Dallas Stars: Elite Defenseman Dallas Needs Was Here All Along in Klingberg
By Tom Dorsa
It’s okay if John Klingberg isn’t the elite defenseman you wanted, but the Dallas Stars assist leader is the elite defenseman they needed.
Sports fandom is genuinely absurd. We scream until our lungs give out for a group of grown adults wearing a set of clothing that contrasts to the clothing donned by the opposition, and nothing or nobody can stop us. Some of us are born into it, some of us gradually become this, but anyone reading this has succumbed to this mode.
When things go downhill, we naturally begin to point fingers at anyone we can assign blame to. Poor officiating, unfair environmental advantages, specific opposing players, you name it. Lest we forget the most irritating finger-pointing tactic, however: underperforming players dressed in the color we like.
To us, that color is Victory Green (a name for a hue that may or may not even exist, we kind of made it up). Also to us, those underperforming athletes are abundant. The Dallas Stars have gone a whopping 9-2-1 in their last 12 and haven’t moved a spot in the Central Division standings. Right now, everyone on the team is clicking and playing well – but anger still looms.
At this point in the season, it’s fair to commence the finger-pointing. The allure of the yellow laces has worn off and the Stars need to will themselves into a postseason spot with talent alone (sounds ridiculous, I know). We almost NEED someone to blame, someone to direct our rage towards. Just stop blaming John Klingberg.
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Dallas Stars defenseman John Klingberg has been perhaps the most valuable presence in the Stars locker room this season, despite receiving close to none of the credit for the somewhat successful 2017-18 campaign.
There are zero defensemen in the National Hockey League with more points than Klingberg’s 46 this season (six goals, 40 assists). The 25-year-old Swede is playing more minutes per game (23:33) than any other Dallas Stars skater; in fact second-place Esa Lindell (21:55) is nearly two whole minutes behind Klingberg’s pace.
Klingberg is on pace for a borderline unbelievable 78 points this season (which would be an NHL active d-man record), the highest single-season points mark by a Dallas Stars defenseman ever (currently Sergei Zubov in 2005-06, 71). That would mean Klingberg, at 25, would have two of the top three best seasons in the 25-year Stars history, accounting for his 58-point 2015-16.
Klingberg has been on the ice for more Stars shot attempts this season (944) than any other player. The defensive unit of Klingberg and Lindell are tops on the Stars’ blueline at 53.9 Corsi For percentage, and for a cherry on top, the right-handed former fifth-round pick is playing on an extremely team-friendly contract of $4.25 million per season until he’s 29.
Related Story: John Klingberg's Mid-Season Case For The Norris Trophy
Yet, the large and treacherous social media groups of Dallas Stars fans make him out to look like a 2017-18 Jyrki Jokipakka. “He doesn’t play defense well,” they shout. “He doesn’t hit or play physical,” they continue. “He doesn’t freaking have to,” I respond.
It’s like Washington Capitals fans with Alexander Ovechkin: they’re routinely disappointed when Ovechkin doesn’t do stuff he’s never done, or isn’t built to do. Stars fans have internalized that Klingberg is some sort of god on the blueline, and that he’s perfect in his own zone, designed to be playing a Derian Hatcher game despite having half the muscle on him.
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Hatcher was elite in the 1990s, but that is due to two facts: Hatcher was massive, and the game was different then compared to now. The athletes are better, the technology of skates and sticks are better, and the game’s foremost scorekeeping component – GOALS – are more scarce than ever.
The NHL’s elite defensemen are not big, bulking maniacs any more. The guys who stand around, pinning forwards to the glass, meeting them with open-ice hits, and blocking dangerous shots are a deceased breed. This game is too fast, and the preeminent defenders model their game out of pace of play now.
The Erik Karlsson, P.K. Subban, Brent Burns, Duncan Keith types win with their legs and their vision, not with physicality and grit. Klingberg follows the trend and executes it about as well as anyone in hockey. If Klingberg wins the Norris Trophy this year, it won’t be because he hits forwards a lot, or blocks a bunch of shots.
It isn’t a coincidence that, over the past four seasons, our best defenseman wasn’t Johnny Oduya, or Stephen Johns, or Brenden Dillon, or Marc Methot. The term “lock-down defenseman” is obsolete – the best defense is great offense, and Klingberg has totaled the third-most points in the league by a D-man since his rookie season.
You need offense wherever you can get it. Some teams flow their entire offensive schemes around defensemen nowadays, a la Karlsson with Ottawa and Brent Burns with San Jose. When it works, a big red light comes flashing on and 20,000 people start screaming. This, with the Dallas Stars, is precisely what John Klingberg is and can continue to be.
"“Not that long ago, Klingberg was suffering through healthy scratches as the Stars experienced a wildly disappointing 2016-17 season. Now he’s easily on pace to surpass his career-high of 58 points, and Klingberg might just collect some hardware in the process.” – James O’Brien, NBC Sports"
If we’re trading John Klingberg any time soon, it’s for Karlsson, straight up. One-for-one. Karlsson, right now, THE WORLD’S BEST PLAYER AT HIS POSITION, is the only player comparable to King Kling. Step back and absorb that.
You might want Klingberg to stop pinching, to stop funneling pucks down low, to stop carrying the puck up the ice and behind the net so often – but that’s his game. Sometimes it works, it has worked 46 times this season, to be factual, and sometimes it doesn’t, but a perfect hockey player doesn’t exist.
The best in the world will have plays go awry from time to time (Burns leads the NHL in giveaways, for that matter), but those same elite blueliners will develop a short memory and not let it impact their overall gameplay style. John Klingberg is that. In addition, Klingberg has minimized his mistakes and upgraded his offensive output to near modern-era record highs. Who wouldn’t want him?
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John Klingberg is elite, and for the success of the squad, Klingberg is imperative. In searching for an elite blueliner, we had to look no further than right around the corner. Klingberg is that, and the Dallas Stars will hopefully keep him around for years to come.