Dallas Stars Really Missed Mattias Janmark This Season

It’s not typical for a 24-year-old to be the leading cause of a team’s demise in a given season. But for the Dallas Stars, that’s exactly what has happened.

On March 1, 2015, the Dallas Stars were in a bind. They sat nine points out of the final playoff spot and had 20 games to try and dig themselves out of a deep hole. That being said, they decided to do a little bit of selling at the deadline.

They traded away Erik Cole, who had been one of their best forwards that season, to the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for two prospects. These two prospects were Mattias Backman and Mattias Janmark.

Dallas went from a seasoned veteran with 18 goals and 33 points to two prospects who had never played in the NHL. Everyone took it as a sign that the Stars were selling hard and stacking up for next season.

While Backman lived up to his title of a prospect in progress, Janmark flew under the radar. After a stellar end of the season in the AHL and a strong showing in training camp and the preseason, he earned a spot on the Dallas Stars’ opening night roster for the 2015-16 season.

Dallas Stars /

Dallas Stars

In the opening game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, he scored his first NHL goal on his first NHL shot in his first NHL shift. It was also his NHL debut. That’s a lot of firsts for a rookie. The goal would turn out to be the game winner in a 3-0 victory.

The Stars kept building up from there. Through an amazing 82-game slate, Dallas finished with an impressive 50-23-9 record and 109 points. They won their division and finished first overall in the Western Conference while punching their ticket to the playoffs.

They advanced to the second round where they fell to the St. Louis Blues in seven games.

Throughout their 2015-16 campaign, it’s not probable that a player of Janmark’s stature could have had a larger impact on a team in his rookie season. The third-round pick in the 2013 NHL Draft solidified his spot on the Dallas roster with his performance.

In 73 games, Janmark scored 15 goals and posted 29 points along with a +12 rating. He did all of this in an average of 14:10 ice time. His success also carried into the postseason, where he scored two goals and tallied five points in 12 of the Stars’ 13 games.

Janmark was simply an indispensable and flexible forward for the Stars. He could scale the lineup and play with any combination, played both on the power play and penalty kill, and could play both on the wing and as center. He had a knack for scoring and plenty of speed to go along with it.

And when the Stars found out at the beginning of this season that they would be missing Janmark due to a knee injury, it left them in a bind.

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During the preseason, it was discovered that Janmark suffered from osteochondritis dissecans and required immediate surgery. The surgery only came with an 80 percent chance of full recovery, but now that we are in March, it’s clear that Janmark recovered well. While he attempted to make a run at returning this season, the Stars’ current state in the standings prodded him to hold off until next year.

If you have kept up with any part of this season, you know that things have not fallen in favor of the Dallas Stars. It’s been a long and treacherous haul for the majority of the year. The Stars currently sit with a record of 31-33-11 and 73 points with just seven games left on the calendar. They need to win five of the last seven to finish the season above .500.

If the St. Louis Blues win against the Arizona Coyotes tonight, the Stars will officially be mathematically eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoff race. That’s a simple testament to how far the Stars have fallen since May 2016.

There have been a lot of causes for their demise, but missing Janmark in the lineup is a key one.

As I stated earlier in the article, Janmark was an exclusive young forward that has a lot of “game changer” traits about him. He can play multiple positions, works great on all four lines, can play special teams, and gave the Stars a necessary combination of youth, speed, and skill. His confidence level was high and he met the expectations set for him every night. That’s what made him so vital.

When the Stars lost him, they had a hole in their lineup that they weren’t prepared to fill. With Devin Shore filling in for Ales Hemsky and Jiri Hudler never really getting off the ground with his play, Dallas always lacked someone to fill the hole that possessed the same qualities as Janmark (besides Shore, as we now know).

The loss of Janmark also took a shot at the Stars’ top six, specifically Jason Spezza. Towards the end of the 2015-16 season and into the playoffs, Janmark skated to the left of Spezza and the two formed a great pairing. When a player loses a linemate that they have chemistry with, it can be difficult to readapt. As a result, Spezza, who has battled through an injury of his own, is on pace for his worst season in Dallas (12-33-45).

All in all, Janmark’s absence made a more significant impact on the Dallas Stars than most give it credit for.

Next: Shutting Down Sharp Means A Few Things For Stars

Though Janmark is shut down for the remainder of the season, he will be given extra time to recover from what very well could have been a career-ending injury. But one thing is for sure: it will be extremely beneficial to have him back in time for the start of 2017-18.

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