Dallas Stars Face Surging St. Louis Blues In Critical Central Division Test

The Dallas Stars are back on Thursday night for the second act of a three-game homestand. This time around, they square off with a red-hot St. Louis Blues team riding an 11-game win streak. It’s another crucial test for a Stars team that has ground to gain back in the Western Conference playoff race.

Jan. 12, 2019 marked the beginning of a lowly time for the Dallas Stars. On that Saturday night at the American Airlines Center, the Stars started up what would eventually become a four-game losing skid after picking up the first loss two nights prior in Philadelphia.

That skid pushed them to the brink of the Western Conference wild card wall, blatantly highlighted their issues on offense (they scored a combined three goals during the span), and once again sparked questioning about the franchise’s direction.

The team that aided in initially pushing them down that inconsistent path was the St. Louis Blues. On that Saturday night in Dallas, the Blues knocked the Stars off in a 3-1 finish. While the Stars were slipping back into mediocrity with the loss after a strong start to the new year, St. Louis was simply trying to build some sort of consistency.

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The Blues started the first half of the 2018-19 regular season on a humbling note. In fact, the win over the Stars on Jan. 12 bumped their record up to 19-20-4 on the year.

In the first half of the season, the Blues were an obvious mess. Their offense wasn’t clicking, Vladimir Tarasenko was on pace for a handful of career-lows and looked like a potential trade piece for St. Louis to use at the deadline, the defense was leaky at best, and Jake Allen was further forcing his legitimacy as an NHL starter into question.

Simply put, St. Louis was sitting in the middle of a disaster after beginning the season with high expectations. Head coach Mike Yeo was fired in November after starting the year with a 7-8-3 record, Robert Bortuzzo and Zach Sanford dropped the gloves and fought each other during a practice in December, and the team had humbly assumed the bottom spot in the league standings by the end of 2018.

As a result, a win against the Dallas Stars in mid-January looked like nothing more than a quick glimmer of hope for a team marred with inconsistencies.

Fast-forward six weeks and the Blues sit third in the Central division with a record of 32-22-5 and 69 points. They are 13-2-1 in their past 16 contests, which includes a current 11-game win streak that the team is riding (their longest win streak in franchise history). It’s the best win streak in the NHL and has St. Louis sitting pretty in the division race and looking at the upcoming NHL Trade Deadline from a much different perspective.

But where did this rising from the ashes originate? There are a few things that it can be attributed to.

Their offense is putting up an average of 3.00 goals per game this season, which puts them in the middle of the league pack at 14th. Their power play sits 18th in the NHL in terms of efficiency at 19.0 percent and their penalty kill is close by in 18th at 80.1 percent.

Their defense, on the other hand, sits seventh-best in the league with 2.76 goals against per game. They also average 28.9 shots against per game, which is good enough for third in the NHL ranks.

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Dallas owns a better average on the power play (20.4 percent), penalty kill (82.3 percent), and goals against per game average (2.61). So, how has this Blues team won 11 in a row and surpassed a Stars team that followed up a five-game win streak to start the month of February with the 1-4-1 skid that they are currently stuck in?

Enter Jordan Binnington.

After playing cleanup duty on Dec. 16 and 29 following being called up on Dec. 9, Binnington made his first start of the season on Jan. 7, 2019 against the Philadelphia Flyers. He stopped all 25 shots faced and picked up a shutout win (the first of his career) as the Blues headed back to St. Louis to face the Stars the night after (Dallas won the game 3-1).

Since that contest, Binnington is on a historic streak. The 2011 third-round pick is 13-1-1 this season with a .931 save percentage and 1.61 goals against average. He’s been the key to the Blues’ success in nine of their last 11 victories and hasn’t lost a game in over a month.

His recent hot streak includes three shutouts (including two in his past three starts) and wins over teams such as the Toronto Maple Leafs, Nashville Predators, and Tampa Bay Lightning.

The rookie is red-hot and gaining momentum at one of the most important parts of the season. Of course, it also doesn’t hurt when the St. Louis offense is averaging 3.91 goals per game throughout the current win streak.

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On Thursday night, the Blues will put that win streak on the line as they take on the Dallas Stars at the American Airlines Center. And for a Stars team that has lost four of their past five games and is slipping closer to the Western Conference postseason cutoff, it’s a sincere and hefty dose of adversity.

This is a unique challenge for the Stars because it looks as though it will test their weakest points. The Blues’ defense is one of the best in the NHL and they have a rookie goaltender in net that has stifled some of the league’s top offensive units over the past month. That can be an intimidating task for any team, but especially for a Dallas Stars club sitting 29th in goals scored per game this season (2.57).

On top of that, the Blues offense is firing off at one of the highest rates in the NHL since the All-Star Break. Meanwhile, the Dallas defense is in one of its worst stretches of their 59-game campaign, giving up 14 goals in their past three games (4.66 per game).

For a team that seemed to have built their identity on stingy defense and grinding out low-scoring contests, that’s a problem.

Winning a close, low-scoring contest might be a problem for Dallas. The St. Louis Blues have everything clicking for them from the crease on out while the Dallas Stars are simply trying to stay afloat. As a result, the need for offensive pressure is more relevant and necessary than ever.

Tuesday night’s contests could have set this game up as a battle for third place in the Central. But after the Blues picked up a 3-2 win over Toronto and the Stars dropped a 5-3 decision to Nashville, Dallas now finds themselves six points away from St. Louis, who still controls third.

But that’s no reason to view the game as any less critical. Thursday night presents the Dallas Stars with an opportunity to break out of a losing funk against the hottest team in the league. They will have to do so by shoring up their weak spots, but that’s all part of the test.

It’s a big game with plenty of implications involved, from the deadline itself to the Central division playoff race.

How much does this Stars team have left in the tank? Can they take down the NHL’s surging juggernaut? Can they use Thursday night’s contest to take a hard turn back onto the path of consistency as they look to reestablish their footing in a crowded playoff picture?

Dallas hasn’t won a game in nine days. St. Louis hasn’t lost a game in 29 days.

Puck drop is at 7:30 p.m. from the American Airlines Center.