The regular season has put the Dallas Stars in a bit of a bind over the last week. After a hot start, the Stars have now lost three in a row and are below .500 in the standings. Their most recent action turned into a humbling and somewhat ridiculous loss to the Minnesota Wild.
Just six days ago, the Dallas Stars were 3-1-0 and holding at one of the top spots in the Central Division. And though it was a small sampling size, everything was looking good.
The Stars had spent the first ten days of their 2018-19 regular season taking positive strides forward. While assimilating to a new coach and new system, the Stars did a lot of things right on their way to three victories. Their offense carried a significant spark, their defense played with purpose and fluidity, and their goaltending continued finding ways to get the job done. In addition, their power play carried a significant spark and their top players were putting up big numbers.
As a result, Dallas knocked off Arizona, Winnipeg, and Anaheim while only dropping one game in a 7-4 decision to Toronto. But even so, the first week looked to hold incredible promise for the Dallas Stars.
But here we are less than one week later and the Stars are in a tough spot. They are 3-4-0 after three straight losses and can’t seem to do anything right.
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It all started on Monday night when Dallas faced their first road trip of the season. It was a back-to-back setup, with the Stars visiting Ottawa on Monday night and finishing the trip with a visit to New Jersey on Tuesday. They started the trip off with a 4-1 loss to the Senators and followed it up with a stale 3-0 shutout defeat at the hands of the Devils.
After adding another chapter to their continuous road woes, Dallas came back home to start up another homestand. With Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Anaheim on tap, the opportunity for the Stars to break out of their funk and build another hot streak was there.
But on Friday night, that opportunity was partially extinguished as the Stars fell 3-1 to the Wild.
The game began much like the previous two had for the Stars: lacking energy and conviction. Both teams had a power play in the first period, but neither one found a way to generate any significant offensive push and ended the period in a 0-0 tie. The shots were a mere 8-6 in favor of the Wild.
The second period, though, was where the Stars finally turned the corner. After seven periods of dry and emotionless hockey, Dallas rattled off 24 shots, forcing Devan Dubnyk to make plenty of high-danger saves. They dominated the period, forced Minnesota to take two penalties, and finally looked like the better team.
The start of the third brought a nifty deflection goal for Jason Spezza off of a Miro Heiskanen shot to put Dallas in charge 1-0. But midway through the third period, it all went downhill for the Stars.
Matt Dumba started it off with a goal on a rebound shot and gave way to Ryan Suter scoring three minutes later on a shot that deflected off of Esa Lindell‘s leg in front of the net. Zach Parise closed the game out at the 1:00 mark with an empty-net goal to seal the 3-1 victory.
Causeway Crowd
Just like that, the Stars are 3-4-0.
Now, it’s not as if all of this is chopped up to misfortune and bad luck. This new Dallas Stars team runs solely on intensity and relentlessness. When those qualities aren’t present in the lineup, the team suffers. We saw that on Monday and Tuesday and in the first and third periods of Friday. They simply aren’t the same team that they were last week.
But, then again, having the game winning goal against Minnesota deflect off of your own defenseman’s shin and into the net isn’t the easiest thing to prepare for either.
With the loss, the Dallas Stars have now fallen into their first true losing skid of the season. And when a team begins losing consistently, the hunger for a new chance to right their wrongs becomes more pressing.
That hunger won’t really help the Stars right now, considering they only have two games scheduled over the next eight days. But it can still serve as motivation.
The thing about this Dallas Stars team is that they proved early on that they can be a good team that is tough to run with. They showed it against Arizona and Winnipeg and put together an incredible comeback against Anaheim.
But in these losses, they’ve shown their flaws. They’ve shown that the team still has some rough edges that need to be smoothed out. In addition, they’ve also shown that this is part of the growing process. Getting out to a hot start set the expectations high, but it didn’t take away from the fact that Dallas has to take this step-by-step.
3-4-0 isn’t terrible for a new team starting a new era of hockey. But it’s definitely something to keep an eye on. This year is going to be a fight for the Stars. There will be some impressive ups and unbelievable downs, but there is one common theme: progress.
Stay focused on the process and give it time.