Dallas Stars Have Fallen Hard
Even with last night’s exciting win factored in, things are nowhere near what they were this time last year. Why have the Dallas Stars fallen so hard from their preseason expectations?
Heading into the 2015-16 season the Stars were underestimated to say the least. Their youth and perceived inexperienced reduced their legitimacy as a threat in the league.
By regular season’s end, however, the Stars had taken the Central Division and Western Conference titles.
That success put them on the hockey map once more and led to high expectations for this year. Those have yet to be met in the slightest thus far, though. Dallas is looking to crawl back to above .500, but will first have to analyze how they took such a hard fall to begin with.
Injuries
There’s no way around the fact that injuries have plagued the Dallas Stars’ season thus far. More than a dozen forwards have missed time with two, Mattias Janmark and Ales Hemsky, out for the foreseeable future.
That’s a difficult situation for any team to get over, but that is also a component of professional sports. Injuries don’t make things easier, but they can’t be the crutch the team uses as an excuse for all of their problems.
Dallas has seemed to do fairly well in identifying that the players in the line-up are the reason they haven’t been as successful as anticipated, but they are also the solution.
Cohesion
The Stars acquired and lost a number of players during the offseason as well. That coupled with the players missing due to ailments has a direct influence on team cohesion.
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Dallas isn’t able to have set line combinations for forwards, leading to less confidence in line mates. While that may seem like a small part of the game, having forwards that are more or less entirely guessing where their teammates are is dangerous.
It leads to pucks in places that are beneficial for the opposition and detrimental for the Stars, which leads to either falling behind or losing leads that have already been established.
Overall cohesion is a vital part to any sports team and the Stars are struggling to find it amongst all of the changes in their line-up.
Effort and Consistency
Dallas is overall a hardworking club. They put in the effort necessary during practices to put themselves in the best position to win, but that hasn’t always translated into their best play on the ice.
The Stars have found themselves with a lead and then completely falling apart. They have failed to register that games in the NHL are 60 minutes long and just because you have a multiple goal lead early in games, doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed two points.
Last night, for example, Dallas had a great start. They went into the first intermission in Calgary up 2-0, which is a rather fantastic feat for a club that has faced as many issues as Dallas of late. Then they went into the second period and saw their two-goal lead evaporate before their very eyes. Even though they found a way to eventually win the game, it was a little too close for comfort.
That kind of thing happens to every team, but it doesn’t happen as often as it does to the Stars. Whether their mentality with a lead is off or they truly have an inability to play from ahead, as off as that sounds, Dallas has to get it sorted out and fast.
The NHL regular season is 82 games long, but before you know it the Stars will be in the final stretch. At that point they’ll either be comfortable, fighting for their playoff lives, or not even in the conversation. Which of those points they’re at come springtime is up to them.