Dallas Stars: Civil Dawn is Approaching For Youthful Stars Defense

A new era for the Dallas Stars defense is fast approaching. With the likely departure of at least two defensive veterans, Stars fans will finally get to see the fruits of years of hype regarding a slew of young, defensive prospects. But hype and reality rarely coincide, and fans should temper their initial expectations.

Have you ever heard of the phrase “Kansas City Shuffle”? It’s a term popularized by the 2006 film Lucky Number Slevin starring Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, and Morgan Freeman. It’s used to describe a situation where attention is drawn to an event or series of events, only to have something come from the other direction to change the situation.

The Dallas Stars have a possible Kansas City Shuffle on their hands. While a vast majority of attention is being paid to adding a high-quality backup goaltender and a prolific second-line scorer, the Dallas defense has gone mostly unnoticed. But while offensive improvement might get the Stars to the playoffs, the postseason damage will rest mainly on the shoulders of a young, unproven defense corps.

The Loss In Our Stars

An excellent way to measure a player’s performance is point shares (PS), which estimate the number of points a player is worth over the course of a season in the standings. It can also be measured as defensive point shares (DPS).

Based on DPS, the Stars defensive rankings for 2017-18 were:

1. Esa Lindell – 5.3
2. John Klingberg – 5.1
3. Stephen Johns – 3.7
4. Greg Pateryn – 3.6
5. Dan Hamhuis – 3.1
6. Marc Methot – 2.3
7. Julius Honka – 1.1

I believe these numbers are in line with what most Stars fans would expect. Lindell and Klingberg are a no-doubt top defensive pair. Some might be surprised to see that Johns was the team’s third-best defenseman, slightly ahead of Pateryn. It didn’t surprise the Stars organization, since they inked Johns to a 3-year, $7 million contract on Friday.

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Methot held significant defensive importance for the Stars, yet had a paltry 2.3 DPS. This is because he only played in 36 games. Extrapolated over 82 games, it comes out to 5.2, which would place Methot as the team’s second-best defenseman, bumping everyone else down one spot, even though he was the fifth-ranked defenseman on the team in minutes played per game.

And here’s the rub. Dallas will probably lose their fourth- and fifth-best defenseman — strictly from the defensive perspective — to free agency. Pateryn and Hamhuis are free agents. I believe that Pateryn will depart during the offseason, while Hamhuis may re-sign on a short term deal.

Dallas appears ready to replace the veterans with their young guns in Honka and the uber-hyped Miro Heiskanen. For Game 1 of the 2018-19 season, Dallas Stars fans should finally get their wish of Klingberg, Lindell, Honka, Johns, and Heiskanen all on the ice at the same time.

It’s a time for jubilation.

Or is it?

Growing Pains

Nothing worth having ever comes easy, and the young Dallas defensemen will average 23.2-years old. If the 35-year old Hamuis resigns, it’ll jump to an almost geriatric 25.2. The expectations for these young men have been sky-high for years, but I’m here to temper those expectations a bit.

You can’t just plug Honka and Heiskanen in and expect them to run roughshod over the Western Conference. It’s just not a reasonable expectation.

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Honka has a reasonable amount of NHL experience, with 58 games to his credit. But he has a minus-4 rating to his name and finished 2017-18 with a 1.0 PS. So, while promising, Honka is far from a sure thing at this point. Like most players, he will benefit from more playing time.

Heiskanen will most likely be on the Stars opening night roster despite having never played in the ECHL or AHL. He’ll be coming straight from playing two seasons in Finland with HIFK Helsinki. This begs the question of whether or not the 18-year old — he’ll be 19 when the season starts — can make the necessary leap to the NHL so quickly.

The North American rink and style of play are different from Scandinavia in a way that doesn’t favor youth. The rink is smaller, which means less time to skate, make decisions, and maneuver. It also places a heavy emphasis on physicality, something that can create hardship for young players who are still physically developing. Going into the season with Heiskanen playing 17-20 minutes would be very difficult, and I suspect that, at least initially, his Average Time On Ice (ATOI) will be between 13-15 minutes.

In Heiskanen’s defense, he was a 2017 first-round pick and has represented Finland in some form of international competition every year since 2014, so it’s not like he’s a scrub that Dallas scraped off I-35. But that doesn’t mean the transition will be smooth.

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So, while all the youngins are finally at the NHL level, don’t expect instant gratification. It could take both Honka and Heiskanen a couple of years to find their footing in the NHL. But when they do, and I one hundred percent believe they will, it will be as beautiful as the night sky in West Texas.

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