Can the Dallas Stars Youth Extend Series Against the Flames?

“It is always darkest just before the day dawneth,” Thomas Fuller said in 1650. More than 360 years ago, the English author tried to make sense of how to deal with the bad times and know the good times were right around the corner. The Dallas Stars experience is a prime example of this and it can be difficult to see following the Stars’ 3-1 loss to the Calgary Flames in Game 5.

The Stars were borderline dominant in the first two periods, forcing the Flames to play their game — a grinding, defensive, low-event contest. Dallas also held a major advantage in face-off wins, hits and blocked shots. All of that was obviously backstopped by arguably the best goalie in the first round of the playoffs — 23-year-old Jake Oettinger.

Whether or not that was the right strategy is surely a conversation that will be had many, many times before next season. Right along with that conversation is whether head coach Rick Bowness and his “system” are to blame for the Stars’ unfortunate demise.

As the Stars prepare to try to stave off elimination in Game 6 at the American Airlines Center on Friday, it’s a more-than-fair question to ask whether the Stars need to significantly open up their offense.

Dallas only has eight goals in five games, but conversely, Calgary only has 10. The Flames averaging two goals a game come in heavily under their sixth-ranked offense at 3.55 goals per game in the regular season.

Of course Dallas’ defense has something to do with that and Wednesday, the Stars kept the Flames from owning the zone with the patented cycles and for the most part, Dallas did a great job of limiting the Flames’ rush chances.

However, the Stars could never capitalize on the Flames’ mistakes. Dallas prides itself on waiting for other teams to trip up before pouncing with its counter-attack and the Flames have done a spectacular job defusing any grade-A chances when they did make a mistake.

The Stars’ power play is an easy place to point your finger as untapped potential. Despite having the 11th-ranked power play in the regular season, the Stars have been dreadful the past two months of the season.

The Dallas Stars can’t get into the zone easily and has only had a handful of times in the series where it was able to set up in the zone and force the Flames to chase.

Calgary’s sixth-ranked penalty kill has put on a masterful performance this series, using an ultra-aggressive attitude on every puck that has kept the Stars out of their rhythm. Dallas resorted to dumping the puck in time after time on the power play and Jacob Markstrom was instrumental in helping his team instantly clear the zone.

Goal number one for the Stars has to be fixing that power play if they’re going to have any chance of sending this to a Game 7 where anything can happen.

The NHL playoffs do a great job of forcing teams to win different ways. Dallas has done a respectable job coercing Calgary into low-scoring games, but Game 4 and the third period of Game 5 showed that the Flames can light it up with the strike of a match.

This is the crux of this series. Without Oettinger, the Dallas Stars are probably giving up at least three goals a game to this Flames squad.

Moreover, the Flames just have a deeper set of offensive tools. Michael Backlund and Andrew Mangiapane put their team on their backs and in the blink of an eye stole the most crucial game of the series as the stats say that Game 5 winners have a near 80% chance to win the series.

Backlund only had 12 goals and 39 points in the regular season, but noted Stars killer Mangiapane was fourth on the team in goals with 35. That’s an embarrassment of riches when none of the Flames’ 40-goal men were directly responsible for the win.

Conversely, if it weren’t for Joe Pavelski, Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz, the Stars don’t come close to having a chance to win the series.

That brings us back to Game 6. Dallas won 27 of 41 home games in the regular season and had the fourth-best home record in the Western Conference.

Meanwhile, Calgary had the third-best home record with 25 home wins and just one more point than Dallas on the season.

The Flames had the pressure on them to win Game 5 at home and now all the pressure is on Dallas to extend the series in a do-or-die Game 6.

The law of averages says that Dallas could at least win two of three home games in the series, but the Stars also weren’t playing the Pacific Division champs each night either.

A path to success for the Stars in Game 6 is not very clear. Bowness deserves credit for popping Robertson onto a line with Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin to free him up for more opportunities and it paid off with the Stars’ only goal in the game.

Bowness will likely reunite the Stars’ top trio of Robertson, Pavelski and Hintz with the Stars owning last change at home, but that line can only do so much.

It’s painfully obvious that other players are going to have to step up. Jacob Peterson getting back into the lineup was a positive sign for the direction of this team, but at the end of the day, those bottom-of-the-lineup decisions are most likely not going to win the game or series for Dallas.

The players that get paid the big bucks have to step up and while many conversations will also be had in the offseason about what to do with the aging core of this team, it can’t be lost how valuable the experience it is for players such as Robertson, Hintz, Peterson, Oettinger and even Heiskanen to a degree.

It has been said that without pain, there can be no happiness. Teams have to go through growing pains before they reach their ultimate goal.

The Tampa Bay Lighting produced a historic season in the 2018-19 season, winning the President’s Trophy with 128 points. But as great of a regular season as it was, it quickly came crashing down when they were swept by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round.

The rest is history as the Lighting went on to win the next two Stanley Cups.

While Wednesday’s loss will undoubtedly be an agonizing chapter in Stars history, it’s also possible that we look back at this moment as one that shaped the future of the organization.

The Dallas Stars have a gigantic opportunity in front of them, not only for them to force a Game 7, but for the young talent to start leading the way.

Winning at the highest level doesn’t happen overnight, but in the great words of Rage Against The Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha,

“It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now?”