Dallas Stars: It Might Be Time to Worry About Depth Scoring Now

Six games into the season, there are only seven Dallas Stars players with goals, and only four with multiple goals.

Depth scoring was a huge problem for the Dallas Stars last season, with only seven players on the team making it to double-digit goal totals on the year.

Fans hoped to see a big signing in the offseason to help with the issue, but instead, Jim Nill didn’t do much of anything.

There were rumors of several big names, including John Tavares and Artemi Panarin, but the offseason came and went with Nill only adding Blake Comeau as a forward free agent, who was meant to help more with the penalty kill than scoring.

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It looked like Nill was hoping the Stars would pull it together on their own, since quite a few of the players who struggled last seasons had previously played well offensively. It’s understandable, since GMs sometimes overreact to problems and end up overcorrecting, but it doesn’t look too optimistic that he made the right call here.

The top line of Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, and Alexander Radulov looked fantastic through the first few games, as expected. They’ve got 11 of the team’s 18 goals so far this season. The problem is that they can’t carry the team on their own, though they’ll certainly try their best, and they weren’t able to do so the past two games. The other players have to help out.

Devin Shore opened scoring for the season, but hasn’t had a single point since then. Radek Faksa‘s lone goal, while impressive, was an empty-netter. Outside of those two goals, there has been absolutely nothing from any of the other forwards on the team.

That’s not to say the other forwards aren’t trying, because they obviously are. The Stars have been putting up a high number of shots as a team, but no luck.

Still, the other forwards aren’t shooting as much either. All of the forwards have a combined 146 shots, but only 72 of those are from players outside the Benn-Seguin-Radulov trio. That’s less than half. Meanwhile, the defensemen are contributing 61 shots to the season total.

John Klingberg‘s four goals are double what every forward outside of Benn, Seguin, and Radulov has contributed combined. He’s arguably one of the league’s best offensive defensemen, but he’s still a defenseman.

Also scoring more than most of the forwards, Connor Carrick has a goal, and it was a nice one. He’s also fifth on the team in points after assisting on three goals. His trade has looked like one of the things Nill got absolutely right so far from this past offseason.

All of this has led to multiple line shuffles, and sometimes that works out, but it also often leads to a lack of chemistry because of the instability. When a player plays every game somewhere new, they aren’t going to develop their play with their linemates.

Two games into the season, I wrote an article warning against panicking too early about depth scoring because it was so early. Since then, the Dallas Stars have lost three out of four games, all by three-goal margins, with still no depth scoring to speak of. While it’s still too early to declare the season lost, it’s definitely time to at least be concerned that this is an issue that isn’t going away in the near future.

While the Stars did have some production in the loss to the Leafs, they were shut out last night for the first time this season in their loss to the Devils. They didn’t have a very successful offense the night before against the Senators either, with only one goal that night.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy fix. Nill made his pitch to Tavares this summer, but with the potential of that contract on that books in addition to Seguin needing an extension, his hands were tied on any other big deals without knowing what was happening.

Looking at Nill’s options now with the season underway, Panarin still sticks out, but Columbus is in a playoff spot at the moment. If they think they can make it to the postseason, they probably aren’t going to give up one of their top forwards easily, if they’re willing to move him at all.

It’s unfortunately a problem that’s best solved in the offseason, but that didn’t happen. As the trade deadline approaches and teams start to accept that they won’t be playing after early April, there may be some better options available, but unfortunately for the Stars, that might be too late.