Dallas Stars: Examining Their Chances At Making Stanley Cup Playoffs

The math is getting trickier and the hole is getting larger for the Dallas Stars. With the regular season two weeks from closing, will the Stars be able to find their way into the postseason?

Things aren’t looking good for the Dallas Stars in their playoff push right now. Let’s just get that out of the way first.

After going 0-4-2 on their recent six-game road trip, the Stars have fallen from a somewhat stable lead on the first wild card spot to a few points outside of the playoff race. In addition to that, the teams around Dallas are showing no signs of faltering in their own respective races. With eight games to go in the season, the Stars’ playoff hopes are in serious jeopardy.

And with all that working against the Stars right now, it’s hard to see them making a postseason push that will be strong enough.

But, as Stars fans seem to say more often than any other hockey fans, it’s not over until it’s over. Dallas is still involved in the playoff race. The math doesn’t have them in a headlock (yet) and they have an important stretch of home games coming up. Things don’t look very promising, but anything can happen.

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So what all needs to go down for the Dallas Stars to punch their ticket to the Stanley Cup Playoffs?

Well, there’s a few things. What the Stars have working for them right now is that there are still eight games left. A lot can happen in that timeframe (as we saw with Dallas in the past six games). That means that Dallas not only has eight more games to bounce back and pick up points, but also to watch teams around them in the standings take on their final eight or nine games.

That could also be a bad thing, though. Every team around them is currently rolling on some sort of a hot streak. With third place seemingly out of reach for the Stars at this point, here is a look at the wild card race.

1. Colorado Avalanche   73 GP  88 PTS

2. Los Angeles Kings   74 GP   87 PTS

3. St. Louis Blues   73 GP   85 PTS

4. Dallas Stars   74 GP   84 PTS

5. Calgary Flames   75 GP   80 PTS

After defeating the Boston Bruins in overtime last night, the Blues picked up another much-needed win. It was their third straight win and their fourth in five games. In other words, they are getting hot at the right time and are making up for ground lost at the end of February. And now the Stars have another team to worry about in the race.

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The problem with getting Dallas to the playoffs likely won’t be the number of points they can accumulate. Instead, it will probably end up depending on how the teams around the Stars fare.

The Dallas Stars are only four points out of the first wild card spot and three points out of the second. That’s not a huge gap and definitely seems manageable. But will it be with all of the other teams around Dallas still chugging along?

If the Stars were to somehow pull off an incredible eight-game win streak and finish the year on an undefeated note, that would put them at 100 points. That should most assuredly be enough to push them into the postseason.

But where is the cutoff mark? Honestly, it could be anywhere considering there is still a tenth of the season left.

Once you do the math and take into account every other team’s schedule, the rough cutoff estimate is probably 96 or 97. That means that the Stars need to find a way to post a mark of 6-2-0 or 6-1-1 over the final stretch. For some reason, that seems much less probable.

But that’s the way it goes. Dallas knew that this season was going to be a dogfight when there were 12 Western Conference teams still in the playoff race in mid-February. They have dug themselves a hole and will now need to not only play with a new fire, but also hope that at least two teams slip up in front of them. Even though the Stars are near the bottom of the pile, they are still part of the logjam.

All they have to do is find a way to outstep two teams. St. Louis and Los Angeles, St. Louis and Colorado, or Los Angeles and Colorado. Sounds easy enough, right?

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But at the moment, they have no time to worry about anyone but themselves. They have to reignite a spark in the next 24 hours in preparation for a tough Boston team.

Six wins should get them in. But man, will those six wins take a lot of effort, focus, and grit. Let’s see if the Stars can get themselves out of the corner.