Dallas Stars: Five Reasons They Make The 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs

1. New Coaching Staff Will Spark Stars

The Dallas Stars had a lot of weaknesses in the 2016-17 season. But amongst all of their deficiencies, the majority of their problems rested from their blue line to the crease.

The defense and goaltending were atrocious this past year. The Stars finished 29th overall in goals against per game at an ugly 3.17. The only team they beat out was the Colorado Avalanche, who had one of the worst seasons in NHL history and finished 31 points below Dallas in the standings. The sad thing is that the two teams had a mere .20 goals separating them in GA/GP.

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It was a young defense with little veteran leadership mixed with an aging and inconsistent goaltending tandem of Kari Lehtonen and Antti Niemi. In other words, the Stars could not seem to get out of most games without sacrificing 3-4 goals.

But should all the fault be put on these two areas? Absolutely not. In fact, the coaching staff deserves a good amount of the blame.

With Lindy Ruff as head coach, the Stars primarily focused on offense and a “high risk, high reward” system from 2013-17. Shutdown defense and stellar goaltending were never priorities. Instead, the mindset revolved around “do everything you must in order to score before the other team does.” As a result, the Dallas defense and goaltending never reached its full potential.

With Ken Hitchcock as the new head coach, that will be different. Hitchcock has been known for his defensive supremacy throughout the NHL for a long time, and has a way of getting results on his blue line.

Mix in new assistant coach Rick Wilson who is a former NHL defender and has already spent 17 years with the Stars and it seems as though the Stars have a match made in heaven.

Dallas doesn’t have a bad makeup on their blue line by any means. In fact, they could quickly jump into the top half of the league with the right coaching. That coaching should be Hitchcock and his new crew.

In terms of goaltending, the Dallas Stars have given themselves a new element with the addition of Ben Bishop. And when there is a competent defensive group in front of the goaltending, the crease becomes decisively stronger. Hitchcock should only make Lehtonen and Bishop that much stronger as a veteran tandem.

Though Hitchcock’s methods can be considered aggressive and trying, he gets results. And if players buy in and submit, the results are plentiful. With Hitch at the helm for a second tour of duty, the Stars should have no trouble with leaving their 2016-17 defensive inefficiencies in the past and making a run at the Central Division title.

2. Jason Spezza Is All In

This past July 1 was the three-year anniversary of the Dallas Stars sending Alex Chiasson and some prospects to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for superstar center Jason Spezza. And to be honest, it doesn’t feel like it’s been three seasons since then.

But it has, and with the passing of seasons comes an inevitable increase in age. With that being said, Jason Spezza just turned 34 last month.

We all know that every hockey player has a shelf life (unless you’re Jaromir Jagr, of course), and that shelf life can range anywhere from the late 30’s to the early 40’s, depending on the player and their physical condition. For Jason Spezza, he should be physically able to play and produce for at least another 3-5 years.

Editor In Leaf

But we also know that the one goal of every hockey player is to win the Stanley Cup. Winning other awards and gaining wealth and fame is probably fun and all, but none of those compare to lifting the Cup that some of the greatest hockey players to ever play the game have lifted. It’s the Cup that they have dreamed about since their adolescence, and it means everything.

Jason Spezza has yet to lift the Cup in his career. While other Stars players like Jamie Benn haven’t lifted it either, it’s not necessarily a problem for the captain considering he likely has at least a decade left in him. But for Spezza? Not so much.

And the fact that he hasn’t lifted it yet is preposterous, especially with the career trailing him. Spezza was drafted second overall in the 2001 NHL Entry Draft by the Ottawa Senators and spent the first 11 years of his pro career with the Sens. During that time, he was a point-per-game player (686 GP, 687 PTS). That’s superstar status. In other words, he was Ottawa’s no. 1 all-star.

But he abandoned all of that in the 2014 offseason when he requested a trade, and it was all for one thing: to have a chance at the Cup while he still had some good years left. Ottawa had missed the playoffs in 2014 and had not been past the second round of the postseason since the 2006-07 season when they lost in the Stanley Cup Final to the Anaheim Ducks.

They needed a fresh start, and so did Spezza. So they dealt him to Dallas who was fresh off of breaking their five-year playoff drought and looked to have a bright future.

But in three years with the Stars, Spezza has only been to one postseason and was eliminated in the second round. Meanwhile, the Senators have been to two postseasons and fell one goal short of the Stanley Cup Final this past season.

That has to sting, but it should also be building a fire inside Spezza that could help Dallas this season.

The hourglass is slowly pouring away, and the Dallas Stars need to do something with Spezza’s talent while paying attention to his time. Now is the perfect time to strike. With this in mind, the 2017-18 season could be Spezza’s best in Dallas. If that’s so, then expect to see the Stars not only in the playoffs, but claiming one of the top seeds.

He’s ready for it considering his impressive career. Now is the time to go all in for no. 90.

3. The Best Offseason In The NHL

The Dallas Stars won the Best 2017 Offseason Award. No, it’s not a real award, but if it were, Jim Nill’s fingerprints would be all over it.

The Stars went out and upgraded every area of their roster in an attempt to wipe clean the dirty memory of 2016-17 and start with a fresh slate along with a hefty head start. They set themselves up rather nicely.

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Dallas went out and acquired some of the top offensive, defensive, and goaltending talent on the market, all while winning trades and remaining under the salary cap.

Nill started out by hiring Hitchcock and bringing a fresh face to the bench. He followed that with trading for and signing goaltender Ben Bishop, trading for defenseman Marc Methot, and signing forwards Martin Hanzal and Alexander Radulov.

Acquiring that kind of talent without stretching any limits and still keeping your team intact is hard to do for any team. Nill, however, did not seem to be challenged in the slightest.

And now he has a seemingly complete lineup. He picked up one of the best goaltenders in the league in Bishop to man the pipes and give longtime starter Kari Lehtonen a chance to man the backup role, acquired a first-pairing defender in Methot that should match well with John Klingberg, and added two strong forwards in Hanzal and Radulov to the top-six that can help at even strength and on special teams.

This lineup has the potential to be even more dangerous than the 2015-16 lineup simply due to its well-roundedness. The Stars got significantly better in every area and should make a big splash when the season starts on October 6. The NHL will likely be on high alert, and for good reason. If the results on paper can translate fully to the ice, Dallas is in store for a storybook year. That story could be helped along greatly by a playoff berth.

4. Offensive Completeness

The 2015-16 seasons as a lot of fun for the Dallas Stars, specifically on offense. The defense and goaltending had a couple (though they were few and far between) internal kinks, but the offense is the one area that never truly showed any signs of regression or incapability was the offensive area.

That’s because the Stars loaded up on offense in the 2015 offseason and added onto their already stellar offensive core. In the 2014-15 season, the Stars fell seven points short of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but it wasn’t due to their offense. Dallas put a total of 257 goals in the back of the net which averages out to 3.13 goals per game, good enough for second in the league.

In 2015-16, they busted that mark open. With a new group that included a healthy Jamie Benn, a healthy Tyler Seguin, and Patrick Sharp, the Stars posted 265 goals for, bumping their average up to 3.23, which was the best in the league by over .20 goals.

Dallas Stars

With all the pucks they were putting in the back of the net, they also secured the title of “most fun team to watch in the NHL.” They were simply playing a high-flying style of hockey and putting a show on for everyone else. It’s still sad that it had to end in the second round of the playoffs.

But then things went south. It’s not like the Dallas Stars completely went off the board this past season, but it was still a sizable demotion. The Stars went from 3.23 goals per game to 2.71 goals per game.

Where did the Stars go wrong with their offense? A big portion of it can of course be blamed on consistent injuries within the lineup, but another portion of it had to do with the Stars losing some depth scoring.

Dallas said goodbye to Vernon Fiddler and Colton Sceviour during the 2016 offseason, both of whom were rather influential parts of the Stars’ bottom six. In the end, Dallas just couldn’t replace them.

But have no fear, because the 2017-18 Dallas Stars offense is shaping up to be even better than 2015-16.

The Stars added two big pieces in Alexander Radulov and Martin Hanzal this offseason.

With Radulov, the Stars have found their missing piece on the top line and now have a first line of with dominance of biblical proportions. The Stars top line should have no trouble thwarting defenses and putting the puck in the back of the net not only at even strength, but also on the power play.

Hanzal is another big piece in the puzzle. With his presence, the Stars have one of the league’s best center-men, and winning face-offs should be more of a regular occurrence this season in the top six. In addition to him taking the second-line center role, Spezza will shift to the right wing and be given more of an opportunity to do what he loves: score. Instead of having to quarterback offensive rushes and play down the middle, he’ll be given the opportunity to play from the circle and line up for the one-timer or wrist shot on a more regular basis.

In addition to these two, the Stars also still have a solid bottom six with some of the youngest talent in the NHL. In addition to players like Brett Ritchie, Radek Faksa, and Devin Shore, the Stars also added Tyler Pitlick and Brian Flynn in free agency.

Long story short: the Stars offense looks scary good when drawn up. If they can execute at the rate they seem capable of, get ready for another fun season that will most assuredly lead to a playoff berth.

5. One Of The Best Goalie Tandems In The League

The Dallas Stars could very well be known for their tandem this year. And no, I’m not talking about the tandem of Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin which they’ve been known for for so long.

The goaltending duo of Ben Bishop and Kari Lehtonen should prove to be extremely sturdy and even rather impressive. That could lead to some really good things.

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One of the Stars’ lingering problems over the past few years has been finding consistency in the crease. Sometimes they cannot find a competent backup, sometimes Kari Lehtonen doesn’t perform up to par, and sometimes both of these conundrums would occur (see 2016-17).

But it looks like Dallas has finally figured it out.

The Stars kicked off their offseason by landing veteran goaltender Ben Bishop in a trade and immediately signing him to a reasonable and team-friendly deal of six years, $4,916,667 AAV that benefitted both sides.

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Bishop is an elite goaltender, a 2016 Vezina finalist, and can singlehandedly turn a game around with his play. His stats speak for themselves and it’s clear that if he can transition smoothly and keep up his production, he will be the best starter that Dallas has had in a long time.

Meanwhile, the longtime starter Lehtonen will likely shift to the full-time backup role for the first time in eight years. But in doing so, the Stars are giving themselves one of the most competent backups in the NHL.

Lehtonen is by no means a poor goaltender. Sure, he’s lost a step since he was 28 and isn’t the highest-caliber starter anymore. But he would make one heck of a backup.

If you take Lehtonen out of the high-pressure situations on a nightly basis, you give him more time to not only rest and recuperate for his next start, but also more time to practice and prepare. While Bishop takes the heavy load for 3-4 games in a row, Lehtonen sits on the sidelines, patiently waiting and preparing for his next start. And once it arrives, he takes it by the reins.

Lehtonen still has some good years left on him and could thrive in a backup role. The less consistent pressure on him, the better. Meanwhile, Bishop will be prepared and ready to take on the majority of the work and will know that he has a competent goalie backing him up if he needs the help.

Next: Good On Paper Doesn't Mean Much: Stars Must Stay Focused

If all of this ties together as neatly as it should, the Dallas Stars should have no trouble in finding their way into the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs. And once they are in, the title is up for grabs.

But that’s still a mighty big “if”, especially before the season has even begun. At least everything looks good, right?