It was over almost as quickly as it started. After hosting exit interviews on Monday morning, the Dallas Stars have officially entered the 2018 offseason. With that comes, well, a lot of time to reflect.
At least exit interview day went according to plan. It seems as though that’s the only thing that has gone right for the Dallas Stars over the past month. And as a result, that’s why they are where they are at the moment: heading home while 16 other teams compete for the Stanley Cup.
The Stars hosted exit interview day on Monday afternoon before dismissing for the offseason. It was the final opportunity for members of the media to talk to players, coaches, and management before everyone went their separate ways for the summer.
This year’s day felt different than the ones in the recent past, though. In 2014-15, it was an interview day for a team that had just narrowly missed the playoffs even though they were pretty horrific defensively throughout the year but still had an upside. In 2015-16, the future was bright at exit interview day after falling just short in the second round of the playoffs and winning the division. And last year was practically a mulligan from the get-go and left plenty of room for improvement this season.
But this year, things are different. Sure the Stars missed the playoffs by just three points and did some good stuff, but it’s the way they missed the playoffs that sticks out. After five solid months and 65 good games of hockey, the Dallas Stars fell off. They sank into a losing skid, removed themselves from the playoff race, and could not get back in.
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As a result, this exit interview day has left the Dallas Stars somewhat confused, speechless, and even emotional.
“There’s a lot of emotions, so I have to sit back and get all of the emotions out,” said GM Jim Nill. “We’re as disappointed as anybody. We’re going to evaluate the situation, and it starts at the top with myself. We’re going to talk to everyone in the organization and see where we went wrong, but for now we are just going to get the emotions out of it.”
“It’s tough,” said Dallas Stars captain Jamie Benn. “It’s very disappointing. For most of the season, I thought we were sitting in a pretty good position. A month goes by, and you’re out of the playoffs. You hate to look back and wonder, but we’re obviously doing that right now.”
This is now the eighth time in ten years that the Dallas Stars have missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It is the third time in the last four seasons as well. When you have a team with Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, and John Klingberg consistently at the core, it’s hard to make a case for being out of the playoffs so frequently.
And yet, that’s what happened. All because of an eight-game losing skid and a lack of depth scoring (if you think this is all that’s wrong, you probably need to watch a little closer).
In his exit interview (as you can read about below), Nill repeatedly pointed out that his plans for this offseason were to take things slow. Instead of rushing into making improvements, he plans on sitting down and assessing the whole thing, piece by piece. From players, to coaches, to scouts, he plans on taking a good look at each part and determining what needs to be done to make it better before next season.
The Dallas Stars now head into the 2018 offseason once again looking for something. What is it they are looking for? A playoff-caliber team? A system that works for all of the players? A way to further beef up their lineup? All of the above?
Whatever it is, the organization is pretty adamant about taking time to process it all and break it apart. After all, this is a collapse that no NHL team has ever experienced (having 80 points through 66 games and missing the postseason). There will be extensive talks about what went wrong over the next few weeks and what is the best avenue to take in trying to fix them.
While that may seem too slow for those who want change and reassurance now, it’s probably for the best. At this point, it may even be their only sensible option. After 82 games, it’s difficult looking at a long offseason yet again.
All we can do now is wait for the next step to be taken in hopes that it is the right one.
Quotable
(Due to a significant number of quotes from various members of the organization, we’re going to break up our exit interview day coverage over the next few days. Today, we take a look at the highlights from general manager Jim Nill’s interview)
Jim Nill
“There’s different things to look at, but we didn’t get the job done.”
“We’re going to sit down and evaluate from the top to the bottom. Whether it’s player evaluation, coaching evaluation, management evaluation, or scout evaluation. We’re going to go through everything. Now, you do that probably anyways. But with the way things ended, it’s not a good ending. We didn’t get the job done and we have to figure out what went wrong. We’re going to evaluate the whole thing and see where we made mistakes.”
On the culture of the team right now: “I think it’s good, but it’s something we have to look at. I can sit here and say the culture is good and this situation is good, but this is two years in a row now and it’s not where we want to be. You look at it, and we were two wins from making it. But that’s two wins where we didn’t do it. We were in the right situation and had it under our control and didn’t get the job done.”
If he has any theories on what went wrong: “Yeah, I do, but I want to keep those to myself right now. I want to sit down with the players and the coaching staff and scouting staff because that’s a big part of my job: I have to listen.”
His thoughts on Ken Hitchcock’s first season: “I think Ken and his staff did a good job. There’s a lot of good things that came out of this. On the flip side, there were some bad parts also. When we talk about didn’t get the job done, they were part of it along with the players and management group. They did some great things, though. We went from one of the worst goals against teams in the league to one of the top ten, so there’s some good things that they did. But once again, I want to be transparent and open this up.”
Pucks and Pitchforks
On Valeri Nichushkin: “Well he’s under contract right now and they just beat St. Petersburg. That was a big victory for them and they are in the KHL Finals. I talked to Val about three times this season and his representatives and I’m pretty confident that he wants to come back. I’m not going to say that it’s a hundred percent because until he’s here, it doesn’t matter. I’m open to discussions with him and his representatives and we’ll see where it goes next year.”
On Miro Heiskanen: “Heiskanen will be coming over next season. He’s in the playoffs with his team and will be going to the World Championships, so it’s been a pretty good season for him. I think he’s a big part of our foundation moving forward.”
His message to the fans: “I know the pain of the fans. We had high expectations this year and we didn’t get it done. We’re as disappointed as they are but on the flip side, I think there are some good things that happened here too. This isn’t a teardown; we’re going to bounce back. Like I said, we’re going to evaluate everything and be back next year. I just talked to the players and I want them to learn from this. They are going to and we expect to be a contending team next year.
His thoughts on Ken Hitchcock returning next season: “I’m going to sit down with everybody, including the ownership and Ken and see where he’s at. Not sure but that’s part of the process that we’re going to go through.
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On the Tyler Seguin extension: “We can talk to him, so I’ll be talking to Tyler and his representatives. I hope by July 1 we are going to know where it’s at. If something doesn’t happen July 1, I don’t want any panic out there. I’m banking on getting something done. I’m pretty confident that we will get something done.
Nill said that Ben Bishop likely would have played at some point in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs had the Stars made it.
He pointed out that besides Bishop and Martin Hanzal, there weren’t any other significant outstanding injuries on the team.
Next: Stars' Pros From A 2017-18 Season Full Of Cons
We’ll have more coverage of exit interview day in story form as the days go on. Until then, keep your eyes focused on the future. You never know what’s going to happen.