Dallas Stars 2014 Home Opener Review

They say hindsight is 20/20. Who they are exactly, I’m not sure, but whoever they are, they’re right. Looking back over the ’14-’15 season now, it’s pretty obvious that the problems that doomed the Dallas Stars to a playoff-less summer started cropping up early. Even their October 9^th home opener against Chicago now seems eerily like a foreboding finger pointing at all of the high and low points that the Stars would face in the ultimately ill-fated upcoming season.

The ambiguous “they” also say that life is what you make of it. And since, for a lot of us, life and hockey are kind of synonymous, we can apply that wise old adage to the game as well. Take a glimpse with me into yesteryear, a lovely little stroll down memory lane, as we review the Stars’ 2014 home opener against the Hawks period by period. There is a lot of wisdom to be gleaned from mistakes made in this game for sure, but the amount of strengths the Stars also demonstrated may surprise you and get you even more excited to see them develop this season.

In their 2014 home opener, the Stars started Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, and Val Nichushkin as their top liners. The Hawks started Patrick Sharp, Jonathan Toews, and Marian Hossa in their first line. For the 13-14 season, Seguin and Benn led their team in goals, whereas Sharp led the Blackhawks. So, you know, just some info up front to help you go to your happy place when you can’t sleep at night.

The first period started out on an extremely positive note. Benn, Seguin, and Nichushkin just clicked. This super fast, super fresh trio of dynamic young players started threatening the Blackhawks’ defense right away, creating looks like nobody’s business and making it seem easy (no, really. Five minutes in and the SOG was 4-0 Stars).

The power play, however, was not quite as on point. About two minutes into the first period, when Kruger was called for hooking against Fiddler, fans got to see the debut of what Mike Heika hailed as the supernova power play. However, as the clock ran out, Ralph and Razor noted that although it looked like a power play (or, more specifically, like “wizardry coming up the ice”), it failed to cash in on any chances it created. Sound familiar?

Well. Let’s not beat that dead horse. The power play ran out with nothing to show, but as it ran out, fans were afforded the chance to see Oduya in action making it clear to Antoine Roussel that he had been a little rougher with Crawford than Oduya liked. Now that he’s a Star, Oduya will hopefully develop and demonstrate that kind of loyalty in Dallas, integrating himself into an already wonderfully close-knit team.

Speaking of former adversaries becoming teammates, it also deserves to be mentioned that Captain Jamie Benn took this period as an opportunity to steamroll both his future teammates, Patrick Sharp and Johnny Oduya (and also Brandon Saad, among others), in a forceful run which Strangis likened to marauding. And sometimes, good leaders just have to maraud.

So if for some reason you’ve never noticed this before, here is your public service announcement: Jamie Benn is a natural leader. He demonstrated it on the ice during the home opener and really proved his worth as a two-way forward. Though they may be biased, Ralph and Razor agreed that Benn is most likely the best left winger in the game currently, and I (though also possibly biased) tend to agree.

Although he can, as Strangis so eloquently put it, “hurt ya in all kinds of ways,” Benn has a quiet confidence and understanding that he needs to lead in different ways for different situations. And sometimes these situations just require some marauding. These qualities were only made more obvious throughout the season and especially during those 10 games without Seguin, and they can only improve with time and come back full force in the new season.

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While I’m complementing Benns, let’s not pass by the elder. During the first period, Jordie carried a kind of confidence on the defensive end that unfortunately did not find its way into most of the rest of the season. But he exhibited great two on two defense and good backchecking; at one point in the period, he even shut down Patrick Kane on a run to goal, and hearing Strangis say “Kane just can’t beat Jordie Benn” was a little surreal.

Though the defense as a whole showed a lot of promising skill that didn’t carry over into the rest of the season, some of their most long-lived problems started early on. They fell a little short at the task of creating space, and there was a lot of bunchiness (is that not a word? I guess it is now) and bad spacing.

One of the most obvious specifics in the first period of this game that gradually became applicable to the season as a whole was the importance of goaltending. The Fox Sports broadcast so considerately reminded fans that Kari Lehtonen had experienced a rough preseason, but was ready to put that behind him. And he did some solid goaltending at the beginning of the game, but, as we now know, one slip-up is sometimes enough to get in Lehtonen’s head and throw off his confidence for the rest of the game.

And that slip up came in the first period. Kari never saw it coming, and let in a shot from Duncan Keith, the likes of which are often too soft to ever see the back of the net. Then and there, Strangis announced that Lehtonen would “have to purge his mentality” to proceed into the season with strong tending. Compare this performance with Corey Crawford, who was a defiant, confident brick wall for the Blackhawks all night, just daring the Stars to shoot past him. Even though Lehtonen had posted 33 wins in the 13-14 season while Crawford notched 32, this game really did demonstrate that good tending begins in the goalie’s head.

The second period saw a further disintegration of the Stars’ power play; with multiple chances, it took them just too long to set up and pick up speed, at which point the Blackhawks, having had time to adjust, looked way more in control. Another aspect of the power play which might seem familiar to us now came out to play in the second period of opening night: frantic shots only as the clock was running out.

The Stars really started to shine, though, during the penalty kill. Although the Hawks’ special team including Keith, Sharp, Toews, Kane, and Shaw terrorized Lehtonen as expected, he stood his ground and then the Stars got an offensive chance thanks to the lightning fast skating of Brendan Dillon. At this point in the game, the SOG was 17-7 DAL, with the Stars clearly the better team. But with the way they were struggling to close down the lane defensively and clear rebounds, everyone watching knew the last word had not yet been said.

And it certainly hadn’t, but not in the way some of us who are more pessimistic may have expected. The Stars went on the power play again, and Daley scored almost immediately from Jamie Benn’s faceoff win, securing assists for both Hemsky and Spezza for their first game in the AAC as Dallas Stars.

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Between this goal and the rest of the period, it really became clear (if it hadn’t been already) just how smart Seguin is when it comes to playmaking. His deadly passing accuracy, even at great distances, created great runs at the goal that should have been more successful, only if Crawford had been having an off day. He had a little bit more of an off day when Eakin scored as a result of beautiful teamwork with linemates Garbutt and Roussel, sending them into the third period 2-1 DAL.

But is any lead good enough to satisfy a Stars fan? Early in the third, Jordie Benn was called for stickholding on Hossa (a questionable call in my opinion, but it was a year ago so I won’t get too worked up). Chicago, 0 for 3 on their power play going into the third, made it 1 for 4 when Sharp equalized directly off a draw with a shot that seemed more like a laser beam. That should definitely feel better for Stars fans now than it did then.

On another positive note, Valeri Nichushkin, whose two-way game was commendable, and Patrik Nemeth, who was strong in the corners, both had great third periods. And while the Stars kept demonstrating that they had great ideas on offense, they also consistently lacked the fine tuning to pull it all together and follow through.

Oduya also proved to be extremely offensively minded, looking absolutely determined to score on Lehtonen, but ending up unable to do so despite his long strides and super speedy skating.

And although the Stars accomplished a great penalty kill at the end of the third, it wasn’t enough to change the scoreboard. So the game was pushed into overtime, which was sufficiently uneventful but still useful in proving the value of whole team effort. This game, and overtime specifically, failed to see any of the expected superstars shine in a particularly eclipsing way: Jamie Benn, Seguin, Toews, and Kane did not stand out in any overly special way during the game. Chemistry and fluidity on the part of the whole team, as well as mentally strong tending, stole the show this game.

But of course, then there was the shootout. Spezza tried a familiar-looking fast and slow move but couldn’t slip it in five-hole on Crawford. Kari made a blocker save against Toews, and Seguin missed the net altogether. Kane, shooting next, did score: a nice backhand shot chipped in above Lehtonen’s shoulder, which Hemsky just couldn’t match. It was only right, in a poetic justice sort of way, that Corey Crawford literally won the game for the Blackhawks.

So, here’s the take away. There are some things you can just always count on: that Jordie Benn will have a beard to put all lumberjacks to shame. That the other team will hate Antoine Roussel. That many of the problems a team struggles with early on in the season will come back to bite them near the end of it. But there are also a few more things to count on. The strong suits demonstrated by the Stars, the additions of Sharp and Oduya and Niemi, as well as having players like Nichushkin and Nemeth and Eaves back from injuries, will help push the Stars forward this season.

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” It was actually Galileo, and not some anonymous third person, who once said that. And I think I’m in the same boat at Galileo- in a different way, obviously, but in a way that’s valid all the same.

So now that we’ve seen the issues of the home opener play out in the season, it’s time for those strengths to be bolstered and unleashed on the 15-16 season. What do you think is the Stars’ biggest asset going into the season?

Next: Dallas Stars Top Six Penalty Shot Moments

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