Dallas Stars Showing Signs Of Progress Is Just Fine

The Dallas Stars suffered a hard loss on Saturday night, once again proving that we are in for a season of a mortal team. Before you freak out, just realize that it’s not a death sentence. Instead, it’s simply growing pains.

Don’t lose your marbles just yet, Stars fans. Things are going to be alright.

On Saturday night, the Dallas Stars coughed up their first loss of the season in an ugly 6-5 affair against the Colorado Avalanche. Throughout the first seven minutes of the game, it looked as though the Stars had their second consecutive win all but sealed away.

Tyler Seguin scored just 43 seconds in on the power play, and Devin Shore followed the goal up with one of his own (the first of his NHL career) at the seven minute mark. Colorado, with a new coach and scattered lineup, looked absolutely dumbfounded and incapable of taking the reins from Dallas.

But a mere 20 minutes after the Stars snagged the 2-0 lead, the Avs were in the driver seat with a 5-2 advantage. A mixture of lack of effort, bad penalties committed, and a complete implosion in the crease left Dallas on the wrong side of the contest looking for a way out.

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Dallas gave a hard-fought effort to get back into the game. Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, and Brett Ritchie all scored in the final 30 minutes, but the defense could not stop up the holes in their play and eventually gave the Avalanche a sixth goal (which became the game winner).

After the loss, some Stars fans were at the point of, “Well, I knew this young defense and incapable goaltending tandem would never succeed.” Others settled with saying, “Without Cody Eakin and Mattias Janmark, this team is bound to suffer through this first month.” Finally, there were more than likely a few jumping on the, “Oh no, we’re already on our way to an early offseason rebuild” wagon.

The first thing these kinds of people need to realize is that the Stars did the exact same thing last season. They dropped their second game of the 2015-16 regular season on the road to the Colorado Avalanche by a brutal final score of 6-3. The play was nowhere near the caliber that it was two nights prior on October 8, 2015 when the Stars beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-0 in Big D.

It’s not the end of the world. The Dallas Stars proved with this loss that they are still human and are not the immortal powerhouse some people still expect them to be. But when you have the likes of Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, Jason Spezza, and Patrick Sharp, you have to be close, right?

To be completely honest, Dallas is likely to lose a couple of these games early on. The Stars own a ferocious team with a lot of upside, but injuries and inexperience have them in a difficult spot right now. They are having to rely on a lot of rookies/young players and new Stars to play multiple different roles, and that could lead to trouble.

Colorado has a thing for making Dallas Stars fans fret, although it’s usually just an empty threat. Take last season for example. The Stars took a beating from the Avs just three days into the season, yet they still finished the year atop the Central Division and Western Conference. One big loss doesn’t mean all that much, at least as of yet.

It was discouraging to see the Stars fold like they did, but no team can be expected to win every game. It was nothing more than a hiccup.

Some fans are expecting Dallas to finally take a step that most teams never make. They are expecting too much and need to learn that the Stars can afford a few slip ups and still put together an impressive run. They just have to give it some time.

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This team still has a lot to prove, but they still have time to do it. The defense is largely different and the offense has a few pieces taking on bigger roles, so a pretty significant step has been taken since the end of the Stars’ Stanley Cup Playoff run on May 11th.

Whether that step is good or not has yet to be determined. But one thing is for sure: the one loss on Saturday night cannot be used as evidence that Dallas is in for a long year. If anything, it can be used to prove that the Stars are getting their growing pains out of the way early in preparation for a successful 2016-17 season. Still too early to tell.

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