Dallas Stars: Rest of Road Trip Needs To Trend Upward

With two games left in their road trip on the west coast, the Dallas Stars need a few more confident wins under their belt to solidify their standing before they return home for another big slate.

Ever since the Dallas Stars overtook the St. Louis Blues for third place in the Central Division last Friday night, things have seemed to go a bit sideways for them. While it’s not quite fair to just say that they’ve slowed down since rising in the standings, it has been clear that they were better chasing the spot than they are in it.

After their 5-2 blowout in San Jose, Ken Hitchcock and his crew both attributed their downfall that night (and on several other recent nights) to some stretches of tuned-out attitudes. Tyler Seguin mentioned that when the score jumped to 3-0 while the first period was still young, it was like they had blinked and missed it.

Hitchcock also mentioned the Stars’ lack of really any mentionable kind of forecheck, which lead to turnovers and downright unpreparedness against a motivated team like the Sharks, who were much more ready for the game. All the issues boiled down to this assessment from Dan Hamhuis: “…our determination level wasn’t high enough.”

Now, in all this, it’s quite easy for us as fans to feel like we’re being taken for a ride. The last several weeks have been pretty rollercoastery for the Stars- their highs were way up there and their lows were, well, giving up four goals in the first period kind of low.

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However, Scott Burnside made a great point in his recent appraisal of the Stars’ efforts against the Sharks. In the midst of an all in all good season, where the Stars are moving up in the Central (and Western) world, it can be nearly impossible to level out the highs and lows and judge what kinds of performances are truly troublesome, and which are just strokes of luck, good or bad.

I would go so far as to say that this is the challenge that has reigned supreme this season for the Stars. We’ve seen them play like Stanley Cup champions, and we’ve seen them play like they can barely keep up in their own division- and sometimes these two polarizing performances are within mere days of each other.

But, I would venture to agree with Burnside’s conclusion: the Stars need to take this and the previous losses seriously, but also need to trust in the maturity and bounce-back ability they’ve cultivated as part of their team identity this season.

Good news is that the Dallas Stars have pretty much already come to that conclusion on their own. We saw the evidence of it in the third period against the Sharks, when they dug their heels in and fought back, despite the unlikelihood of digging themselves out of a pretty ginormous hole.

Another pinpoint of hope is in the players themselves. Even in those blinking moments when the Stars seemed to be mostly checked out and paid for it dearly in goal deficits, not everyone was just sitting idly by. That game had its standouts and its heroes nonetheless.

Mattias Janmark worked as an offensive catalyst, helping to create the bounce-back attitude that eventually denied the Sharks their shutout. Gemel Smith and Tyler Pitlick were the eventual scorers, with the defensemen chipping in to help out in the two-way push that always seems to make things happen for the Stars.

Bottom line, the Stars experienced a pretty crushing blow in their loss to the Sharks, but it shouldn’t keep them (or us) down. Even though it was a chronic case of too little too late, Dallas did show that they weren’t giving up without a fight, and those are the Stars that have made it to third place in the division.

Next: Who Should The Stars Target At The Trade Deadline?

With two games left in their roadtrip, the Stars really need to take that attitude and hold on to it for dear life against the Ducks and then the Kings. And for heaven’s sake, nobody blink.