Dallas Stars Losing Johnny Oduya Could Sink Them For Good

The Dallas Stars playoff hopes are starting to unhinge after losing four of their last five games. Losing a key member of their defense is not helping their case.

The Dallas Stars are in trouble. Like serious trouble.

That’s because the Stars’ postseason dreams seem to be slipping further and further away by the day. They have turned in a 1-3-1 record over the past five games. Meanwhile, the teams around them in the standings are slowly starting to move along with consistent play, which is slowly creating a gap between them and Dallas.

The Stars currently sit four points out of the final wild card spot in the Western Conference with only one game in hand. The problem is that the Stars are have three teams sitting between them and eighth place. Not to mention that Dallas only has one game in hand on the Calgary Flames (who sit in eighth).

With each passing day, things are looking more and more bleak. The preposterous thing is that the solution seems so simple: just win and keep winning. Hypothetically, a four game win streak could put them in third place in the Central Division. That’s quite the turnaround just because of a few wins.

But these consecutive wins have eluded the Stars all season. They have only crafted two win streaks this year, one lasting two games and the other lasting three.

Besides those games, things have been much like a roller coaster: up and down. Powerful win, crushing loss, surprising win, pathetic loss. It’s been an ugly pattern to keep up with.

And now it might even be setting up to get even uglier. The Dallas Stars are in desperate need of points, and they will now have to do that without veteran defenseman Johnny Oduya.

As if Jamie Benn breaking his nose on Saturday night wasn’t bad enough during a soul-crushing overtime loss in which the Stars “emptied the tank,” according to Lindy Ruff, now this will take it’s toll.

Oduya left Tuesday night’s game against the New York Rangers midway through the second period and did not return to the bench. Following the crazy 7-6 win, head coach Lindy Ruff said that Oduya had reaggravated an ankle injury that he had dealt with back in November. It was estimated that he would be on the IR for two to four weeks.

The initial injury forced Oduya to miss ten games from November 19 – December 11. The Stars went 4-5-1 throughout the span. None of the four wins were against a team holding a playoff spot at the time of the game being played.

Losing Oduya means a couple of different losses for the Dallas Stars. First off, they are losing a valuable veteran blue-liner with plenty of experience. He is an excellent leader for the younger members of the blue line and can always teach and help the young players grow.

Not only his experience, but also his role as a defender. Oduya’s injury came just days after defenseman Jamie Oleksiak was benched with a hand injury. That’s two of the Stars’ typical starting defenders out with injuries. That leaves them searching for competent players to fill the void.

At a time like this, it’s nice to know that the Stars have been carrying eight defenders for a majority of the season. But they have been going with just about the same lineup for a little while now, so it might be difficult for some of the players they are trying to sub in to shake off the rust and find their groove.

Oduya will also leave the Stars’ penalty kill unit in a bind. The Dallas PK unit has been the team’s weakest link this season. It currently sits 29th in the NHL (74.2 percent) and is only .2 percent away from being the worst in the league.