Dallas Stars: Learning Lessons From Cody Eakin’s First Year In Vegas

Last June, the Dallas Stars let Cody Eakin go to the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft. Now he is heading to the second round of the postseason with a new franchise. As painful as it may be, there is a lesson that the Stars can take from this situation.

It was a warm October morning in Dallas, Texas. The 2017-18 NHL season was ready to get underway for the Dallas Stars as they prepared for their season opener against the league’s newest franchise, the Vegas Golden Knights.

As an expansion franchise, the Golden Knights were receiving little love in the preseason predictions simply because it came with the title. Meanwhile, the Stars had once again “won the offseason” and were looking like legitimate contenders.

Fast forward six months and that all seems like a sick, twisted dream. Not only did the Golden Knights eventually upset Dallas with a surprising 2-1 win in front of a sold out crowd at the American Airlines Center, but they took it about a thousand steps further. The Knights went on to win the Pacific Division and qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs in their first season. Meanwhile, the Stars are sitting at home after ending another frustrating season with no chance at competing for the Cup.

And through seven days of playoff action, they are showing no signs of slowing down. Last night, the Knights completed the sweep against the Los Angeles Kings and are the first team to advance to the second round. They are also the first NHL expansion team to sweep a team in the playoffs in their inaugural season.

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So in other words, things are going pretty good for Sin City right now. Though their battle against LA involve a defensive showdown, they found a way to prevail and make it look easy. One of their biggest defensive soldiers happened to be Cody Eakin. Yes, the former Dallas Stars forward.

Eakin was selected by Vegas in the 2017 Expansion Draft after being left exposed by the Stars. For Dallas, it all came down to the fact that they had a decent chunk of center depth (at least they thought) and Eakin had turned in an off year. With that being said, the 26-year-old moved on to a new chapter in his hockey career after five seasons in Dallas.

On Sunday night, Cody Eakin scored a goal in the Stanley Cup Playoffs to get Vegas on the board while a handful of his former teammates in Dallas sat at home and watched. That’s frustrating to think about, but it can be learned from (oh boy, more lessons).

What Eakin did in his first season with Vegas is nothing overly special. He scored 11 goals and put up 27 points in 80 games. He did all of this in roughly two minutes less of ice time than he had in his last season with the Stars, which he ended with three goals and 12 points in 60 games. In other words, he didn’t play a monumental role in the Knights’ transformation.

But what Eakin did well was that he showed all of his strengths in his play. And after the coaching staff examined these strengths, they put Eakin where he needed to be. He accepted the role and transition easily and shifted from their first line scoring center to a third line defensive center. No bickering or pouting; he did it and gave it his best.

And that ended up paying off. Eakin was one of the Knights’ most useful assets in the defensive zone and contributed largely on the penalty kill as well. The offensive opportunities came when they did, but Eakin focused on his defensive output and gave Vegas a well-rounded third line to use in certain situations. He also turned in his second-highest face-off win percentage in a full season since joining the NHL.

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Now he is providing Vegas with a confident and experienced face in the postseason and is doing exactly what the team needs him to do in order to succeed.

There are a few lessons for the Dallas Stars to unpack in this scenario. And no, one of them is not “don’t leave Eakin unprotected.”

The first lesson, simply put, has to do with Eakin’s skill set. Gerard Gallant assessed Eakin, saw which situations he thrived in, and found a place for him on the team. This past season, there were a few Dallas Stars that didn’t look as if they would have a place on any NHL team. They were heavily underused and put in positions where they didn’t fit or belong.

Vegas capitalized on each player’s strong suits and built their team around those strengths. That’s not easy to do, especially with a newly formed team over the course of one season.

Eakin was able to turn in a productive year playing less than he was used to and having his role shrunken down. And yet, he’s still in the postseason. The Stars need to focus on each player’s skills and put them in a role where those skills will be used best.

The second thing that the Dallas Stars can learn is simply from the Vegas team as a whole.

On last night’s NHL on NBC broadcast, Jeremy Roenick said that at the beginning of the season, he wondered whether Vegas would be able to win 20 games this season. That was because not only were they a new team, but they were completely comprised of guys from the other 30 teams that had seen their roles shrunken with their former clubs. These players no longer had a significant enough presence on their former teams and were one of the first players to be put on the block come the expansion draft.

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They ended up winning 51 games and almost made it look too easy for an expansion franchise.

This is a wake-up call about finding talent on teams, but it more specifically has to do with realizing the potential that every player has. And there’s no point in calling this a lucky swing. 109 points and a division title don’t go to teams that catch a lucky break.

This is where the Dallas Stars can learn. That player that they pin to the third or fourth line (*cough* Julius Honka *cough*) and only put on the ice in a handful of harmless situations each game? Maybe he has more potential and can do more than the coaching staff gives him credit for. We saw an immense lack of trust between the Dallas coaching staff and a few specific players on the roster this past season, and it ended up further hindering progress.

Giving those types of players a bigger opportunity in a role where they are successful could not only help them kickstart their progress, but also help the team take another step forward.

The Stars can learn a lot from losing Cody Eakin one year ago. Not only is Eakin now playing playoff hockey for one of the league’s hottest teams, but he is doing it in a role where he thrives and helped his team reach maximum potential. That’s because the team better catered to the player and got a more dynamic player out of it.

This isn’t saying that the Stars should have kept Eakin around and left someone else exposed. But it does point out that Dallas could manage the strengths of their players in a better and stronger sense. It just goes to show that even the smallest role players can make the biggest impact when given the opportunity to thrive.

If the Stars can learn from Vegas with their new coaching staff and begin putting each player to use according to what they bring to the table, they might hit a better stride and find a better fate at the end of the season.

Next: Five Players From The 2017-18 Stars That Reached New Levels

It all goes back to simple roster construction. Use the guys you are given and put them in the best role possible. Vegas did that and is now off to the second round. Sounds too simple to be successful, right?