An elite presence. A number-one defenseman. A wrecking ball of three-zone speed and skill. A dude that literally can’t stop smiling. John freaking Klingberg is the best defensive the Dallas Stars have had since Sergei Zubov wore green and gold for 12 years and he showed it in October.
Klingberg has three goals and a team-high eight assists in 12 games, while playing an average of 24:41 per game. He leads the team in skater time on ice, blocked shots, and shot attempt differential. He’s manning the top power play unit and holding it down on the penalty kill. He’s the complete player he doesn’t get credit for.
Ask any Stars fan what the biggest problem over the last few years is and they’ll tell you it’s goaltending. Well, scratch that, any rationally thinking Stars fans. Some people still blame Alex Goligoski for stuff. Anyways, Ben Bishop has been a savior in the Stars’ crease this season after Jim Nill signed him to a six-year off-season deal.
Bishop is 6-2-0 with a save percentage of .920 and a goals against average of 2.51. The veteran goalie is stealing games for the Stars and being a guiding light for the young defensemen around him, backstopping the Stars better than any goalie since Marty Turco.
As we said on the Twitter account recently, Alexander Radulov eats nails soaked in gasoline and drinks molten lava. He’s the toughest, most enigmatic Stars player by a mile, and his ability to straight up take over games has been evident early on this.
Radulov, formerly the leading scorer in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League, has posted four goals and six assists as part of an electric and borderline unstoppable top line. The sky is the limit for Alexander Radulov and his helmet that he doesn’t know how to wear.
Tyler Seguin: Offensive Specialist is a player of the past. Please welcome complete three-zone hockey superstar Tyler Seguin. Ken Hitchcock has transformed Seguin into one of the premier two-way centers in hockey without completing destroying his offensive skills, which have resulted in seven goals and five assists in 12 games.
You’re always going to get highlight-reel goals and beautiful playmaking from Tyler Seguin, but the 26-year-old is also out defending late leads and killing penalties with the best of them. To have a complete player like Seguin on the squad before he even hits his “prime” as a hockey player excites me like little else does.
At the top, but not alone there, is Jamie Benn. You could tell from Dallas Stars training camp on that this dude would be tearing the league up this season. He’s a physical beast and a playmaking wonder who finds himself fully healthy for the first time in awhile, and boy, has he been all we could have imagined.
Benn is the Stars’ leading scorer in 2017-18, with seven goals and seven assists in 12 games, an 82-game pace of 95 points. For any other player on the roster that seems staggering and ridiculous, but healthy Jamie Benn can reach that and still has room to grow. Benn is the league’s best player at his position, left wing, and can’t be stopped in the early going.
Next: Recapping The Highs And Lows Of October For Stars
There you have it. Nearly 3,000 words later, the October Dallas Stars power rankings have concluded. Stay up to date on Dallas Stars news, analysis, and game recaps on Blackout Dallas as the season heads into November.