After dropping a 6-0 bombshell at home on Sunday, the Dallas Stars now embark on a four-day break. While they sit and watch, the rest of the Western Conference will catch up. What will the teams around Dallas face during this week?
The Dallas Stars probably could not have ended their stretch of recent success on a worse note.
On Sunday afternoon, the Vancouver Canucks visited Dallas and dropped a bomb on the Stars. They were stronger, faster, and smarter and outdid Dallas in every facet of the game. As a result, they won in a 6-0 routing. But it wasn’t the Canucks’ success that was necessarily the most shocking; it was the Stars’ failures.
Coming into the game, the Dallas Stars had won five games in a row. They had beaten plenty of odds during the stretch and tied their season high in wins in a row. Their offense was on fire, their defense was on lockdown, and both goaltenders were playing lights out in the crease.
And then it disappeared, almost as if overnight. All of the momentum went down the drain and Dallas dropped to a team that had lost four straight games of their own. The Stars couldn’t find a way to rally together and looked utterly confused for a majority of the game. They had lost their spark entirely and could not find a way to make the game even remotely close.
Dallas Stars
Sometimes, that happens. And while it’s logical even for good teams to slip every once in a while, the timing was not ideal. That’s because the Stars closed out a long streak of success with a goose egg.
And now they are going on another break. After taking two extensive breaks (including a six-day and four-day break) in the month of January, the Stars are set to take another one. They won’t play again until Friday night when they host the St. Louis Blues. That’s four days away from the ice.
But as the Dallas Stars sit back and stew on their loss, the rest of the league will keep playing. Could that be a problem? Well, potentially.
At the moment, the Stars sit with a record of 33-20-4. That totals out to 70 points and gives Dallas sole control of the first wild card spot in the Western Conference. While that is an impressive mark, there’s plenty of hockey left to be played. On top of that, there are plenty of teams still in the running for very few playoff spots.
On top of that, the Stars have played a total of 57 games. That’s the second most of any team in the West, trailing only the St. Louis Blues. The other teams have to catch up at some point, and now seems to be that time.
So while the Stars sit out and focus on bouncing back in a big way on Friday, how will the teams around them fare? Is there a chance that Dallas could be bumped from their spot in the standings?
Let’s take a look at what the teams both above and below the Stars will be doing this week around the league.