Dallas Stars Must Shape Up Or Ship Out

With the pressure piled on, the Dallas Stars shouldn’t consider their latest defeat at the hands of the Blues a total loss.

It is crunch time like never before. Facing a must-win scenario in St. Louis on Monday, the Dallas Stars need to exercise their comeback power like never before.

However, their Saturday loss in Dallas was misleading, as they were able to improve in some trouble areas, although they never did cash in quite enough for it to count. Moving forward, the Stars can learn a few lessons from yesterday’s effort and the old saying, if at first you don’t succeed– well, you know the rest.

If you could weigh all the Stars’ playoff weaknesses to determine which had cost them the most this post-season, it would probably boil down to special teams. In both series, the Stars have only been able to produce 5 PPG (for some unfortunate perspective, that’s out of 35 power play opportunities).

The power play didn’t lag quite so badly in the regular season, and even though the Stars have been able to pull themselves together and chug on quite valiantly, I think it’s safe to say that Tyler Seguin’s absence is at least partly to blame for this slump.

In yesterday’s game, the Stars went 0-2 on the power play, and gave the Blues a PPG in the same number of chances. The Dallas Stars allowed only 4 PPGs in the first round against the Wild, and have kept the number to 5 so far this series.

In all, it’s not bad, but the Blues’ aggressive, physical style of play is definitely taking some tolls. Thanks to the Stars’ own blueline heavyweights, including Stephen Johns who put his foot down with 8 hits last night, things haven’t gotten totally out of hand on the penalty kill.

With a physical opponent like the Blues, the Stars are also making good use of the cards dealt to them in the area of faceoffs. Having won 60% of yesterday’s faceoffs, Dallas hasn’t let the Blues into their heads completely. While the Stars are still winning the majority of faceoffs, it’s safe to say that intimidation is not killing their game.

At this point in a series, energy becomes a concern for both teams. Although the Stars played valiantly yesterday, St. Louis was the more energized team. Thankfully, nothing is quite as motivating as heading to the offseason prematurely, so hopefully this real possibility will put some pep in the Dallas Stars’ step.

Another thing not to be concerned about here is shots. Not surprisingly, the Dallas Stars still led in shots yesterday. Of course, when shots don’t turn into goals, that is something to pay a bit more attention to. What’s keeping the Stars from scoring on all these shots? Again, a lack of energy may be affecting their focus.

We’ve all seen on one hand the Dallas Stars that can weave and glide across the ice with the greatest of ease, connect with the most silken of passes, and put the puck in the net before the opponent is any wiser. But we’ve also all seen the Dallas Stars that look like their skates are stuck in molasses and they’re playing pinball instead of hockey.

The difference here is focus and precision, which becomes more and more difficult to achieve when you’re weary and neck-deep in a series. Unfortunately, the only valid way out of this series is to win it, so the Dallas Stars will need to find an energizing component, whether that be some more line-juggling on the part of Lindy Ruff, or some creativity elsewhere.

Next: Staring At Extinction Is Just What Stars Need

However, in the middle of all the things the Stars have done right and all the things they have done wrong, they are all very much aware that their only option now is to win. The Dallas Stars have dug holes and backed themselves into corners before, and from those predicaments derived the motivation to pull themselves out and move on.

Given that their must-win game will occur in St. Louis in front of an opposing crowd, that’s one more chip against the Stars that could help spur them on to prove their doubters wrong.

So until then, the only mentally healthy thing for us all to do is to try and focus on the reasons why the Stars will pull out a win in St. Louis tomorrow: well, because they have to.