Dallas Stars Not Experiencing Help They Had Last Season
By Josh Clark
The Dallas Stars still sit on the outside looking in with only 22 games left to play in the season. Little time remains, and a six point gap proves to be a massive deficit to overcome.
This has many Dallas Stars fans up in arms regarding the fact that playoffs seemed to be a definite at the beginning of the year.
The Stars, now 27-24-9 with 63 points, entered the 2014-2015 campaign with high hopes. After a successful offseason that saw the additions of Jason Spezza, Ales Hemsky, and Patrick Eaves, the Stars were called early contenders by many.
This offseason came off the coattails of a surprising 2013-2014 season in which the Dallas Stars defied the odds and qualified for the playoffs for the first time in six seasons with a young and inexperienced lineup leading the way. The Stars only made it to the first round, where they eventually fell to the Anaheim Ducks after six intense, exhilarating games. But they proved their relentlessness in the series and that they would be a threatening club in the near future.
With a few amazing moves on July 1st, 2014, the Dallas Stars seemed poised for glory.
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Now, at February 24th, 2015, the Stars playoff hopes look strained and bleak at best. The question fronted by Stars fans now is, “How could this already playoff-caliber team that only got better in the offseason end up disappointing us so badly?”
The fact is, last year’s Dallas Stars team was looking this same way, aside from the upgraded talent, at this point last year as well. But that team ran into a heavy silver lining.
As an ensuing battle with the Arizona Coyotes and Vancouver Canucks lingered on for the final wild card spot, the Dallas Stars hit a stroke of luck. With the Canucks deteriorating and silently slipping behind, the Stars only had the Coyotes to deal with.
On March 24th, 2014, the Coyotes were facing off with the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden when sharp starting goaltender Mike Smith was rammed into by a Rangers player. He laid on the ice for a few minutes writhing in pain before being helped off the ice by team trainers. It was later confirmed that Smith had a sprain in his right leg and would miss some time. With only three weeks left in the season, it was a major blow to the Coyotes’ hopes.
Smith had carried the Coyotes throughout the year. He had started 62 of the 72 games the Coyotes had played up to the point of injury. He faced 31 shots a night on average as the starter and held a decent save percentage of .915 and a goals against average of 2.64. Without him, the Stars saw their time to strike.
With a plagued Coyotes team that went 2-6-1 up until the Stars clenched the last playoff spot, the Stars rallied and pulled off a needed 6-4-0 record, beating the Central Division powerhouse St. Louis Blues 3-0 to seal the deal on April 11th.
With that help absent this year, the Dallas Stars will have to fend for themselves. In many ways, the Stars have been struck down by the force that aided them last year in the loss of Tyler Seguin to a lengthy leg injury. Either way, the Stars are officially cornered in and will have to claw their own way out with a lot of force if they even want playoffs to still be mentioned by early March. Six points with extra games is not a good mix, and they know it. Now is the last chance they will get to group together and launch a last attempt to salvage their season.
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