Dallas Stars Can’t Get Things To Go Their Way This Year
By Josh Clark
Things just aren’t working for the Dallas Stars right now and they’ve yet to fully hit their stride and break out of their shell. Is it ever going to change, or is this season already too forgone?
9-9-6. 24 points. Two games out of hand. One point out of the final wild card spot. A lot of games left to play, but not a lot of promise to go off of.
That’s where the Dallas Stars stand over a quarter of the way into the season. Why is that? Why did a season that began with so much promise denature so quickly?
Can it be blamed on the slow start of the offense? Or should the defenders be held accountable for their consistent mistakes? And does the goaltending carry any of the burden? What about special teams? Strength of schedule? Decisions made by the coaching staff? Rookies that have been called up?
The list continues to pile up and there is really no one thing to point at and accuse. The Dallas Stars just simply aren’t what we expected them to be this year. We became so acquainted to the team that won on a nightly basis last year in dominant fashion and forgot about the team that preceded them.
At this point, it looks like the Stars cannot get things to go their way when they are prepared for them to. In other words, when Dallas plays to win, they don’t.
Take last night for example. The Stars scored 16 seconds into the first period after Esa Lindell tallied his second goal of the year. This game was against a well-rested Detroit Red Wings team. Meanwhile, the Stars had just traveled from St. Louis the night before and were serving the second half of a back-to-back. So it was quite unexpected. Let’s backtrack for a second.
The first half of the back-to-back did not go so well. The Stars were sluggish and unmotivated in St. Louis and the Blues took full advantage. But Dallas somehow managed to get some goals to go at just the right times to keep the game interesting and take it to overtime.
The Blues were given some golden opportunities on breakaways, two-on-ones, and even deflections and rebounds in front of the net. Meanwhile, it seemed as though the Stars didn’t even notice what was unfolding in their own zone.
The Stars were outshot 31-21 by the Blues and they made sure that they ended it in overtime. Props to Dallas for keeping themselves in it until the extra frame, but a bit more effort could have gotten them much further. They needed to take advantage of the night where everything was going right. Antti Niemi was playing a stellar game and the pucks were going into the Blues’ net seemingly with ease.
It’s the perfect recipe to win, but only if the Stars were willing to put forth the effort. Unfortunately they didn’t and St. Louis snuck away with the two points.
Okay, back up to speed with Detroit. The Stars took the early 1-0 lead and had the Red Wings on their heels. A couple of bad penalties led to two power play goals for the Wings, and that turned out to be all they needed.
But Dallas didn’t go down without a fight. They kept swinging until Steve Ott scored an empty net goal that increased the Wings’ lead to 3-1.
When looking at the performance from both teams and the final statistics, it’s clear that the Stars deserved to win that game. Unfortunately for them, Petr Mrazek had other plans and shut Dallas down, going 34-35 in the crease.
So when they deserve to win, they lose. And when they deserve to lose, they sneak out with a point. This seems to be a recurring theme this season. But there’s just one question left to be answered: what is the scenario where the Stars come out with two points? Is there one?
As November is retired into the past and December comes into view, the Dallas Stars’ future is not looking too bright. It’s not been entirely extinguished yet, but a massive turnaround will be necessary sooner or later. The Stars certainly aren’t what they were last season, but that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. It just means they are back to where they used to be.
As painful as it may be to accept that kind of decline over just one short season, that’s how it is. But it’s not all that bad. It just makes things more interesting as they venture through the rest of the season. It keeps us wanting to turn in and leaves us wondering which Dallas Stars we are going to see on a given night.
Maybe they’ll right the ship over the next few weeks and turn back into that unstoppable force they were last year. Maybe this will never stop and they will ride the train of mediocrity up to April 8th.
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Whatever the case may be, that’s the way hockey goes. More specifically, that’s the way these Dallas Stars go. But it’s almost December, and that’s typically when Dallas begins to answer the bell, even in darker times. So don’t give up hope just yet. It might not be very promising right now, but you never know what you’re going to get on Thursday in Pittsburgh.
Keep the faith, Stars fans. Things may seem bleak right now and nothing may seem to be going the Stars’ way. But that doesn’t mean things can’t change. Just keep holding out hope for that change. It’ll get here soon enough. And when it does, we’ll welcome it with open arms and celebration, just as we did at the beginning of the 2015-16 season.