Dallas Stars: Power Play is Firing on All Cylinders So Far This Season

It’s no secret that the Dallas Stars have struggled with special teams for the past few seasons, but things are looking up this year.

The Dallas Stars scored three power play goals and killed off all of their penalties in their game against Winnipeg.

This season, the Stars are using new power play units. The top unit consists of Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, Alexander Radulov, Jason Spezza, and John Klingberg. The second is Roope Hintz, Mattias Janmark, Devin Shore, Miro Heiskanen, and Esa Lindell.

Those new units, especially the top one, have garnered a lot of happiness from fans, and they looked promising before the start of the season.

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It’s certainly too early to know how they’ll be long term, but it’s good to see that the optimism from the fans hasn’t been misplaced. The new units are playing as well as people had hoped, at least so far.

The Winnipeg game featured the first unit more prominently, with the second unit not even getting ice time in the second and third periods. In that time, the first unit managed three goals.

The first goal came after Blake Wheeler took a goaltender interference penalty. The first unit was responsible for the goal, and they had some great puck movement leading up to it. The passes were crisp and they cycled the puck well before Seguin scored.

During the second period, Dustin Byfuglien took a penalty for holding the stick, and Benn made him pay for his play by scoring another power play goal, which doubled as his 600th career point. Leading up to the goal, the Stars were keeping heavy pressure on the Jets.

The power play struck one more time against the Jets, with Benn scoring another power play goal in the third. It only took the Stars 6 seconds to score the goal, which came off of a beautiful pass from Seguin to Benn.

While the Stars power play was obviously productive against the Jets, it wasn’t as productive against the Coyotes. However, that didn’t mean it was bad. On Thursday, the Stars went 0-for-2 on the power play, but they showed promise during their opportunities. In both matches, the Stars were keeping the pressure on and keeping the puck moving.

The penalty kill has also found success so far this season, with the Stars posting a 100% penalty kill percentage. That’s not sustainable, but it’s a good start and they’ve looked good doing it.

The big thing now is to get the second unit producing, but it’s still early and they haven’t had much of a chance to show what they can do. There is still a lot of firepower on that second unit, and they should be capable of holding their own, even though they won’t produce at the same level as the first unit.