What’s gone wrong with the Dallas Stars?
The Dallas Stars were picked by many (Ed. Note: Raises hand, gingerly) to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs this season.
And 19 games into the season, they’re two points away from the Western Conference basement, having lost to the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night, 6-4. Which Mike Heika decided was rock bottom for the season. Which doesn’t sound good, especially after they blew a lead vs. the Chicago Blackhawks in the previous loss.
What misfortune has befallen Tyler Seguin and the boys?
1. No Help For Seguin
Seguin’s been awesome. If this team rallies for a playoff spot, he’ll be a Hart finalist.
His supporting cast … well, it’s been a bit of a one-man show.
He’s the only Stars player with more than 20 points (24) and the only Stars player with more than 10 goals (14). The next highest goal-scorer? Jamie Benn with six, matching his start from last year (seven goals in 19 games). That said, Defending Big D sees a problem here:
This is all circular and it's all tied together; Benn has had some of the best chances for the Stars in the third periods in which they've lost. If even half of those chances go in, then the Stars likely have a few more wins at this point, the mental aspect of all this isn't nearly as bad as it's become and Benn himself would definitely not be in the funk he finds himself.
Perhaps Benn's confidence is a big factor here, the goals aren't going in and he's not as comfortable in the rest of his game as he normally would be when he's "on." The good news, if there is any, is that Benn is at least getting his chances and shots -- but mostly because of the playmaking of others around him.
The big guns aren’t firing as they should, and the rest of the lineup hasn’t chipped in, especially on defense: Six goals, and five of them from been from Trevor Daley (four on the power play).
Oh, and the less said about Ales “Two Assists In 18 Games And A Minus-10” Hemsky, the better.
The problem is that when things aren’t going well on offense, Ruff has always been one to stick his lines on a blender. Which means no more MEGALINE with Seguin, Benn and Spezza, and Cody Eakin getting a look on the top line vs. Carolina.
2. Kari Lehtonen Hasn’t Been Good
Here’s Lindy Ruff on his goaltending, after the loss to Carolina:
“Obviously I’ve been riding him (Lehtonen) a lot. He’s played a lot of hockey. He’s not going to like his game…I didn’t like his game. He’s been my guy and he’s going to continue to be my guy but he needs help. We can criticize those goals but we made some plays that we don’t need to make that hurt us. He just went through a tough stretch. He was hanging in there tough in Chicago and gave us a chance. There were just a couple of plays there that you can fault him for.”
It’s true that the defense in front of Lehtonen has been somewhat woeful (more on that in a second), but he hasn’t provided much either: .913 EV save percentage, down from .925 last season.
Overall, the Stars are the second-worst defensive team in the NHL with a 3.47 team GAA. Which is a problem when you’re only scoring 2.74 goals per game.
3. Possession Takes A Tumble
Last year under Ruff, the Stars were 12th in the NHL in Corsi5v5Close, at 51.2 percent, which was in league with possession darlings the Detroit Red Wings and the Columbus Blue Jackets.
This season? They’re 20th at 48.8 percent Corsi5vs5Close. Smaller sample size, obviously, but they’ve taken a bit of a tumble.
What does this indicate? That they can't play with a lead, for one. They're Corsi5v5 when leading is 42.1 percent, which is one reason why their goals-for percentage (goals for divided by goals for plus goals against) is just 30.8 percent. That's 28th in the NHL.
Dallas had led seven times after the first period. They've lost four of those games. That's not going to get you back to the playoffs.
4. They’re Terrible On Home Ice
Just atrocious. They’re now 1-5-4 on home ice; only the Blue Jackets have failed to win at least thrice on home ice. Last season at home for Dallas? The Stars were 23-11-7. Pretty darn good.
Lindy Ruff on his team’s home ice struggles, and the five-game homestand they’re on:
“This is the biggest test I’ve ever been through. I don’t think I’ve ever gone through anything like this in the home building. We drew up a little bit of a different game plan. I thought if I got Eakin, Seguin and Benn out against some certain individuals that we could get them on the board and get them going. You get one thing going and another goes sideways. We’ve had great games here where we just couldn’t get that big save to win the game. You also need one less big mistake at certain times.”
They haven’t gotten either.
5. Maybe Jim Nill Is Fallible
Last summer, we were all showering Jim Nill with drool over his Jason Spezza trade, Hemsky signing and the afterglow of the Seguin deal and the playoff berth.
But he gambled this season on one aspect of the team that hasn’t come through, writes Brandon Worley of Defending Big D:
The consensus was that defense was the biggest issue with the Stars last season and this year was going to be no exception. Not enough experience on the blue line and not enough "proven" players known to be capable of sustaining high levels of play through a season.
Now, it's pretty clear that bad play on defense is costing this team games and the Stars are scrambling to fix the issue.
To be fair to Jim Nill, I don't think anyone predicted that Trevor Daley, Jordie Benn and Brenden Dillon would all violently regress as much as they have to start the season. Patrick Nemeth's injury took away the one player the Stars had who was capable of filling the true "defensive defenseman" role, and Jamie Oleksiak clearly isn't the players we should expect to fill it.
The trade of Sergei Gonchar and losing Kevin Connauton on waivers to Columbus were done for cap space but also to reconfigure a blue line that hadn’t been working.
Here’s the blue line for the Stars this season. Does it scream “Western Conference contender”?
***
Then again, we were the ones screaming “WESTERN CONFERENCE CONTENDER” from the rooftops before the season. The fact is that this was a bubble team that got better on paper, and perhaps expecting the same results from players who were a bit better than advertised was a mistake.
It’s still early, and the Stars have been going through a particularly tough stretch of games. But six wins in 19 games and six points off the wild card pace isn’t where management, coaches, players or fans thought this team would be after 19 games.
