The Dallas Stars are about ready to wrap up a six-game road trip tomorrow night when they visit the Utah Mammoth for the first time this season. This road trip the Stars have been on for the last couple of weeks has not been ideal at all. Instead of going out there and dominating each team on the road trip, it's been quite the opposite, except for LA and Washington. 2-3 on the road trip is inexcusable in my opinion. The Stars are actually shooting themselves in the foot more than helping themselves right now.
The Stars took on the Anaheim Ducks last night, and only Casey DeSmith decided to suit up for that game. It feels really embarrassing that the Ducks were able to snap their nine-game losing streak with their top-three scorers out of the lineup. That should have been a game where the Stars walked out of the arena with a bundle of Ducks ready to cook over the campfire. However, the Stars are searching for answers heading into tomorrow night's game in Utah.
Even though it was an outlier kind of game in San Jose this past Saturday, when the Stars gave up four power-play goals, the Sharks exposed how the Stars defend on the power play. Other teams remaining on the Stars' schedule will probably look back at how the Sharks scored those goals and apply it to their power play when the Stars are on their schedule. It's just another example of how the Stars continue to provide a blueprint on how to beat them.
I'm trying to be as optimistic as possible about how the Stars finish out the road trip tomorrow night, but this road trip might have exposed how to beat them going forward. It concerns me to the point that the team doesn't even care or know what's going on. You saw their body language up until the final four minutes last night. It's like, let's wrap this up and make our way back to Dallas. I know that being on the road for this long can take a toll on the team. However, their laziness against some teams on this road trip might help Colorado defeat us.
The Stars also need their highest-paid players to start finding the back of the net. Mikko needs to start living up to that 96 million dollar contract the Stars gave him last season after coming over from Carolina. It's incredible seeing him rack up a lot of assists this season; however, he needs to dominate opponents by increasing his goal count. The Stars can't rely on Jason Robertson or Wyatt Johnston to carry this team into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
I know Jim Nill probably won't even kick the tires on a trade until after the Winter Olympics. I'm just worried that a player on the trade block like Kiefer Sherwood will end up on a team like the Minnesota Wild, which is in our division. First place is basically out of reach at this point unless someone throws a wrench into the engine of the Colorado Avalanche. They seem unstoppable this season, and no one is going to catch them. The Stars are basically playing for home-ice advantage against the Minnesota Wild at the moment.
To wrap up this article, I know how tough the Stars are, and I know they will figure out how to get out of the rut that they are in right now. However, their laziness on this road trip provided a blueprint to the entire NHL on how to defeat them. Something has got to change with this team's energy level, or else they will find themselves on the couch watching the postseason this year. Stop playing down to your opponents and blow them out of the water beginning tomorrow night.