Dallas Stars Lineup Changes Not Shifting Momentum
By Josh Clark
The Dallas Stars are in the midst of the playoff race and still sifting their starting lineups around. Impressively enough, all the combinations are turning out to be successful.
Tomorrow evening, the Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild will meet up and commence game five of their first round series. The Stars, holding the 3-1 advantage, are just one win away from winning their first playoff series in eight years and moving on to the semifinals.
Besides a minor hiccup in game three on Monday night in St. Paul, the Stars have been setting the pace and controlling the series. They have done so on a flurry of different lineups on offense, defense, and even in net. Strangely enough, the Stars are still succeeding without consistency in their lineup.
In game one, the Dallas Stars throttled the Wild 4-0 on home ice to take a 1-0 series lead. They did this without a couple of players that usually start. Tyler Seguin, who is still recovering from an achilles injury, sat out for the first game, as did Jordie Benn who was playing the role of healthy scratch. The Stars offense had little trouble scoring, and the defense forced Kari Lehtonen to stop a mere 22 shots.
Game two came along, and Seguin was injected back into the lineup. That night, the Stars went without Mattias Janmark in their regular starting order. The lines were reshuffled (or ruffled, whatever you may call it), and the Stars still succeeded with a narrow 2-1 victory.
In game three, there was plenty to talk about in the Dallas Stars’ lineup. First off, Seguin remained in Dallas while the rest of the team traveled to Minnesota and was ruled out for game three due to extra rehab. Along with him, defenseman Kris Russell fell ill and had to sit out. The Stars subbed in Janmark and Jordie Benn for the two, but eventually lost 5-3 due to nothing more than a lack of effort.
Last night, the Stars and Wild finished the portion of the series in Minnesota by playing game four, with Dallas showing off another new lineup. While Seguin remained in Dallas, Russell hopped back in the lineup for Benn. The main talking point though was that Antti Niemi replaced Kari Lehtonen in net for the first time in the series and made his playoff debut for the Stars.
Niemi played a fantastic game and finished the night 28-30 while the Stars slipped by the Wild for the 3-2 victory.
Now there is news surfacing before game five about a couple of different options. The Dallas Stars officially announced today that they will keep Tyler Seguin out for tomorrow night’s game, meaning that they could call someone up to fill in as a healthy scratch with Travis Moen or potentially even play.
In Cedar Park, the Texas Stars are gearing up for game one of their Calder Cup Playoffs run tonight, and their lineup may be minus one strong prospect. Brett Ritchie was reassigned to the AHL four days ago after coming off of an injury, and took part in line rushes with Texas today. But he skated late and acted as a healthy scratch would, leaving plenty of open questions unanswered.
Could Ritchie be called up by the Stars for tomorrow night’s game? Ritchie only played in eight games with Dallas this year, but proved to be an effective physical piece to the Stars’ blue line that they could use against a team like Minnesota that likes to camp in the opponent’s zone.
Mix this in with the fact that there is still no definite answer on who the starting goaltender will be on Friday night, it looks as though the lineup changes could continue to flourish.
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This just furthers the argument that the Dallas Stars are one of the most flexible teams in the NHL. Not many could just randomly make a goalie change before a crucial playoff game and have the confidence that they will thrive in their first playoff game in two years on the road.
Other teams would also have some trouble losing a top-three forward (see Minnesota Wild injuries for example) and top-four defenseman and still finding a way to produce.
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The Dallas Stars have depth and are stacked with capable talent in all three departments. Sure it is not the prettiest effort at times whenever the substitutions occur, but enough effort is given to snag the victory. Especially when it is crunch time in the playoffs and one wrong move can prove fatal, the Stars are shining bright and resting on their strong core. We’ll see if it continues to hold up in game five.