Dallas Stars: Thursday Practice Gives Team A Chance To Realign

The Dallas Stars hosted a closed practice on Thursday morning, making it one of the few practices where fans were not allowed to attend. But, after the recent road trip, a closed practice might be just what they need.

It’s no secret that the Dallas Stars are one of the most open franchises in sports when it comes to fan accessibility.

Very rarely will you find a team that connects fans to the actual team like the Stars do, even when looking in the same city. The Dallas Cowboys and Dallas Mavericks are very reserved with their teams and typically make it a point to keep a certain distance. It is their choice, after all.

But with the Stars, things are different. Practices are almost always open for fans to attend at their leisure, the players typically sign autographs and take pictures with fans who hang around after practice, and the players and team do a great job engaging with the community. It’s a rare trait for a professional sports team to have, but the Dallas Stars do a good job in making it work.

That does, however, come with a line that must be drawn. Sometimes, that accessibility can affect how a team performs.

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On Thursday morning, the Stars hosted a closed practice for the first time this season. Fans were not allowed to attend because the team had a video shoot scheduled for after the practice. And while that may have been disappointing for fans who had time carved out to attend a customary practice, it might be just the kind of change that the team needs right now.

The Dallas Stars returned home on Tuesday night following a two-game road trip. The trip, which only lasted two days, sent the Stars first to visit the Ottawa Senators on Monday and then to the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday to finish up the excursion.

And through six periods of hockey, it was difficult to find any sort of consistent positives within the team’s play.

Dallas scored a total of one goal in the two games, with the lone tally coming from John Klingberg on the power play against Ottawa. Other than that, there was very little offensive pressure or consistency to speak of.

On defense, the Stars forfeited seven total goals on the trip. Ben Bishop (vs. Ottawa) and Anton Khudobin (vs. New Jersey) both did what they could with the team they had in front of them, but couldn’t do enough to get the job done.

All in all, Dallas looked sloppy and out of sync on their trip. The emotions, intensity, and competitiveness that had carried the Stars to a 3-1-0 record in their first four home games of the season were nonexistent during the swing through the northeast. As a result, their play was lacking in multiple areas and left Dallas in need of answers.

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And now, the Stars are 3-3-0 on the season. They seem to have negated all of the early season hype with the two most recent losses and now return home in search of a bounce back performance.

That could all spark from their closed practice on Thursday.

For Thursday’s practice, it was nothing more than the Dallas Stars (and the media). There were no fans cheering for the players or awaiting an autograph session as they exited the ice. Instead, it was simply the players and the coaching staff.

This is the first true wave of adversity that the team has faced this year. The Stars went on the road and it looked as though nothing had changed from last season. They were sloppy, inconsistent, and lacking the relentless style that head coach Jim Montgomery preaches. They couldn’t seem to get out of the gate in either game and fell victim as the opposing team took advantage of their miscues.

As a result, they are now sitting at .500 and need to bounce back quickly. The Central division is already off to a strong start and there is little time to lose or fall into a slump.

The Stars spent Thursday’s practice doing some new drills (including one where the goaltenders didn’t have their sticks) and working on refining some of the things that went wrong on Monday and Tuesday. And they did it in a solitary environment with no distractions or bystanders. It was simply them and the staff.

This was part of drill where players had to use opposite-handed sticks. Montgomery got drill from Paul Kariya. "If you have people switch hands, they think on the other side of their brain & it makes them more creative. And then they’re better when they go back (to strong side." https://t.co/ZY2ss9rxFf
— Sean Shapiro (@seanshapiro) October 18, 2018

Dallas has a good team that is capable of winning using their overwhelming force. They showed that through the first few games of the season and proved their capabilities. But the road trip took a significant chop at their early season excitement. Now they have to find a way to rally and get back into form before the losing trend consumes them for a longer period.

Though it was unintentional, the closed practice might have helped out in a big way. Montgomery is insistent on working out every small kink until it is corrected and focusing on each player and how they are performing. That can be adhered to fully in a closed practice.