Big Trouble in Big D

You know, there's always something about Thanksgiving week and Dallas, and this year proves it. The Dallas Mavericks hosted a game on Thanksgiving Eve. Thanksgiving Day saw the Dallas Cowboys in action per usual, and Black Friday saw the Colorado Avalanche in Dallas against the rival Stars. This is the first meeting of the season between the two clubs, and the first meeting since last year's second round matchup, which saw the Stars victorious in six games due to the Avs being hampered by Val Nichushkin's issues again.

There is one silver lining, though. The last time we were in Dallas was Game Five of that series, and that was a victorious outing for us. And there's a second silver lining: this is our only visit to Dallas this year. The remaining two games of this three-game season set will be in Denver's Ball Arena.

Alexandar Georgiev was in net against Jake Oettinger, and it only took almost four minutes to call a penalty on us. It's like that playoff series never ended. We were on the verge of killing that penalty, but Tyler Seguin had other ideas. Seguin struck for Dallas and made it 1-0, but the Avs continued to press. We received a power play, and Valeri Nichushkin tied it up. We would not have the time to bask in that glory, as Mason Marchment gave Dallas the lead back 32 seconds later. Even worse, we were called for too many men, but that got killed off. Avs had another power play, but that was kaput, too.

2-1 was the score after 20, and just as we were on the verge of something, Jamie Benn--he of the dirty hit that was never called in last year's playoffs--made it 3-1. And late in the period, Devon Toews was called for high sticking against Mason Marchment. The stick never hit Marchment. It was total embellishment. Yet Toews got penalized. Yeah, it really is like the playoff series never ended. In fact, the refs found those same Stars armbands from last year and put them on in this game. And thanks to that ill-gotten power play, Roope Hintz made it 4-1. Yikes.

Avs were down by three entering the third period, but barely over a minute in, Artturi Lehkonen strikes, and it's a two goal game. Seven minutes later, Mikko Rantanen makes it a one goal game. And a miracle happened afterwards: they actually called something on Jamie Benn. I'll be money the refs hated to make that call. Power play looked good, but resulted in nothing. Georgiev was pulled for the extra attacker, but a misplay by Cale Makar resulted in Mason Marchment--he of the oversell job from Period 2--putting it in the empty net. We try it again, but it falls short.

It never fails. Every time we face a Peter DeBoer team, the refs swallow their whistles when his teams pull shit. I think they're still afraid of DeBoer after 2021, where he (a coach for Vegas at that time) bitched about that penalty in overtime of Game Two. It was a legit penalty, but not only did DeBoer piss and moan about it, the refs actually caved and stopped calling anything on Vegas. And they're still scared of DeBoer. We saw it in last year's playoffs and we saw it in this game. Dallas got away with everything and the refs made up shit to call on the Avs. It never ends.

This is the first of a back-to-back set, and in our next game, we're playing against another team whose hand is held by the refs: the Edmonton Oilers. At least this outing is on our home ice, so our fans will kindly let the zebras know if they're fucking up.

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