DALLAS — Ken Hitchcock could hardly see one of the NHL’s most exciting 3-on-3 overtime sessions of the season.
Consider it a side effect of having tall defensemen, four of them 6-foot-3 or taller.
“I couldn’t see a damn thing,” Hitchcock said. “I’ve got tall defensemen who refuse to sit down so I missed 90 percent of it, I’ll have to look at it (on video). Finally, I yelled at them to sit down so I could see what was going on. I had no idea who was even on the ice, the whole bench was up so I never saw a damn thing to be honest with you.”
Maybe that was a good thing after the Dallas Stars 3-2 shootout win against the Chicago Blackhawks.
For conservative coaches, that back-and-forth 3-on-3 overtime — which only featured two stoppages — would be a nightmare, perhaps even heart-attack inducing.
It was wide open, 2-on-1s were common, and both goalies were forced to make stellar saves. For a profession dedicated to control and limited risks, that 3-on-3 on Saturday night should have required hazard pay for Hitchcock and Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville.
But for the fans, it was thrill ride worth taking over and over again. For both the fans in the building (who admittedly might have been a bit nervous) and those across the country, who tuned in for hockey’s version of skydiving without a parachute when they saw Dallas and Chicago were tied at 2-2 after 60 minutes.
And frankly, we were denied an ideal finish to a stellar home-and-home series between two Central Division rivals. That game, that mini-series, it didn’t deserve a shootout.
Please, give us five more minutes of 3-on-3. Make it a 10-minute overtime session and effectively eliminate the dreaded shootout.
Overall this two-game home-and-home set with Chicago left us wanting more.
Let’s have the NHL schedule more home-and-home games with divisional rivals. The tenacity and emotion builds throughout the two-game series, and by Game 2 both teams are in postseason mode in early December.
“We knew it was gonna be a crazy atmosphere,” Stars defenseman Stephen Johns said. “That’s what you love as a player and as a fan of the game you want to see playoff type games in the regular season.”
On a team front, this extended a four-game win streak for the Stars, all of them while wearing yellow laces to honor Jere Lehtinen.
And the while wearing those yellow laces, the Stars have taken a very Lehtinen-esque approach to hockey. Like the Finnish winger, they’ve been playing disciplined, they’ve been killing penalties, and they’ve been finding that extra gear and actually overcoming adversity.
“We’re making each other accountable on a high level and helping each other on the bench,” Hitchcock said. “That’s the biggest change, we’re not just expecting to play well or just going out and playing; we’re really grinding and helping each other. The players are doing a great job in between periods and doing a great job on the bench. Reminding each other and helping each other. I think it’s forging a bond on the team that we need to get points.”
And one last note, how much fun would a playoff series be between the Stars and Blackhawks?
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