When the Dallas Stars defeated the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday night, it set up a deja vu series against the Dallas Stars in the Conference Finals.

No question, a number of the participants in this series were not on either roster last season, but nevertheless, it is Dallas and Edmonton. What will also feel eerily familiar to the Edmonton Oilers is the style of play of their opponent. This is the third series in a row the Oilers will play an elite rush offence team.

The Kings, Golden Knights and Stars were all in the top ten in high danger chances for via Natural Stat Trick. Each team generated a great deal of their chances off the rush, so once again, the Oilers — from the goaltender out — will be challenged to defend against an elite rush attack team. This time though, the Oilers are likely playing the most dangerous rush team of the three. How will the Stars play and what can the Oilers do to counter? Let’s go to the tape.

The Stars are running a very sophisticated 1-2-2 offensive zone forecheck. Most of the sophistication comes on the style of the chip-in. If it is a normal hard dump, the Stars will mostly play a conventional 1-2-2 with F2 and F3 spreading out to read and react off F1. Where it gets interesting is the soft chip chase style of play. In this instance, the Stars F2 has the option to stack F1 and get hard on the forecheck. F3 will then stay a little higher and in the middle of the ice waiting for pucks that may come through the middle of the zone. Here is an example of this style of forecheck.

While the Stars are not hard on defencemen physically, with the exceptions of Marchment and Benn, it can become wearing on a defender constantly retrieving soft chips. What this can end up doing is having defenders make quick decisions on retrievals hoping to beat the forecheck. When that happens, the Dallas Stars defence will step up and try and gain possession of the puck.

Here is an example where the Winnipeg defender didn’t even both to look. Had he done so, he would have seen the the time he had available. Instead, he hard rims the puck to the Stars defender and there is an immediately scoring chance.

Now that does not mean it isn’t beatable. Generally speaking, what can work at this type of aggressive forecheck is to have your forward group reload lower in the zone with the exception of the strong side winger. His role is to take the pinch from the D1 and try and keep the puck moving.

The centre can then support the puck low and hopefully it leads to a breakout with a winger in support. Here is an example from the Stars-Jets series. Notice the strong side winger get nice and low to support his defenceman. The centre, weakside winger and weakside defenceman are all in excellent positions to support the puck up the wall. The result is an easy exit.

What will be interesting in this series is what the Oilers coaching staff decides to do. They have three centres who can and will play lower in the zone on retrievals. However, that will impact their offence on the rush. Last year, the staff had those centres low and it worked well. Watch this clip involving Leon Draisaitl from last year’s Conference Finals.

The other element that has changed for the Oilers is this defence group. Each of them can pass the puck very well. Most of them are also very mobile at skating with the puck. I believe this will be a significant difference than from what the Stars faced in the first two rounds. The Oilers should have the ability to retrieve the puck quicker and have the option to skate or pass the puck out of trouble. Still, this Stars forecheck is very sophisticated and it will be a challenge.

Again, another element the Oilers have seen a lot of is the 1-2-2 neutral zone forecheck. This is a very straightforward tactic, but the Stars generate offence off of this tactic. Watch this clip here.

The Jets attack the neutral zone with speed. The Stars have a very nice structure on the three forwards. The strongside forwards F1 and F2 will attack the puck from each side to forced a turnover or a dump-in. In this case, the puck is turned over and look at the instinct of the Stars player. Get it back in the offensive zone and start working the attack.

What will be interesting this year is whether the Stars adjust this system against the Oilers. What the Oilers were able to do last year was attack this by swing the puck across the Royal Road (imaginary line down the middle of the ice from net to net). The idea here is to catch the Stars weakside players out of position which allows for a multiple player attack into the zone.

The Jets clearly took a page from their big book of tactics in how to handle the Stars here. Let’s take a look at a couple of clips. The first is a pretty simple D to D pass and then a great cross ice pass. Notice the Dallas F3 is late to respond and the Jets have an entry. As we will talk about later, the Stars can get puck locked in their defensive zone, which they did here. This led to a good Jets scoring chance.

Here is another clip which is almost identical. A quick D to D pass. The Dallas F3 is out of position and the neutral pass is made to the Jets forward. The Stars get focused on the puck and the Jets get another great chance.

The Oilers had similar success last playoffs against Dallas on this play. It will be interesting to see whether the Stars either adjust or focus on tightening up this tactic come Wednesday.

The Stars run a hybrid defensive zone. It is normally a box plus one with the Stars pressuring the puck on the walls when there is a loose puck. When the puck goes back up top to the defencemen, the Stars will press the defencemen hard.

If the puck is carried up to the blueline, the Stars checker will keep going regardless of his position. This can lead to a lot of pressure up close to the blueline which is what Dallas is hoping for. When it works, it leads to instance offence for the Stars. Watch this play.

What makes the Stars defensive zone dangerous is their instinct to attack. When the Stars get the puck, their forwards not involved are headed up the ice instantly as is the weakside defenceman. Watch this clip involving Roope Hintz and how he starts a breakout off the defensive zone with a great little pass. Again, the Stars run the little chip play behind the heels of the defender and the two forwards attack the puck.

However, as with their neutral zone, the Stars can get caught with good puck movement east-west. Watch what happens to the Stars when the puck changes sides on this play. There is a lot of puck watching. This leads to a great goal by the Jets. Three passes across the ice in less than ten seconds and the Stars were out of position.

Here is another one where four the Stars overload towards a puck down in the corner. The Jets sneak in behind the defenders and it is a goal against.

This defensive zone is very similar to what was run last year against the Oilers. It will be incumbent on the Oilers to swing this puck across the Royal Road consistently to create backside looks. In addition, the Oilers will need to watch their play up near the blueline.

This is where the Stars create chaos and feast on turnovers. The Oilers defenders will need pucks to get back low either by pass or skating. The Oilers forwards will also need to work on having a F3 in a good spot to support in case of a transition play. This will likely be higher in the zone.

The Stars have the best defenceman in this series. The might have the best two if Thomas Harley plays to his capability. Regardless, Heiskanen is a game changer. He just returned from a knee injury and didn’t take long to get up to speed. DeBoer ran an 11-7 possibly to bring Heiskanen along slowly, but by game six, it sure didn’t look like he needed it. Heiskanen is a one man break-out.

The Oilers will need to maintain discipline against this player and even then he will still likely have success. Watch this clip of a breakout and notice how little space he had to operate with, yet look at the result.

The Oilers forwards will need to work very hard to contain Heiskanen before he gets moving up the ice. He is one of the best creators of offence on the Stars and a good portion of that starts in his own zone.

This will be interesting in terms of what the Stars do. Heiskanen doesn’t need the help any longer, but the remainder of the defensive group behind him, Harley and Lindell is a challenge. It is possible the Stars play seven just to protect those bottom four from having big minutes. It should also be noted that Heiskanen and Harley play a lot together even with the seven defence alignment. It will be incumbent on the Oilers to take advantage of this situation with Heiskanen and Harley leave the ice.

The other element is Mikko Rantanen. In the the 11-7, Rantanen gets double shifted a lot. He plays regularly with Roope Hintz and Mikael Granlund. He will then get spotted into other lines with a focus on the Wyatt Johnson and Jason Robertson line. I’ll be curious what the Oilers do in this regard. Should they keep Draisaitl and McDavid apart, they may try to match both lines against Rantanen whenever he jumps on the ice. A match-up against Henrique could be trouble for the Oilers.

It certainly appears Mattias Ekholm will play in this series. If he does, how do the Oilers set their line-up. I would expect a lot of consideration to a 11-7 to start. Ekholm’s biggest impact may be on a penalty kill that needs some help on its left side. Even spotting Ekholm in a third-pairing type role with penalty kill minutes would be a big development for the Oilers. The forward group is quite comfortable 11-7 and Knoblauch has been quite creative in this regard.

That’s it for the series preview of the Oilers and the Stars. See you all back here on Thursday morning for a breakdown on game one. See you at the rink.