Dallas Stars: Continuous Offseason Change Comes With A Cost

The Dallas Stars are no strangers to being “champions” of the NHL offseason. But at a certain point, that becomes more of an irritating problem than it does a solution. Dallas is approaching that line and it’s a bit of an unsettling thought.

Five summers ago, the Dallas Stars did something they hadn’t done for a while: they took a monumental swing on the trade market.

In just his third month as general manager of the Stars, Jim Nill made his first major splash. The Stars and Boston Bruins completed a seven-player blockbuster trade on the Fourth of July that drastically altered the landscape of both teams. With Loui Eriksson, Reilly Smith, Matt Fraser, and Joe Morrow heading to Boston, the Bruins sent Tyler Seguin, Rich Peverley, and Ryan Button to the Stars in exchange.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years. Part of that has to do with the immediate impact that Tyler Seguin had on the team. He became an instantaneous superstar on the top line in Dallas. And in the five years since, he’s transformed into one of the best centers in the NHL.

But another part of it deals with the frequency in which the Stars pull the trigger throughout each summer.

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It’s become a common theme for Dallas to be crowned “winners of the NHL offseason.” In 2013, they landed a franchise centerpiece in Seguin. 2014 included bringing in Jason Spezza and Ales Hemsky. The 2015 offseason was a rather large one as the Stars acquired Antti Niemi, Patrick Sharp, Stephen Johns, and Johnny Oduya. And in 2017, Ben Bishop, Marc Methot, Martin Hanzal, and Alexander Radulov took center stage as the newest members.

So what does that all mean? In the moment, it seems as though this title carries significant meaning. The Dallas Stars continue to add some of the NHL’s top talent with each passing summer. And when a bunch of solid talent comes together, good things usually happen.

But yet, it rarely seems to help. In the five seasons with Nill at the helm, the Stars have qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs in two of them. And in those two qualifications, they have yet to make it past the second round.

Like in many professional sports, success isn’t defined by which team has the best talent or which players win the most awards. It’s instead defined by who wins the most championships. That all starts with playoff appearances, something that the Stars have lacked in eight of the past ten seasons. And when playoff appearances are uncommon, change is almost always considered the best solution to right the ship.

But at what point does that change become a vicious and harmful cycle? Is that a possibility?

It certainly is, and the Dallas Stars are dangerously close to making that cycle their common theme.

This all brings about a unique perspective for the Stars and their fans. It’s like building a fast and powerful race car, taking it out to the track for the big annual race, and realizing that it doesn’t work because one or two pieces are missing. You go back to the drawing board, spend a year fixing it, and then return for the next race only to find out that it’s missing another crucial piece or one piece isn’t working as it was supposed to.

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That starts to become a problem when you realize all of the money and time that was spent on the other impressive parts of the car. After all, those parts won’t perform as “top of the line” pieces forever. The game changes, newer and better parts come into play, and the other parts simply age out.

The Dallas Stars have spent the past few seasons trying to get it right. They champion over the offseason, throw their plan into motion in the regular season, but eventually run into a kink. Every team has its kinks, but the Stars kink always seem to be a fatal flaw. That flaw keeps them from taking the next step. And then it’s back to the offseason for another session of frivolous trading and signing in an attempt to bolster the roster yet again. It’s a frustrating cycle.

The Stars needed help at the center position in 2014 and fixed it by adding Jason Spezza. But the following season, their defense and goaltending caused significant problems. In 2015, they made an attempt at patching both areas and even rounded out their top line. They ended up winning the division but fell in the second round to St. Louis because, simply put, they were at a disadvantage size wise.

In 2017, there were plenty of glaring problems with the group. Nill added a starting goaltender, veteran defenseman, and plenty of right wing help for both up top and further down the lineup. And where did it get them? To another early offseason.

So, while it was and still is nice to dream about a big summer of 2018 filled with elite additions, it only pushes things further into perspective. This team has its issues, but maybe big acquisitions aren’t the only solution required to fix them.

The problem with consistently changing the team is that there’s almost no time to let the new unit gel before another turnover occurs.