Dallas Stars: Central Division Struggles Highlighted In 2017-18 Season

The Dallas Stars will miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs this year for the third time in four seasons. Among many factors that led to their demise, the Central Division once again pinned them behind the eight ball.

Last night, the Nashville Predators defeated the Washington Capitals and jumped to 115 points on the season. The win helped them claim not only the Central Division title, but also the President’s Trophy.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Dallas Stars were running the Central with 50 wins and earning their own first divisional title. That was two seasons ago and boy, how things have gone downhill since.

On Sunday night, the Stars were eliminated from the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoff race. It marks the second straight year that Dallas has missed the postseason and the third in the past four seasons. Their only trip was in 2015-16 when they won the division and fell in the second round to the St. Louis Blues. That seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?

Since then, Dallas has faced a fair amount of turmoil and disappointment. They turned in one of their worst performances in franchise history in 2016-17 with a 34-37-11 record. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong as the Stars battled injuries, a young and incompetent defense, and inconsistent goaltending.

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Following the year, Lindy Ruff was let go, the Stars earned the third pick in the 2017 Draft via the lottery, and a wave of change was inbound.

The 2017 offseason seemingly brought everything back into a perfect harmony. The defensive mastermind in Ken Hitchcock was appointed as their next head coach and the Stars realigned their roster by adding big names like Ben Bishop, Alexander Radulov, Marc Methot, and Martin Hanzal. Everything seemed to be back in shape.

But here we are approaching the end of another season, and the Dallas Stars are staring at the same fate. While they are significantly improved from last season (41-31-8, have a top-seven defensive unit, and are a much more functionally sound team overall), they are still missing out on playoff hockey.

That’s due to a few different things. A historic collapse through the month of March, a drastic need for stronger depth scoring, and an injury to their no. 1 goaltender are a few of those reasons. But it goes back to more than just the final weeks of the year. A lot of it actually has to do with their results against the Central Division. And if they don’t get those figured out, they will never be able to truly succeed.

This season, the Dallas Stars did a lot of good things. That showed in their record, which still has them ten games above .500. But when you look at their results against the division specifically, it gets bleak.

The Stars turned in a record of 12-14-0 against the Central Division this season. While that is up from 9-15-5 last season, it isn’t much better. In fact, it’s only a seven percent increase in points picked up. That’s not a significant enough increase, especially considering the record is still below .500.

Everyone knows that success in the division is critical to overall success. The Stars are learning that lesson the hard way, year after year.

Now, 12-14-0 is not awful. But there is still significant room for improvement.

The Stars only had a winning record against two Central Division opponents this year, being Chicago (the worst team in the division) and St. Louis (who currently sits outside a playoff spot. They split the series against Minnesota, went 2-3-0 against Colorado and 1-3-0 against Nashville, and didn’t pick up a single point against Winnipeg all year. That cannot happen to a team looking to get into the playoffs.