Dallas Stars: Disappointing Road Trip Presents New Challenge To Team

A humbling road trip for the Dallas Stars came to a close on Saturday night with a loss in Carolina. As a result, they have watched their comfortable lead in the standings diminish and push them into the wild card race. It’s just another dose of adversity to endure in their twisting 2018-19 campaign.

You could make a serious argument that the Dallas Stars deserved to win their Saturday night contest against the Carolina Hurricanes. But then again, there’s an argument to be made that they didn’t.

The Stars controlled the tempo and pace for most of the game, generated quality offensive zone time, and finished the night with a 33-27 advantage in shots and plenty of high-danger chances at the net.

But that was in the final 50 minutes. Through the first 10 minutes, it was all Hurricanes. Carolina was quick out of the gate, pushing their transition game and playing quick with the puck while the Stars struggled to keep up. That turned into goals for Justin Williams and Brock McGinn and pushed the Hurricanes into a commanding 2-0 position. Mix that with a stellar showing from Petr Mrazek and a late power play goal from Micheal Ferland and you get a 3-0 Hurricanes victory.

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And, just like that, the Dallas Stars wrapped up a five-game road trip on an incredibly somber and humbling note.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Stars were riding a five-game win streak, had ascended to third place in the Central division, and looked like a team poised to finish near the front of the Western Conference playoff race. In fact, it’s only been 13 days.

Since then, however, things have changed substantially. The St. Louis Blues are 9-1-0 in their last 10 games. Chicago is 8-2-0. Meanwhile, the Minnesota Wild are 3-4-3 in their last 10 and Colorado has only won one game since Jan. 21.

Meanwhile, the Dallas Stars responded to a 5-0-0 surge with a 1-3-1 road trip over the past 10 days.

All of that has combined to dramatically alter the Central division landscape. One month ago, the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks were at the bottom of the conference alongside the struggling Los Angeles Kings. At the same time, the Wild were in the top three of the division standings and the Avalanche and Stars were vying for the two wild card spots in a loaded race.

Now, the script has flipped. The Blues now sit in third place, the Blackhawks are only three points out of the final wild card spot, the Avalanche are plummeting, and the Wild are barely holding steady in the wild card picture.

So, where does that leave the Stars? In the first wild card spot with a record of 29-24-5 with 63 points through 58 games played. They’re two points out of third place in the division with a game out of hand.

They’ve got another disappointing road trip to thank for their recent demise.

It all started in Nashville on Feb. 7. The Stars were gunning for a third consecutive win against their budding divisional rival, with all three potentially coming at Bridgestone Arena. And though they made a valiant push and showed some bright spots in their execution, they couldn’t close the game out in overtime and fell 3-2.

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Two days later, they were in Arizona to take on a Coyotes team fighting to stay in the postseason picture. They had defeated the Coyotes just six days earlier at the American Airlines Center to cap off their five-game win streak and were aiming for the season sweep. But Arizona came out swinging on special teams while the Stars struggled to find their footing, which led to Dallas dropping the 3-2 contest.

After a brief trip back home for practice, the Stars headed for the Eastern Conference. They started the second leg of the trip with a 3-0 win over the Florida Panthers. While it wasn’t the most complete performance, it was enough to get the job done.

Two nights later, that progress was effectively wiped out as Dallas suffered a 6-0 beating at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Stars generated chances and controlled certain parts of the contest, but they lost the special teams battle and couldn’t solve the hot hand of Andrei Vasilevskiy. As a result, they watched their lead in the Central standings evaporate entirely.

Saturday night’s loss to the Hurricanes looked very similar to the one in Tampa Bay, though on a less devastating scale. Mrazek stole the show while the Stars couldn’t use their determination to rally after falling behind because of a slow start, so Carolina walked away with the 3-0 victory.

And in many ways, Saturday night’s game was the most telling of the entire trip. It served as the deciding factor between the trip being viewed as decent or bad. If Dallas had won, they would have wrapped up the trip with a 2-2-1 record and would have been tied for third in the Central going into Sunday morning.

Instead, they fell short and finished the swing in the first wild card spot with a 1-3-1 mark. That skid included an 0/11 run on the power play, a penalty kill success rate of 64.3 percent, an .897 combined save percentage, and a -8 goal differential.

“Everyone talks about how it’s gotta be the hardest division in the league, if not sports,” said Tyler Seguin on Feb. 1. “But when you come down to the last 30 games or so, you’re playing playoff games already. So, that was a good one to win.”

The trip helped wipe out many of the positive thoughts of progress that the Dallas Stars had established during their hot streak. On top of that, it helped force their problems further into the spotlight.

The Stars tallied a total of seven goals during the trip for an average of 1.40 per game. And of those seven goals, the only forwards to find the back of the net were Tyler Seguin (twice), Brett Ritchie, and Alexander Radulov. That’s less than 25 percent of the forward group they utilized during the trip.