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Dallas Stars Deserve To Miss 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs Right Now

By Josh Clark

DALLAS, TX - JANUARY 02: Columbus Blue Jackets center Boone Jenner (38) cross checks Dallas Stars center Devin Shore (17) into the boards during the game between the Dallas Stars and the Columbus Blue Jackets on January 02, 2018 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. Columbus defeats Dallas 2-1. (Photo by Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
DALLAS, TX - JANUARY 02: Columbus Blue Jackets center Boone Jenner (38) cross checks Dallas Stars center Devin Shore (17) into the boards during the game between the Dallas Stars and the Columbus Blue Jackets on January 02, 2018 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. Columbus defeats Dallas 2-1. (Photo by Matthew Pearce/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
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It’s been a rough stretch and it keeps getting rougher for the Dallas Stars. Even if they somehow pull off a miracle and get some help along the way, they clearly haven’t earned a playoff spot this year.

John Klingberg said it best after the Dallas Stars lost to the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday night.

“We don’t deserve to win right now,” Klingberg told the media on Sunday. This quote followed the Stars’ 4-1 loss to the third-worst team in the league. The defeat also marked an eighth straight loss for Dallas, which is the franchise’s longest winless stretch since moving to Texas.

It’s a simple quote, but it carries such a significant meaning at this point in the season.

The Dallas Stars are a lot like the Titanic right now. What once was a beautiful creation that seemed ages ahead of its predecessors has hit the iceberg and quickly sunken to the dark depths of nothingness. Seems pretty accurate, right?

The Stars are currently riding an 0-6-2 skid and cannot find an out of any kind. At this point, the end of the season would be enough of a relief from their misery. But instead, they have six more games separating them from their final matchup on April 7 at Los Angeles.

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What about the playoff race, though?

Although there are less than two weeks to go in the regular season and the Stars are five points out of the final playoff spot, they still mathematically have a chance at getting into the postseason. Are their odds good? No. Is the deck basically stacked agains them? Absolutely. But there is still a chance until they literally cannot gain enough points to meet the bottom line.

Even though they may still be in the race, though, do they deserve it?

If you were looking at the Dallas Stars team that played from November to February, you would probably say yes. That’s a Stars team that put together a 24-10-3 stretch and tore down some of the best competition in the NHL along the way. That team deserved more than a playoff spot. They deserved a run at the Stanley Cup.

But the Stars team that we’ve witnessed over the past six weeks doesn’t really deserve anything besides a shot in the draft lottery. That’s how terrible this short and steep fall has been.

And though there’s a very good chance it won’t happen, Dallas might rattle off six wins in a row and receive some help from teams around them. That might be enough to propel a 96-point team into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But it shouldn’t, and that’s perfectly alright. The Stars don’t deserve it anyways.

The reason why is this: the Dallas Stars should never have been put in this spot. They should never have slipped to a position where they need help and a perfect record to get into the dance. Not after all of the positive stuff that happened during the middle of the season.

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Just a few short weeks ago, the Stars were holding steady in the first wild card spot with a multi-game lead on the teams outside the playoff bubble (which, consequently, are now inside the bubble ahead of Dallas). Crazy how one measly eight game losing streak will knock a team to its knees, isn’t it? Well, maybe it’s not that crazy.

But it’s not just the losing streak that stands as a reason for why they should be excluded; it’s also how they went about the skid.

The Dallas Stars lost to a lot of teams they should not be losing to at this point in the season. In games 1-20 when every team is finding its footing and the Stars are adapting to offseason changes, sure. But losing to the Ottawa Senators (twice), Montreal Canadiens, and Vancouver Canucks (twice) all within six weeks of each other is a recipe for disaster. That’s ten points on the board that Dallas pulled two out of.

Not to mention the games against other playoff-caliber teams. Those games are perfect opportunities for the Stars to test their strength and see how “postseason tough” they are as a group. They flopped in games against Washington, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Boston after controlling play early and ended up giving the game away entirely.

These last few games have been the most telling of all, though. When the season is literally on the line and the team knows it, there has to be a response. Instead, the Dallas Stars stayed quiet as the playoff race dumped them from the wagon and carried on.

All in all, the Stars haven’t earned a playoff spot this year. They earned it through the middle portion of the season but couldn’t answer the bell when every playoff team has to. That was their problem.

Next: Stars Have Made This Season As Bad As Last Season

With six games to go in the regular season, almost anything can happen. One thing that almost assuredly won’t happen is the Dallas Stars getting to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. At the end of the day, that’s probably for the best. After all, it’s a right to compete for the Cup, not a privilege.

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