The Stars are more like the team everyone anticipated when the season began lately

The January swoon is officially over. The Dallas Stars were expected to be one of the best teams in the NHL again in 2025-26, but a difficult month-long stretch from Christmas to late January threatened to send the team into good-not-great status at the two-thirds mark of the season. Injuries, mediocre goaltending, and a lack of depth scoring were the biggest culprits during the Stars' 2-6-4 stretch from Dec. 23 to Jan. 18.

Now, after Monday night's win over the Jets, the Stars have put that behind them and have gone 6-1-0 since. The victories are back at Victory essentially because Dallas is looking more like the team it was expected to be - and was - back in the fall.

On Monday, Dallas' best players played like the best players. Jake Oettinger played like a top-10 goalie. And the Stars' role players chipped in with energy. Such a recipe has yielded three straight trips to the Western Conference Finals.

Nils Lundvist making plays for Stars

Perhaps the most important goal of the method against the Jets came on the second goal, potted by none other than Nils Lundkvist. He's exactly the kind of player the Stars need to get going with a bit more push; the WCF trips into Stanley Cup ones.

Lundkvist went end-to-end to score. Sam Steel held the puck near the blue line of his zone before finding Lundkvist sprinting through the middle on the breakout. The defenseman gave it back to Steel, who took the offensive zone, delayed, and zipped a pass cross-ice to Jamie Benn near the right boards. Benn charged down the wing, dropping the puck just before the dot to Mikko Rantanen, who sent it toward the net. Lundkvist had never stopped skating and found himself on the doorstep for the rebound.

The goal was just his third of the season in 29 games, but the play itself showcased what the former highly-regarded trade piece the Stars landed from the New York Rangers can bring to the table when he's on his game. It also showcased Benn's continued ability to play with intellect now that his body doesn't quite bang the way it used to. Whether it comes from them or others, Dallas needs such to come from its role players.

Dallas Stars' role players have picked up the pace

Throw in Justin Hryckowian picking up an assist on Rantanen's third-period goal, Matt Duchene chipping in two helpers to boost his point streak to five games, and Thomas Harley finally - finally - picking up a home-ice goal, and the Stars have gone from a team that looked passionless to a team that's remembered how good it is in the last 30 days.

No, things aren't perfect. Each of the Stars' last five wins has come by just one goal. But those are the kinds of wins they weren't getting during the slump when they lost four in the same manner. They show the sort of gumption required to succeed when springtime rolls around, and the team is playing for a bit more than a February winning streak.