Where Do the Dallas Stars Stand?
We are officially halfway through the NHL season and I cannot say I expected the Dallas Stars to be sitting where they are right now. 41 games in, 43 points earned, and 5 points back of a playoff spot. It has been a bumpy ride so far and it is far from the lofty expectations that were set in the offseason. While I did feel the offseason was a bit overhyped, I certainly didn’t expect them to be out of the playoffs at this point in the season. Lets take a look on how they got where they are now.
Home Ice Struggles
Currently their record at home is 9-8-5. There are three teams in the entire NHL with less than 9 wins at home so far this season. The Stars are 0-5 past 60 minutes at the American Airlines Center which makes them the only team in the NHL without an overtime or a shootout win at home. The goals against has been a problem both home and away, but only four other teams have more goals given up at home than the Stars. They’ve played 22 games at home so far which means they have 19 left, and that 9-8-5 record is going to have to improve for the Stars to have a shot down the stretch.
Goals Against
It’s not just the defensemen. It’s not just the goalies. The entire team is to be blamed for the early struggles in the goals against department. At one point not so long ago, the Stars were dead last in goals against per game. They now sit 28th, marginally improved thanks to their play in the month of December. But if you are giving up over 3 goals per game chances are you are going to lose a lot of those games. They have given up 5 goals or more in 11 games this season. Eleven. So essentially every fourth game the Stars spot their opponent five goals. They can’t win that way and can’t expect to score their way out of those kind of deficits. They have started to trim the goals against and if they are able to continue to do so, they should make up some ground in the playoff race.
What does the rest of the season have in store for the Stars?
Predicting the game of hockey is very hard. Advanced statistics can help determine where the Stars might end up, but it isn’t iron clad by any means. That being said, looking at the schedule and some of the advanced statistics, I think the Stars find a way to sneak into the playoffs once again this year. With 41 games remaining, the Stars have 19 home games and 22 road games. Just 26 of those final 41 games are against teams that currently hold a playoff spot. And of those 26, 7 games are against teams that currently occupy a wild card spot. While there are no easy games in the NHL, that schedule is manageable on paper and something I’m sure the Stars wouldn’t mind. In the West, we can probably assume at this point that Nashville, Chicago, St. Louis, and Anaheim are playoff teams. Vancouver, San Jose, Winnipeg, Los Angeles and Calgary are all very tightly bundled together with Dallas and Colorado a couple of steps behind. Two of those pacific division teams will be in for sure and that leaves the two wild card spots. The Stars have a game left with Vancouver, two with Calgary, three with Winnipeg, two with San Jose and three with Colorado. They will be seeing a lot of those teams, giving the Stars an opportunity to make up a lot of ground with teams directly ahead of them.
Advanced stats-wise, the Stars are generally in the top half of the league and have been trending up. They currently sit 14th in 5-on-5 Corsi-For % and 13th in 5-on-5 Fenwick-For %. They are third in the entire NHL in scoring chances and continue to trend up in all of the major possession statistics.
The Dallas Stars have been playing better and all of the underlying statistics support that. Part of that has to do with this team becoming more and more comfortable with each other. People forget that although they were a playoff team last year, the Stars are currently playing with seven of the eighteen skaters that were not a part of this team last year. It takes time to gel sometimes, and the Stars seem to be finding a way of late. If I were you, I’d keep watching.