Last night’s game marked number 21 on the year for the Dallas Stars. Here are some observations about their play in the first quarter of the 2017-18 regular season. Take a gander.
As I was walking out of morning skate on Tuesday, I happened to run into Dallas Stars head coach Ken Hitchcock.
After talking for a few moments, I asked him one question: “So coach, what do you think of your first 20 games back in Dallas?”
He responded simply by giving me a smile and a repetitive up, down, up, down motion with his hand, resembling a rollercoaster. Hitch went on to talk about what he liked so far, what he disliked, and what he expected from the team going forward.
My mind kept wandering back to that simple hand motion as the day went on. The thing about rollercoasters is that they offer a balance of highs and lows. There could be more highs or potentially more lows, but you know you’ll get a nice mixture of both more often than not.
That’s what the Dallas Stars have gotten this season. They have experienced some ultimate highs and also trudged through some almost inexplicable lows. One night they win 5-0 and follow it up with a 6-1 loss. They have become stuck on this up-down pattern and it is becoming exhausting.
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In the preseason, there probably weren’t many people that had the Stars at 11-9-1 after 21 games, yet here they are. But it’s not all bad. The early expectations are simply overshadowing the good that the team is currently doing. Don’t forget that there are still some ups in this season.
Last night, the Stars had a big up. It wasn’t the cleanest of performances, but Dallas played with an effective style and beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-1. With the win, the Stars went undefeated on a two-game homestand after losing three in a row on the road. Up, down, up, down.
The game also helped mark the quarter mark of the 2017-18 season for Dallas. Though there is no exact quarter mark in an 82-game slate, it’s somewhere in between games 20 and 21.
So now that the Dallas Stars closed out their first quarter on a high note, what are some things we’ve seen? What are some things we can expect to see from the team going forward?
Here are five takeaways from the first 1/4 of the Dallas Stars season and an outlook on where they could potentially be going from here (if they keep up the pace).