Dallas Stars Proving They Are Still Tough Even Without Enforcers

To compete in the NHL, you have to be both mentally and physically tough. The Dallas Stars are proving that even in the absence of enforcers, they still have plenty of bad blood brewing.

The Dallas Stars beat the lights out of the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night. There’s really not much more that could be said about the result.

The Stars started off a three-game homestand to close out January with an impressive 6-1 win. Similar to the game against Buffalo on Saturday, everything seemed to go right for the Stars.

They received solid goaltending from Ben Bishop, who stopped 33 of 34. Their offense was once again flaring, scoring six and getting goals from five different forwards. Their defense played with plenty of grit and focus and earned the W. And finally, their special teams played well, going 2/6 on the power play and 5/6 on the penalty kill. Everything worked in the Dallas Stars favor.

But if you watched last night’s game or at least caught the highlights, you know that the 6-1 win was only a small part of the game. In one of the weirdest and most aggressive games of the season (and maybe the past few seasons, for that matter), the Stars and Panthers compiled for 138 total penalty minutes. Yes, you read that right. 138. And yes, that is the most combined minutes of any NHL game this season (according to the Sportsnet Twitter page).

Dallas Stars

So, how did all of these minutes come about? 36 hooking calls, 12 interference minors, and 21 slashing penalties? Well, no. They obviously came from fights, and boy were there an absurd amount of them.

Six different fights occurred in tonight’s game between two teams that really don’t have much of a rivalry brewing (but very well may after tonight). They are in different divisions and conferences and only meet up twice a year. Neither team is known for being consistently great or anything, so there’s really no reason for either club to be throwing fists like they were tonight. But that didn’t stop them.

Antoine Roussel, Radek Faksa (2), Dillon Heatherington, Brett Ritchie, and Stephen Johns all dropped the mitts in the victorious affair. That’s pretty incredible. And while some of them struggled in their fights, others completely dominated. But it doesn’t matter what the results were. The fact of the matter is that the Dallas Stars proved something substantial on Tuesday night: they can still throw down.

The NHL is unlike any other professional sports league in the fact that if a member of the opposing team angers or stirs you, you have the ability to drop your gloves and reshape their head. And as long as they drop the gloves and swing back, you won’t face any disciplinary action.

But with that privilege comes a lot of responsibility. If you or your teammates cannot defend themselves and keep themselves upright, they could be in for a beating should things get out of hand.

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That’s why it’s a good idea for every NHL team to have at least one “enforcer.” In other words, it’s smart to have a player that can drop the gloves whenever the time comes and defend his teammates or help spark the team. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a superstar player, though it can be (see Jamie Benn). But simply someone that can step up and take some punches while delivering some.

Though it may not seem like it, that’s a very necessary player to have in the dog-eat-dog NHL. And that turned out to be a worry for the Stars. Even though it may not have seemed like it, there was definitely some uncertainty.

Besides Jamie Benn, who else comes to mind on the current Dallas Stars roster that can serve as an enforcer? Jamie Oleksiak was traded to Pittsburgh in December, Martin Hanzal cannot stay healthy, and Curtis McKenzie is in the AHL.

There’s not a lot of size or physicality within the Dallas roster. Antoine Roussel is definitely a fighter and knows how to get scrappy, but he gets outmatched every so often. He can still spark the team, but the results of the scrap sometimes aren’t in his favor.

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And though it may not seem like it, that’s a pretty sizable problem for this Stars team to have. With Dallas in the middle of the playoff push and competing with a lot of teams, every game seems to be critical. Wouldn’t it be tragic if they were deep into a game and needed someone to step up and drop the gloves and couldn’t find a capable and prepared volunteer?

Luckily, it doesn’t seem like they need a designated one. Tuesday night’s game proved that no Dallas Stars player is too afraid to get their hands dirty.

Last night’s game showed that there are plenty of Stars who can swing back and even win when the chips are down. After Roussel got into a swinging match with Keith Yandle who likely believed that Roussel had hurt Florida goalie James Reimer (though he did not), the other Stars took matters into their own hands. Faksa responded to a physical check from Micheal Haley by getting into his fourth career fight with Haley. And it only got more intense and violent from there.

Faksa fought Derek MacKenzie a few minutes later in the first period, and Dillon Heatherington dropped the mitts with Alex Petrovic at the same time.

After a four-fight first period, the third period is where things boiled over yet again. With Dallas running circles around the Panthers and holding a 6-1 lead, there was plenty of bad blood still lingering. Brett Ritchie notched his fourth career fight of the season as well, and proceeded to apparently drill a hole into Connor Brickley’s head, who skated off the ice, bloodied, after the scrap. Ritchie landed some massive blows to the side of Brickley’s head and showed no signs of resentment.

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And finally, Stephen Johns and Jamie McGinn scrapped just before the end of the game. It was pretty clear that Johns won the fight after landing a couple of solid uppercuts and taking McGinn to the ground. Not to mention that he had a good laugh about it during the fight.

In the game against Florida, the Dallas Stars put to rest any worry about not being able to answer the bell when times get tough in a game. The Stars proved that they have plenty of soldiers willing to stand up against any potential bullies. In addition, they even have some guys who look as though they could knock down any bully that stood in their way.

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The Stars are in a good spot right now physically. They have a good balance of physical players and obviously have some skaters who are always willing to drop the gloves when a challenge arises.

That’s a solid quality to have for any hockey team. And when it helps your team win 6-1 and tack on another win to boost them to a 10-3-1 record over the past 13 games, that’s even better.