Dallas Stars Are Better Off Staying Out Of Stanley Cup Playoffs
By Josh Clark
The Stanley Cup Playoffs are right around the corner and, barring a miracle, the Dallas Stars will not be joining the race. That’s probably for the best.
Arguably the best time of the year is right around the corner. 16 NHL teams will get together and prepare for an exciting two-month battle for eternal glory in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The players are excited, the fans are excited, and the entire hockey world tunes in to watch it all unfold. All in all, it’s hard to be angry around playoff time.
That is unless your hockey team is one of the 14 that is left out of the festivities. And it just so happens that the Dallas Stars are one of those teams.
After a depressing 2016-17 season campaign up to this point, the Stars are limping for the finish line. They sit at a record of 29-33-10 with 68 points and only 10 games left to try and at least break .500.
Dallas Stars
This is quite the drastic fall from where the Stars sat not too long ago. One year ago yesterday, the Dallas Stars clinched their second playoff spot in three years. They were being regarded as the best team in the NHL, had an almost unbelievable offensive spread, had made excellent strides in finding consistency on defense and in net, and had a well-balanced attack that very few teams could crack.
They finished the season with 50 wins, a Central Division title, and sat atop the Western Conference. They drove to the West semifinals before falling in seven games to the St. Louis Blues, but entered the offseason with high expectations and aspirations.
Those aspirations quickly came crashing down as the 2016-17 season kicked off. Amidst injuries and inconsistencies, the Stars quickly fell into the Western Conference cellar and have rarely shown their faces inside the playoff bubble since.
What exactly happened to them is still somewhat of a mystery simply because of the variety of factors that could be blamed.
But it is what it is, and now the Dallas Stars sit 15 points out of the final wild card spot in the West with only 20 total points left on the board to be secured. That means that even if the Stars win out, they will finish the season with 88 points, just five points higher than where the Nashville Predators currently sit.
In addition to the Stars winning out, the Predators (and a few other teams, for that matter) would need to finish the season on a 2-8-0 pace or worse. In other words, their playoff hopes are all but extinguished. And that’s probably for the best.
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This season has just not been for the Stars. Since game one, there has always seemed to be something off. Now they are paying for it, knowing that they will be faced with yet another early offseason and another year wasted.
The fact that the Stars will not be joining the Stanley Cup race helps them in two ways. The first one, while not as important, is the image factor. Dallas is not in a shape currently to compete for a Cup, so is it really worth it for them to squeeze in by a hair and get swept or fall in a 4-1 series to the Minnesota Wild or Chicago Blackhawks? Not at all.
The other benefit is the 2017 entry draft. The Stars will hopefully be able to pull a high pick in the lottery and possibly have a top-five pick. They could either use that on a highly-talented prospect or could even use it through trade if necessary. Dallas will likely make at least one trade this offseason, and a high draft pick is always a valuable sweetener.
No playoffs may sting at the moment, but it will give the Dallas Stars extra time to break everything down and decide what moves need to be made in the offseason ahead which is the most important one yet in the Jim Nill era.
Next: End Of Season Will Reveal Where Stars Are Headed
There are definitely moves that need to be made in order to turn the Stars back into a Cup-contending team, and luckily they can all be made and arranged in one offseason. So now it’s all up to Nill to make them happen. After April 8, it’s all in his hands.