on the other guys' head. Trouble is, you're not really sure how you did it, and you don't know what to do next. Do you keep pressing and risk losing your fortunate lead? Do you lay back and defend for basically the entire game? What to do with your 60 minute game plan that just became a 10 minute one? Of course, the other team can either give up and skate it out, or go into hyper-attack mode. This isn't game 30 of the regular season. This is the Western Conference Finals. The Stars saw it against the Avs in game 1. Re-finding your focus after good fortune is a tough task. I expect Edmonton to spend the next 48 hours putting their eggs back in the basket. They're a proud franchise with plenty of talent to win the Cup, but they have to answer the bell Wednesday night.

The. Puck. Leaves. The. Zone. Every time! Maybe it's icing. Whatever. Don't miss a clear trying to make a pretty play.

A lead - if t you can keep it

EDM is playing like Vegas. Keeping everything to the outside and ensuring they're always shoulder to shoulder with their man. Dallas is going to have to play ugly. Trying to skate past Edmonton won't work. Slap the puck below the goal line, race to it, and draw the Oilers out from the middle. Skinner made the 5 saves this game where he didn't even know the puck was there. Luck had 5 to even out eventually. Better second period. We had the more dangerous scoring chances. Just gotta get one in before EDM accidentally junks one in on a drive by.

Canada has some surprising entrance requirements that catch some travelers short. Drug convictions or minor violent crime (domestic violence) can require you to get special permission to enter Canada. This isn't a quick process, so start early. Public Service Message because this is Surly and it's likely to be germane.

I still have twitchy nightmares about JS Giguere and Jonathan Quick - two goalies who backstopped otherwise good-but-not-great teams to Stanley Cup victories. That is to say, it's possible to lose the Cup with top tier goalkeeping, but you're not winning it without it. Vancouver's replacement for the replacement GK rose up and stole a couple of games. Now, it seems he may have overperformed. In a scoring battle with leaky goalies, Edmonton wins. Besides, the Stars have to play the Oilers in the playoffs for good things to happen. It's always been that way.

DUTCHIE!!!!!!

They just changed the rules of hockey to keep the Avs alive.

The Avs have had some dangerous shots skip just away from the net all series long. Tonight, Makar was banking one in just under the cross-bar. Pucks just beating the end of the period into the net. Over the course of a series, those things even out. That said, I'm disappointed Otter let in only the 2nd or 3rd (depending on your opinion) softie of the playoffs. I suppose it's good to get them all chalked up into the same loss. The Colorado Avalanche aren't a bunch of suckers. They can light the lamp, and we let them play their game over the 2nd half last night. These playoffs are now more mental fortitude than anything, so rely on that moxie that dug out of an 0-2 hole against Vegas, outlast the Avs, and win Game 6.

"Skating with your head down is never OK" - Sincerely, Eric Lindros

Getting indications that Marchment is available tonight.

I appreciate the hockey tradition of "letting them play" when it comes to the playoffs. Refs don't want to insert themselves in the game, so a hit that's likely boarding gets overlooked if the player gets up. A straightforward cross check or slash can pass. When the pace of the game gets changed (like the Vegas guy that broke his stick across Heiskanen's back) or the puck carrier is knocked down, then a call has to be made (I'd be curious to know if Robertson's high stick contact would have been called if he hadn't hit the ice. Clearly a blatant high-stick, but it created a 5 on 3). In this case, the ref had to make a call. It was a deserved call, and one so blatant that it should have legitimately put the Stars on the PP with 4 minutes left. However, he didn't have the stomach for it, so he evened up the on-ice power with an embellishment call that no one believes.

To be fair, Makar is a defender (at least positionally - I think he's a winger who chose to specialize on defense) so he's going to be on ice a lot more. He just fires slappers from the blueline with such alacrity that he looks like a forward. Whomever survives this series is going to see too much of Conor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl (no, I'm not giving Vancouver a chance). If you have them on your team, you roll that line as often as possible. If MacKinnon is on your club, he's on the ice whenever he can be. If I'm Dallas, I'm reviewing tape to see if there's any way to slow down the Avs PP. Positionally, they just made scoring too easy. Being afraid to take penalties will neuter the Stars game.