Dallas Stars Missing Key Pieces For Deep Playoff Run

After the hot start that the Dallas Stars embarked on they have finally hit their first major rough patch. Before January, Dallas hadn’t lost back to back games, but since then it hasn’t gone as well as they had hoped. In January they went 3-6-2.

Lindy Ruff has said time and time again that the Stars are the only team not already in playoff mode and that’s not something to be proud of. With the trade deadline coming up on February 29, teams are trying to figure out whether they are going to be buyers or sellers.

The Dallas Stars are most likely not going to be sellers once the deadline hits. I don’t expect them to do all that much for now, but as we know with Jim Nill, he might just shock us all and manage to pull a blockbuster trade, but I don’t see that happening until the summer if it does.

I think we can all agree that something needs to happen: the team has to get into playoff mode now or else they could risk their home ice advantage.

It’s safe to say the Stars have a pretty good chance of making the playoffs this year. That’s not a shocker to anyone with the start they had. The real question with the Dallas this year is: how deep will they go into the playoffs? If they don’t do anything with the roster they have now it’s not going to be a very deep run.

We can all agree that the Stars can score; the stats don’t lie. They’re second in the league in goals scored per game at 3.25, only behind the Capitals.  Now on the flip side of that, they are giving up 2.63 goals a game which puts them right in the middle of the pack at 15th in the league. A  That stat is the issue; the fact that they’re scoring 3-4 goals a game is great but if they’re giving up 2-3 goals a game, that’s going to create problems. Now the Stars do lead the league in one goal wins, but that’s not going to win them a cup. That puts them in the playoffs and maybe as far as the second round.

The old saying goes: defense wins championships, and frankly that is something Dallas lacks. The Dallas Stars need to fix their D-core. They have a solid top four with Johnny Oduya, John Klingberg, Jason Demers, and Alex Goligoski, but after that they don’t have anyone who can really play solid games night in and night out.

They have been rolling with 8 D-men all year. Having that many isn’t helping young players develop. Guys like Patrik Nemeth, Jyrki Jokipakka and Jamie Oleksiak, all 23 years old, aren’t consistent enough to play a full season in the NHL.

Oleksiak, who has only played 12 games with Dallas this season, sits in the stands nearly every night as a healthy scratch, which isn’t helping him grow as a player. He’s 23 years old on the last year of his entry level contract with a two way deal, meaning he can bypass waivers.

If Dallas sends a guy down to the Texas Stars in the AHL, they should keep him there where he can play in every situation possible and eat up all the ice time he can handle. Those defensemen that are 19-21 years old aren’t going to be able to help the Stars for another 3-5 years. Nemeth, Jokipakka and Oleksiak have the potential be good enough and lead the team but right now they just aren’t ready for NHL hockey.

The Stars have to do something before the trade deadline if they want any hope of making a deep run in the playoffs. Now they don’t have to blow up the whole D-core but if they can get a veteran defenseman with playoff experience that can play 10-15 minutes a game on the third pairing in a shutdown role, then maybe they can make a deep playoff run.

They need to trade for a Deryk Engelland type, who has three years left on his contract and is a solid shutdown player that averages 12:21 TOI. With the remaining time on his contract, this gives the Stars the opportunity to send down Nemeth, Jokipakka and Oleksiak to the AHL and let them develop.

Another player the Dallas Stars could get to fill this role would be Barret Jackman who averages 14:08 TOI a game. He can fill the same role that Engelland can but he only has two years left on his contract which would still allow the Stars to send the younger players down to the minors.

One last guy Dallas could get is Mark Borowiecki; he is the youngest of the three players at only 26 years old, as well as the cheapest with an AAV of $1 million a year. Borowiecki the biggest risk with only 136 NHL games (6 of those in last year’s playoffs) under his belt, but he has proven that he is a solid shutdown defenseman.

Those are just three of the guys that the Stars could possibly acquire before the trade deadline. They don’t have to do anything up front because they have four solid lines that can score goals, and goals win games, but so does defense. For now we just have to wait to see what Dallas does before the February 29 deadline to gear up for the playoffs.