Tyler Seguin's been awesome for a couple of years now. Boston seemingly traded him to Dallas for off-ice issues, none of which, at the time or now, struck me as important enough to move a player of that caliber.
Boston, unlike most organizations, can get away with that move in the short-term. Their roster is deadly with or without him, and they did get a decent crop of talent (Loui Eriksson is just ridiculously good) back in last summer's deal. Still, I think you look at Boston the same way you look at any good organization here -- more often than not they're right, but there's always room for a bad move or two. Plenty of examples to pick from league-wide here.
Anyways, back to Seguin for a little. He's getting some help from excellent linemates in Jamie Benn and Valeri Nichushkin, and really just destroying Anaheim on every other shift. As bad as any player is taking care of his first-round opponent, anyway. When Anaheim had last change in the first two games, they seemed to match power with power -- the data for game one is sort of fuzzy, but game two saw Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, and Devante Smith-Pelly log 66% of their even-strength shifts against Seguin's group.
Seguin, et al. actually did quite well against the Getzlaf group. Losing effort for the team, but with Seguin on the ice, it was a touch in favor of Dallas.
The Stars won both home games after falling down 0-2. I'm not sure either contest has been close. Unlike on the road, when Lindy Ruff had to swallow a tougher pill and watch Boudreau deploy Getzlaf against Seguin, Dallas had the luxury of last change here. And, guess what? The ice-time has been much more favorable. Seguin saw an even spread of competition in game three, and in game four, Ruff even got Seguin out the majority of the time against guys like Daniel Winnik, Saku Koivu, and Jakob Silfverberg.
Anyways, larger point: this series is tied 2-2, and I don't think anyone should be surprised. Anaheim's a pretty good team -- they rode the percentages a bit and I'm bullish on them being a Cup contender, but they aren't exactly paper tiger Colorado or Pittsburgh here. But, Dallas is a pretty good team too, and that Seguin line might be one of the best in business right now.
This, to me, is telling:
A lot's been made about the 'grind it out' lines Dallas is throwing out there in the bottom-six, but if you're Bruce Boudreau, I'm looking at this and saying what a lot of other people are thinking: "Stop Seguin, stop the Dallas Stars." Ryan Garbutt, for example, has been out-attempted 51-48 in the series.
Easier said than done on the whole stopping Tyler Seguin thing, probably. If you throw Getzlaf out there against Seguin he'll do fine, but that's going to create some tougher match-ups down the line. And if you don't get Getzlaf out there against Seguin, you're going to run into the nightmare that was games three and four.
One quick side note, Exhibit One Trillion in why possession matters both ways: Tyler Seguin's been on the ice for all of one even-strength goal against in this series.
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Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
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