For those who attended last night's preseason game at the American Airlines Center, I hope you had a fun evening of hockey. It seems like nature is healing with Jake Oettinger leading the team onto the ice and Tyler Seguin's butt check into the boards during warmups. Last night was the first preseason game for many of the veterans that will be on the opening night roster. While it was good to see them in action last night for the first time, you could tell some of them had rust on them.
Understandably, I wasn't expecting the veterans to have a flawless performance in their first preseason game. They haven't played a hockey game since the Western Conference Finals in June. However, turning the puck over 26 times to their prospect team is not what I wanted to see last night. I won't go into every little turnover in the neutral zone or even the shot on our net. However, last night's defensive performance was horrendous.
The Stars must do a better job of not turning the puck over to their opponent, whether it's a prospect team or their regular team. They won't win the Stanley Cup doing that. I'm sure the Wild's prospects impressed their boss last night with their performance despite losing 5-2. I'm sure some of them will get rewarded for last night, like getting bumped up to the AHL level to begin the season.
Take a look down below at this turnover that resulted in a goal. That's how quickly a turnover can result in a goal for the other team. Let's take a step back and imagine if the Stars were in playoff overtime against the Edmonton Oilers. That potential turnover last night would have resulted in the Stars losing a playoff game in overtime or getting eliminated in game 6. Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid would have loved to pick off that pass last night.
A beauty from #94#mnwild pic.twitter.com/lcdbg12bmq
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) September 26, 2024
Thankfully, this is the preseason, and teams work on minimizing mistakes and turnovers like the Stars did last night. The players reviewed the film today at practice and worked on eliminating those turnovers. If the Stars want to win the Stanley Cup, they can't be careless with the puck in their zone like last night. Goal scorers like McDavid salivate at the chance to turn a turnover into a goal. Krill Kaprizov could have done that last night if he was on the roster for the Wild roster.
Hopefully, the Stars play better against the Colorado Avalanche in their final preseason home game. They have three more games, including tomorrow night, to work on fixing their mistakes from last night. The fans could see the same team that played last night in tomorrow night's matchup. I'm sure last night's team that took the ice would love to redeem themselves. The bigger question now is what type of ice cream Pete DeBoer is enjoying while he recovers from his surgery.