The Dallas Stars barely escaped with a 5-4 win against the Arizona Coyotes last night in Glendale. The fact that they almost lost to a winless team should be a good enough reason to return to their former starting lineup.
It wasn’t easy and it definitely wasn’t pretty, but the Dallas Stars still found a way to get it done. The Stars knocked off the Arizona Coyotes by a final score of 5-4 last night.
With the win, Dallas is now 4-3-0 and above .500 for the first time this season. In addition to that, the Stars have now won three straight games and will look to make it four on Saturday night against Carolina.
But how will they line up? After the narrow victory against Arizona, one thing is clear: the lineup Dallas used last night might not be the best option going forward.
The problem with last night’s win wasn’t necessarily the way it happened, but who it happened against. The Coyotes are currently the only team in the NHL without a win and sit at 0-6-1 on the year. They were 0-5-1 entering Thursday and had already dropped one contest to the Stars two days prior.
Dallas Stars
Even on a weaker effort, the Stars still displayed dominance in a 3-1 victory on Tuesday night at home. Many expected a similar happening and result for Thursday. But that’s not what they got.
Instead, it was a sloppy effort that included a few scares and even some doubts. After giving up an early goal, Dallas powered back to take a 2-1 lead. Going into the third, it was a 2-2 contest and seemed to be anyone’s contest. The Stars jumped out of the gate and took a one goal lead, but it was quickly nullified to a tie.
Two Tyler Seguin goals through the middle part of the third ended up doing it for Dallas, giving them a 5-3 lead. But even when a win seemed assured, the Coyotes put another on the board to make it a 5-4 game in the dwindling seconds.
We knew that Arizona had nothing to hold back in their play (considering they were still searching for their first win), but Dallas didn’t do the best job at countering their attack.
Their performance simply didn’t look like the Dallas Stars hockey we were growing accustomed to. So why did they look so offbeat and even a step behind at times? It might have been due to the lineup change.
One of the larger issues in last night’s game had to do with the lack of defensive support in the back end. Goaltender Ben Bishop got his third straight win in five consecutive starts, but had to go the extra mile to secure the two points. Arizona had plenty of golden opportunities throughout the night and Bishop had to come up big to keep them at bay.
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Jamie Oleksiak replaced Julius Honka in the lineup after serving two games as the healthy scratch. The Big Rig looked as though he hadn’t played in weeks. He gave up breakaways and high-quality chances, turned over the puck, and was out of position on multiple occasions.
The rest of the defense didn’t do much better, and that forced the offense to hit new levels of dominance.
Before yesterday’s game, the Dallas Stars had used the same lineup in two consecutive games. In the win against Colorado and the first win against Arizona, the Stars fronted the same starters. Dallas displayed their dominance in both games, winning by a score of 3-1. In both games, the Stars made it clear that they were the better team. Last night? Not so much.
So why change the lineup when it was working? It’s obvious that Ken Hitchcock did it primarily to rotate the defenders out and keep them active. But it might be time to switch back after a performance like last night.
The lineup from earlier in the week worked and brought in four points for the Stars. So why not revert to dominance?
Next: Introducing The New And Improved Tyler Seguin
It will be interesting to see what Hitchcock does with his lineup and who he includes/excludes (specifically on defense) come Saturday night. The Carolina Hurricanes come to town with an impressive 3-1-1 record, so the Stars’ “walk in the park” is over and it’s back to business. Whatever Hitch decides, it would be nice to see a powerful lineup back in action.
After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.