Dallas Stars Must Catch Up With Surging Central Division Soon
The Central Division is widely regarded as the toughest division in the NHL. The competition is deep and the final standings are unpredictable at the end of each season. One team in the division that is struggling to keep up is the Dallas Stars. That has to change soon.
The Winnipeg Jets and Nashville Predators are putting on one heck of a playoff series right now. And while these two Central Division juggernauts are duking it out for a run at the Stanley Cup, the Dallas Stars are already preparing for next year.
Whether you agree with the NHL’s current playoff format or not, the second round is giving hockey fans plenty to rave about. The Jets and Predators finished game two of their series in a double overtime finish on Sunday night. Kevin Fiala scored the game winning goal on a nice move and gave Nashville their first win of the series. The two teams will now shift to Winnipeg for games three and four as they look to add more exciting chapters to this saga.
The two clubs finished the regular season as the top two seeds in the NHL. While it doesn’t necessarily seem fair for no. 1 and no. 2 to be forced to face off in the second round of the postseason, that’s how it is. But both teams have shown through the first two games that they have a case to move on to the Western Conference Finals.
What Nashville and Winnipeg did this past season is nothing short of impressive. Both teams surpassed 110 points, controlled the top spots in the division for the majority of the year, and showed very few signs of weakness.
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It gets even more impressive when you look at where both teams were just a few seasons ago.
In 2013-14, the Predators finished second to last in the Central Division. They fired head coach Barry Trotz, capitalized in the draft, and made some offseason moves. Three seasons later, they fell two wins short of the franchise’s first Stanley Cup. They have quickly emerged as a powerhouse in the Central Division and continue to strengthen themselves with each passing season.
The Jets’ story is even more baffling. Prior to this season, Winnipeg had missed the playoffs in nine of their past ten seasons. That dates back to the franchise’s time in Atlanta. They were incredibly misconstrued and could not turn themselves into consistent competitors. They finished in dead last in two of their first four seasons in the Central Division, and in their one playoff appearance in 2014-15, they were casually swept by the Anaheim Ducks.
But fast forward to 2017-18, and look what has happened. Both teams put together incredible regular season campaigns, eased their way through the first round, and look to be legitimate contenders. They also didn’t have any trouble with playing the Dallas Stars this year.
The Stars combined for a record of 1-7-0 against the Jets and Predators this year. Besides a shootout win against Nashville two days before Christmas, Dallas didn’t pull out a single point against either club this season. And that’s not so much a testament to the Stars being a bad hockey team as it is to the Predators and Jets being great hockey teams.
The Dallas Stars went 42-32-8 and logged 92 points in the 2017-18 season. That’s not bad at all when you look at it from a general standpoint. Just four years ago, the Stars got into the playoffs with 91 points. It was a decent finish that just didn’t happen to be enough to get over the hump this season.
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The reason their performance wasn’t good enough was due in large part to the Central Division. Not only did their 12-14-0 record against the division hold them back, but the play of the other six teams during the season gave Dallas a tough hill to climb. And that’s becoming an all too familiar obstacle for the Stars in each season.
Since the NHL realigned in 2013-14, the Central Division has been considered the toughest division in hockey. In the five seasons since, the Central has sent five teams to the playoffs (the maximum number under the new playoff format) in all but two of them. With powerhouses like Chicago, St. Louis, Minnesota, and now Nashville all under the Central umbrella, it’s easy to consider it an elite division.
It’s also the only division of the four to have boasted a new regular season champion in each of the five seasons (2014-Colorado, 2015-St. Louis, 2016-Dallas, 2017-Chicago, 2018-Nashville). The Central shows off a significant amount of depth and strength in the seven teams, and that’s starting to hurt the Stars.
For the longest time, Winnipeg was in the cellar. But after filling some voids in their lineup and realigning the team, they now look to be a serious contender for years to come. We’ve already talked about Nashville’s dominance. The Blues missed the playoffs for the first time in seven years this season, but weren’t eliminated until game 82. The Wild have made the playoffs in each of the last six seasons. Colorado went from being a historically bad team in 2016-17 to a wild card team in 2017-18. And finally, though the Blackhawks missed the playoffs this season, they have three Cups in the past nine years.
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That’s a lot to keep up with. And when you see that the Stars’ biggest accomplishment over the past decade is winning one playoff series, things look even more discouraging. Dallas missed the postseason for the third time in the past four years this season and must return to the drawing board yet again.
And it’s not going to get any easier. The Central Division continues to be a gamble, with the only guarantee being that every team has a realistic shot at reaching the top. The Dallas Stars seem to be the furthest from that dream at this point.
Each of the six teams around the Stars is either currently doing well and paving out a bright future or has a solid past to back them up. At the moment, it doesn’t seem like Dallas necessarily has either.
That has to change immediately before it’s too late. The Central Division is constantly growing in power and could very well have seven legitimate contenders next year. But that’s only if the Stars can get themselves back in the race.
These last two years have left Dallas looking like the odd team out in the division. They are on the longest playoff drought of any divisional opponent and has a pretty bleak track record.
There is still time to make up ground, but it has to be done starting next season. That’s what makes this offseason all the more critical.
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The Dallas Stars have to catch up with the potential of their division rivals and quickly. Otherwise, they’ll be left in the dust.