One game lost is not the end of the world, but when it comes to the Dallas Stars, last night was a rough one.
Everyone has their own pet peeves. Some folks hate the sound of chewing, others can’t stand to be cut off in traffic. Me? Well, without taking the time to clue you in on the many things that rub me the wrong way, last night’s loss to the Penguins is my pet peeve.
Games like that are often a vicious cycle. The favored team comes out and takes advantage of an often glaringly obvious bias, the underdog team is intimidated into playing badly, and it all compounds into the perfect storm.
Let’s start with what went right last night. Kari Lehtonen was a giant in goal in Ben Bishop’s absence, and if any of the Stars deserved a win, it was him. The next silver lining of the game was Kelly Forbes, who did his best to dig the Stars out of their own muck with an amazing goal challenge that stuck due to an overlooked offsides call.
And here’s where we can depart from silver linings. The refs seemed to be orchestrating the outcome in this one straight from the start. Early in, Evgeni Malkin waged some clearly dirty war on multiple Stars players, including John Klingberg.
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The media bias (watch out for that Penguins fake news, folks) was evident in the announcers’ take on all the penalties and their explanation of the Stars’ play as it devolved throughout the night.
Klingberg was lucky his tussle with Malkin didn’t put him in the penalty box. Lehtonen was lucky that’s Sidney Crosby let him off easy and didn’t score on him.
The real story seemed to be devoid of luck, though. As the Stars racked up penalties and faced less than fair calls, the rhythm of the game was halted in its tracks and they were never able to regroup.
The Stars of last night were familiar creatures to us. Turnovers in neutral ice, shaky defending, low shot count. These Stars hadn’t come out to play in a while because the team had latched onto the thing that so often staves off this sort of disintegration: confidence.
But, long story short, the NHL seemed as if it was conspiring to steal the Stars’ confidence last night and save for the successful goal challenge, not much seemed to go their way.
While this is an upsetting way to start the Stars’ longest and most important roadtrip of the year, it’s safe to hope with reason that the Stars will turn around from this.
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Apologies to any Pens fans who’ve wandered in here, but I️ think we can attribute last night’s implosion to the bias bug and try not to let it stay under our skin.
Still, if the Stars want to rise through the ranks and be a bigger team, these are the kind of things they’re going to have to find a way to overcome. The Penguins have gone where the Stars want to go, and they won’t be unseated by sheer force of will and exasperation from the penalty box.
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For now, though, the most cathartic thing for all of us fans is probably to take a deep breath, have some calming tea or some engage in some other peaceful morning ritual, and then go punch something and rest in the fact that NHL refs don’t officiate our lives.