20/20: Stars beat buzzer to beat Avs in preseason

The first 20/20 of the 2024-25 season is ready for you to read.

Happy Monday everyone.

For those who are new to this space, this is the 20/20. It’s effectively my thoughts and observations of a game in 20-point numbered list.

I’ll be doing these for a large handful of Dallas Stars and Detroit Red Wings games this season. Essentially if I’m sitting down to watch the game, I can’t help but take notes and have thoughts, so why not share them?

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It’ll look like this.

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With that being said, let’s dive into the 20/20 from a preseason game between the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche that Dallas won 3-2 on a literal buzzer-beater.

1. Before we get any deeper in this piece, let’s call this game what it was — a Monday night preseason game, where both teams effectively fielded primarily AHL lineups.

Of the 20 players to dress for the Stars on Monday, roughly seven or eight will be NHL regulars this season.

Big name players sat this one out on both sides, so trying to read anything into the score of this game is pointless.

It was, however, more fun from a Stars perspective to win the game on a last second shot by Lian Bichsel that just beat the buzzer.

Here’s the video:

Here’s the overhead with the puck crossing the line with .2 seconds left on the clock.

Games are supposed to be fun, and this made the game more fun. But it doesn’t change the prior point about not reading too far into this result….

2. What we can read into is the how some positional battles are playing out and how certain line combinations and defensive pairings may or may not have started to mesh.

For example, it was intriguing watching Logan Stankoven on a line with Wyatt Johnston and Matěj Blümel, that’s a trio that could happen at some point in the regular season. Same goes for the pairing of Brendan Smith and Ilya Lyubushkin on the blue line, that’s a realistic duo.

3. Let’s start with that top line in this game, Stankoven-Johnston-Blümel.

Back in preseason Game 1, Stankoven was a menace and had nine of the Stars 26 shots against the St. Louis Blues. In preseason Game 2 he had the first scoring chance of the game in the first period and was once again a miniature menace on the ice.