On Tuesday, May 7th, 2019, the St.Louis Blues hosted the Dallas Stars in a decisive seventh game of their second round match-up. This game would span five periods, with one goal each being scored in the first period, and nothing more in regulation. The first overtime period came up empty, however the second iteration of overtime proved fruitful. Patrick Maroon, the hometown boy, scored at 5:50 to punch the ticket to the Western Conference Finals for the Blues.

So, how did that goal happen? Essentially, the goal came off a few defensive miscues from the Stars off a face-off. Let’s dig deeper:

Here’s the setup. We have on offensive zone face-off for St.Louis, and they’ve sent out Tyler Bozak’s (21) line, which is flanked by Robert Thomas (18) and Patrick Maroon (7). Out of frame, we have their defensemen who never enter the picture. Dallas has sent out Roope Hintz (24) to take the face-off, with Justin Dowling (37) and Jason Dickinson (16) on his wings, and Miro Heiskanen (4) with John Klingberg (3) on D. Both of their setups are fairly standard in the NHL. Maroon and Thomas have switched wings to both be open for shots for St.Louis, while Dallas has both wingers on the inside hashmarks, one D on the outside hashmarks, and one D in front of the net. Basic stuff.

Each of these players have assignments coming off this draw. Klingberg covers Maroon, Heiskanen covers Thomas, Hintz has Bozak, and the two wingers cover the points. Again, simple stuff. Here’s what happens once the puck is dropped. Bozak and Hintz scramble the draw. The strong-side winger for Dallas, in this case Jason Dickinson, will take a route “through the back” off the face-off circle and towards the strong-side D-man. The reason behind this is so that he’s always in the shooting lane for his guy, as opposed to if he lined up on the boards. When this player cuts through the back though, he’s also supposed to pick up any scrambled draws for an easy zone exit. However, this puck jumped out toward Patrick Maroon, who bumps it back for Robert Thomas, who was coming in for the loose puck.

Now, instead of going for the puck here, Dickinson realizes St.Louis has won full possession off the draw. He decides to pass off Thomas, the puck carrier, to the D while he takes his point man. Thomas should be Heiskanen’s man, who’s still in front of the net, although he’s mirroring Thomas, while Klingberg should have Maroon. However, Klingberg either panics or switches to a zone-defense coverage. He leaves Maroon and tries to jump Thomas here. There’s nothing wrong with Klingberg doing this, but he has to be able to trust his D-partner to pick up Maroon behind him.

The only problem with this is that Klingberg gets straight-up beat by a forehand-backhand by Thomas, and Heiskanen has only now realized that he’s nowhere near his responsibility. Hintz took Bozak to the net and tied up his stick well – Bozak never gets more than two or three feet away from the big Finnish center after the puck is dropped. However, the rookie defenseman has inexplicably taken to Bozak momentarily as well. He takes a few hard strides out at an attacking Thomas, who now has an open passing option in Patrick Maroon.

Thomas shoots it, a dragging-wrister that beats goalie Ben Bishop, but not the post. Heiskanen has attempted to disrupt the shot by getting stick-on-puck here, Hintz continues to tie-up Bozak, and Klingberg attempts to get back into the play.

Klingberg gets beat to the net by Maroon, doing nothing to tie up his stick while getting caught puck-watching. Maroon bangs in the rebound, and just like that, Dallas’ season is over and their summer has begun.