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Dallas Stars Have Made This Season As Bad As Last Season

By Josh Clark

RALEIGH, NC - NOVEMBER 13: Jamie Benn
RALEIGH, NC - NOVEMBER 13: Jamie Benn /
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A few weeks ago, the Dallas Stars seemed like a lock for the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Now, they are simply looking for a way to end their misery. This recent meltdown has quickly pitted the 2017-18 season as one of the worst in a while.

I haven’t written an article for Blackout Dallas since this past Friday morning. In my last post, I mapped out what the Dallas Stars were up against in the Western Conference playoff race and what their competition looked like. It also laid out a scenario on how the Stars could potentially crack their way into the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Considering I typically try and put up at least one article a day on the site, this three-day break has been unnatural to say the least. But if you’ve kept up with the Stars over the past 72 hours, you probably understand why I have neglected to write anything. It all boils down to the fact that I don’t really know what to write anymore.

We rode the “playoff hope” wagon for as long as possible, but the Stars quickly and swiftly kicked us off of it over the past few days.

And now, here they sit. The Stars have lost eight games in a row (0-6-2), have shrunken their playoff hopes to below five percent, and cannot seem to do anything right. As a result, why try spinning it into something positive when there really isn’t anything positive to say?

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The Dallas Stars went from a team destined to make a playoff run to a team begging for an early offseason. That’s due to a few different reasons, but the common result is that Dallas is no longer a playoff-caliber team. This is a serious problem.

Let’s rewind back to October 2017. It’s Oct. 6 and the Stars are preparing for their opening night game vs. Vegas. There are plenty of reasons to be excited.

After a 2016-17 season that entailed plenty of misery and few bright spots, Dallas rebounded in a huge way in the offseason. They brought in names like Alexander Radulov, Martin Hanzal, Marc Methot, and Ben Bishop to bolster the roster’s weak spots. In addition, they also revamped the coaching staff by adding a proven winner in Ken Hitchcock as their new bench boss.

Surely the 2017-18 season had more thrilling and exciting moments in store than 2016-17, right? For the first 57 games, it definitely seemed like it. After breaking through the “get to know you” phase in games 1-19, Dallas was off and running. They posted an incredible record of 24-10-3 from Nov. 18 to Feb. 10. Then, the wheels came off (and that’s putting it lightly).

What started off as a simple lack of depth scoring turned into full-blown offensive problems. That then formed into defensive inefficiencies and inerrant coaching decisions. When you mix in some critical injuries and loss of focus into this swirling concoction of misery, you get a record of 5-11-4 over the last six weeks. This record has effectively removed the Stars from any hope of playoff contention and have them staring ahead at the Western Conference playoff race that has quickly abandoned them.

And now, there’s a lot that can be said. But why say any of it? After covering last season’s misfortunes, a lot of rage, frustration, anger, and disbelief can be found in the Blackout Dallas archives.

The 2016-17 season brought a lot of grief to the Dallas Stars. They only managed to pull out 79 points, had a historically terrible penalty kill, were a bottom-three team in the league defensively, and turned in one of the worst seasons in Stars history.

With that being said, there was a lot of time to write about negative stuff. This season was supposed to change that, but it didn’t. Look where we are.

But this season has become just as bad, if not worse, than the 2016-17 season. How could that be? After all, the Dallas Stars currently sit at 84 points and could max out at 96 by the end of the season. That’s better than 79. The Stars also flipped their defensive miscues and now own one of the best defenses in the NHL as well as a solid two-headed goaltending tandem in Ben Bishop and Kari Lehtonen.

They are also seeing potential and results from players like Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, Alexander Radulov, and John Klingberg as well as from young guns like Mattias Janmark, Radek Faksa, and Esa Lindell.

And yet, this season seems altogether worse than last season. How could that possibly be? It’s due to a few reasons.

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The first reason is simply because of the rapid downfall. Last season, the Stars were out of the playoff race by early March. You could even stretch it out further and say that the skid in mid-February buried the team. This year, Dallas went from what looked like a team destined for a long playoff run to a team that cannot beat even the worst of NHL clubs.

It was easier to accept the Stars’ bad streak last year than it is this year. Things were supposed to change this year. It was supposed to be different and better.

Another reason is because of the identification of issues. Last season, it was clear why the Stars weren’t and couldn’t be a good team. Injuries played a significant role in keeping the team from taking off early in the year. On top of that, it was clear that Dallas didn’t have enough defensive depth or talent and could not rely on their shaky goaltending to bail the subpar blue line out. All of that was obvious.

This season, the Stars showed very few flaws through the middle part of the season. And if they did show a flaw, they were typically quick to fix it. At the end of the day, they fell to a lack of depth scoring and energy throughout the lineup. Those are both issues that good, playoff-caliber teams know how to fix (including using the trade deadline to their advantage). That’s a pitiful way to go.

A final reason, and perhaps the biggest of all, is the difference in potential. In 2016-17, it was clear in late November that the Dallas Stars weren’t going far. The success in the 2015-16 season had set the bar much too high and the new lineup simply couldn’t answer the bell. After some changes in the 2016 offseason, the same hype just wasn’t there.

This season, however, was different. This lineup and coaching staff are fully capable of not only making the playoffs, but also producing a decent run. They proved that on multiple occasions this season. A team with Benn, Seguin, Radulov, Klingberg, and Bishop should not miss the playoffs, regardless of what division or conference they are in.

They should be coming home with wins more often than not and competing for a top spot in the conference. They only did that for a brief stint this season and once again found a way to fall well short of expectations. They simply look as though they’ve lost all desire to win and compete for a playoff spot through the month of March, and that’s what has pinned them behind the eight ball more than anything.

In a lot of ways, this season is turning out to be worse than not only the 2016-17 season, but the last seven or eight seasons altogether. The way that the Stars tore their potential in half and rapidly hit the self-destruct button is something that we haven’t witnessed in a long time.

The 2016-17 season brought slow and agonizing grief, but at least it was onset from the early stages. This year, it’s been an unexpected free fall into utter disbelief. A last second goal against in regulation by Boston on Friday and a 4-1 loss to a bottom-four team in the league on Sunday helped reaffirm that fall.

The 2017-18 season had some bright spots, but will ultimately be remembered for its incredibly perverse disappointments and confusions.

Next: The Emotional Thrill Ride Of Dallas Stars Hockey

With six games left to go in the regular season, there’s not much left to hope or look for. All that’s really left is for the Dallas Stars to accept their untimely and unpredictable fate, try and find a shred of dignity, and head home early for the eighth time in the past ten seasons.

What more is there to say?

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