Dallas Stars: Three Reasons They Make The 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs

1. Montgomery’s Style Will Catch The NHL Off Guard

There’s nothing like a fresh, new perspective behind the bench to either right all of the wrongs of a hockey team or mess things up even further.

But for the Dallas Stars, they should be in pretty good shape for the year ahead.

When Dallas hired Jim Montgomery back on May 4, 2018, there was a certain sense of urgency that came with the hiring. The Stars had missed the playoffs in two consecutive years and had done so by using two very different head coaches.

When Lindy Ruff coached the team from 2013-2017, he taught a high-risk, offensive-minded style that involved all five players on the offensive side of the puck while giving less focus to defensive structure. That worked for a while and got the Stars two playoff appearances in four seasons, but it wasn’t enough to push them through to the next level.

Causeway Crowd

When Ken Hitchcock was hired as head coach for the 2017-18 season, he flipped the script and taught a strong defensive approach. While that helped shore up many of the Stars’ defensive issues, the offense suffered a lack of production and energy that ultimately resulted in the team’s falling off when March rolled around.

With Hitchcock retiring one week after the regular season ended, the hunt was on for a new head coach that wasn’t tied down to old philosophies and would provide a happy balance that would work well for a talented Stars roster. The end result was Montgomery.

In Montgomery’s five years as the head coach at the University of Denver, he showed his NHL coaching potential. His team was consistently in the playoffs and even the Frozen Four, he taught a system that was difficult to stop, he stressed building a strong culture and bond in the locker room, and capped it all off with a national championship.

He’s a coach that knows how to win. But the big question with the hiring wasn’t about his ability to win, but instead about his ability to win at the NHL level.

Montgomery has never coached any higher than the college level and, besides a brief career as an NHL player that ended in 2003, has not been associated with the NHL. So, will his system work? That’s the question.

But there’s plenty of reason to believe that the Stars will find great success in Montgomery’s system.

On the one hand, it’s a tough one for teams to handle, even with preparation. Montgomery preaches a relentless style that relies heavily on puck possession, skating ability, and generating chances. His team at Denver was known for possessing the puck in the offensive zone for long periods of time, wearing down the opposition, and then creating scoring chances from there.

More from Editorials

• Dallas Stars hockey is about to be the main attraction in Dallas this year
• Age Before Beauty: The impact of Benn’s new role on his Dallas legacy
• Dallas Stars hockey is the light at the end of the tunnel
• Dallas Stars coverage is lacking and it’s very concerning to be honest
• Sit back, relax and watch Jim Nill and the Dallas Stars draft scouts cook

The Dallas Stars roster is primarily comprised of players that like to play with the puck, both on offense and defense. That bodes well for Montgomery’s style. On top of that, he also focuses on staying properly structured in all three zones and trusting his entire team.

But perhaps the Stars’ biggest strength coming into this season is that they have a chance to catch the league off guard. Even though they have the talent to be a playoff contender, they’ve fallen short in two straight seasons. In the preseason polls, they are considered a “middle of the pack” team that may or may not contend for a wild card spot.

With Montgomery’s new scheme coming into play and new talent on the roster, though, there’s a chance for the Stars to take advantage. Unlike with Hitchcock and Ruff, the opposition won’t know how Montgomery is planning on playing in a given night. His unpredictability and the balance that the roster possesses gives him a potential leg up on the competition.

Montgomery’s style is a tricky one to stop or even stall, and that should pay dividends for the Stars, so long as they master it. But as of right now, he might have the secret to quick success rooted in his unpredictability and the current layout of the roster. That should at the very least keep Dallas in the middle of the playoff race in a stacked Western Conference.

2. The Goalie Tandem Should Hold The Stars Up

Over the past decade, the Dallas Stars have dealt with a multitude of problems. And while they have ranged from a lack of offensive depth to poor coaching decisions, there’s always been one common theme: goaltending.

Ever since Marty Turco and Kari Lehtonen served as the Stars’ goalie duo (this is the 2009-10 season we’re talking about), Dallas has been in search of a solution for their crease.

For many years, Lehtonen was forced to serve as the undeniable starter with little to no help behind him as the Stars constantly cycled through backup goalie options. But after the Kari Lehtonen/Antti Niemi experiment failed, the Stars took their crease in a new direction when they signed Ben Bishop to be the new starter.

SenShot

And for the majority of the 2017-18 season, the Bishop/Lehtonen tandem looked good. But once Bishop went down with a knee injury and missed most of the last month, Lehtonen stepped in as the starter and couldn’t get the job done. With Dallas once again missing the playoffs and the veteran’s contract expiring, it was time to search for a new backup yet again.

That’s when the Stars landed Anton Khudobin on the first day of free agency. With a nine-year NHL career serving primarily as a backup, Khudobin knows the role well and plays a solid overall game.

And, though you may want to knock on wood at this point, it looks like the Stars might finally have the goalie duo they need.

With Bishop currently serving as the no. 1 option, Dallas has a goaltender that is still in his prime and still looking to prove himself as a Cup-caliber net minder. But considering his age mixed with his history of injuries, the Stars will definitely need a safety net this season as a precaution.

That’s where Khudobin comes in. Throughout his career, he’s shown that he can play in any variety of situations. He might be called to start one game and then take two weeks off. On the other hand, he might be called to make four or five starts in a row. In both instances, he’s shown an ability to play consistently. And to top it all off, he is focused on winning.

“They have a really good chance to win, which is really important for me,” Khudobin said on the first day of free agency. “I’m not looking for a lot of money or whatever. I’m looking to win.”

So, with those factors in mind, the Dallas Stars goaltending tandem looks to be both balanced and determined.

They have the right pieces in the crease to make something big happen this season and punch their ticket to the playoffs. After all, a successful playoff team starts with goaltending.

3. The Scoring Depth Should Be Improved

You can point to a lot of reasons as to why the Dallas Stars missed the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The 0-6-2 slump in March was the prime component in their downfall. But how did that slump come about?

Some might say that Bishop’s injury was a primary factor. Others might point out Lehtonen’s inability to hold the line. And some may even blame Ken Hitchcock’s inability to trust young players in big situations down the stretch.

But the overwhelming opinion about their March struggle was a simple one: the lack of depth scoring.

For a majority of the 2017-18 season, everything seemed to be in working order for the Stars. Their defense was a top-ten unit in the NHL, the goaltending tandem was working well, and the offense was clicking. But even then, it still looked as though the Stars’ bottom nine on offense could use some help.

That problem became incredibly relevant just after the trade deadline when the offensive production hit a grinding halt. The top line ended up being the only one applying pressure and producing consistent scoring chances throughout the last month, and that severely hurt the team overall.

And that’s why scoring depth was at the top of the Stars’ list as they entered the 2018 offseason.

Now that we’re two days from opening night, it looks as though the Dallas offense should be much improved going into 2018-19.

The Dallas Stars added two NHL starters in Valeri Nichushkin and Blake Comeau over the summer. Both have NHL experience and are solid options for the middle six. And while some may believe that their additions aren’t enough to reestablish the Dallas offense as a four-line unit, there’s reason to believe that they will. That all starts with Jim Montgomery.

The Montgomery scheme revolves around building balance and chemistry throughout the team and using all four lines extensively throughout the game. When Ken Hitchcock would avoid calling on the fourth line throughout the entire third period of a one-goal game last season, Montgomery will put them in a situation where he sees a fit.

His ability to use and build each line with a purpose should give the Dallas forwards a new sense of encouragement and energy.

And on top of that, this is a prediction at how the Stars’ bottom nine might look throughout the season:

Mattias Janmark – Jason Spezza – Valeri Nichushkin

Blake Comeau – Radek Faksa – Tyler Pitlick

Devin Shore – Roope Hintz – Jason Dickinson

Scratches: Gemel Smith, Brett Ritchie

Janmark and Faksa were two of the Stars’ best forwards overall last season. Spezza and Nichushkin have terrific chemistry and seem to have a newfound inspiration in Montgomery’s system. Comeau and Pitlick are reliable wingers to complement Faksa’s aggressive style. And finally, Shore and Dickinson have something to prove while Hintz worked his way to the top in a tight race for an NHL spot using training camp and the preseason.

When you mix Montgomery’s scheme with the motives that each forward possesses, as well as the offensive inclinations that many of the Dallas defenders have, there is reason to believe that the Dallas Stars depth scoring should be much improved going into the 2018-19 season.

And considering it was one of the primary factors in their fall from the playoff picture last season, it’s definitely a good problem to have fixed.

If all of the offseason changes tie together like they should, the Dallas Stars should have no trouble with competing and finding their way into the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs. And once they are in, the unpredictability of the race could send them in many directions.

But that’s still a mighty big “if”, especially before the season has even begun. Stay tuned on this one.