Dallas Stars Being Well Represented At World Championships

Amidst all of the excitement with Ben Bishop, the World Championships are well underway and the Dallas Stars are being well represented thus far.

It’s been a crazy week for the Dallas Stars. But the crazy has, surprisingly enough, been all good for the organization.

After a season full of crazy despair and disappointment, the Stars have spent the first month of the offseason in wise fashion and are raking in all sorts of positivity.

A few weeks back, Dallas was awarded the third overall pick (the highest in franchise history) in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft as a part of the annual draft lottery.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Stars pulled off one of the first big trades of the offseason, sending Montreal’s fourth-round draft pick (that they received in the Jordie Benn trade) to the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for veteran goaltender Ben Bishop.

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The move was a monumental one and helped solve one of the Stars’ biggest lingering problems. Bishop will likely take over the starting role (once he and Dallas agree on a new contract) and will provide valuable insurance and consistency in the crease next season, something the Stars have been missing for years.

One night later, the Anaheim Ducks bested the Edmonton Oilers in a deciding game seven in the Western Conference semifinals. The Ducks won, and so did the Stars (somewhat). With Anaheim moving onto the Western Conference Finals, the Dallas Stars received the Ducks’ first-round pick as part of the Patrick Eaves trade back in February.

This past month has given the Stars a lot to be thankful for and a lot that they can use moving forward to build themselves back into a contending team in time for next season.

Through all of the excitement, you probably forgot about one thing: the World Championships. The tournament started on May 5 and runs through May 21, so it’s just about halfway done at this point. The Dallas Stars sent three representatives (John Klingberg, Julius Honka, Antoine Roussel) over to France/Germany, and so far they have seen decent results.

So far throughout the preliminary round, Russia is tied with Canada for the best record at 4-0-0. Valeri Nichushkin, who left the Stars at the beginning of the 2016-17 to go and play in the KHL, was initially supposed to play for Team Russia but has yet to step on the ice.

Team Sweden (Klingberg) is 2-1-1, Team Finland (Honka) is 2-1-1, and Team France (Roussel) is 1-2-1.

Klingberg has played all four games for Sweden, tallying one assist, posting a -1 on-ice rating, and taking nine shots on goal.

In the four games that Honka has played with Finland, he has also tallied one assist and posted a -1 on-ice rating. He’s yet to take a penalty and has posted an impressive 13 shots on goal.

For Roussel, he has scored two goals on six shots and posted 18 penalty minutes in four games. He also has a +1 rating. One of Roussel’s bigger feats in the tournament was helping lead France to an astonishing 5-1 upset win over Finland. Both of his goals were scored in that game and he made sure to include a festive celebration with each.

Overall, it’s been a pretty good tournament for the Dallas Stars. With the preliminary rounds almost over, it looks as though these three teams may be on the bubble when it comes to qualifying for the bracket.

Let’s hope they have enough firepower to get their teams over the hump and into the top half of the standings in their division.

Next: Stars Can Learn From Western Conference Playoffs

As these next few weeks go along, it seems as though things might finally calm down at least a little bit for the Dallas Stars. So keep up with the World Championships if you’re ever feeling the need to get your hockey fix. Until then, just sit and wait for the next fireworks show. It can’t be that far off.