How Concerned Should We Be about the Dallas Stars?

When the Stars dropped their first game of the season in Washington, there was some mild annoyance among the fanbase. After barely scraping out a shootout win against San Jose in their prior contest, the Stars finally dropped a game to a Capitals team that, while better than many expected, wasn’t the fearsome opponent looming on the calendar.

But Tyler Seguin missed that game (and he would miss a few more), and heck, the Stars were bound to lose a game eventually. Even Pete DeBoer had said beforehand the Stars were never going to go 82-0, so blame him if you want. Anyway, one road loss without one of their best players wasn’t too much to flip out about, and the Stars bounced back with a 4-1 win against Edmonton at home that felt cathartic (though it’s worth remembering that the game was actually a lot closer than the 4-1 score would indicate).

Then the Stars went to Buffalo and lost again, and we all started asking awkward questions about the power play in earnest, but with some reassurances elsewhere. Because the goaltending was as good as ever, and it was largely because of Oettinger (and Casey DeSmith) that the Stars weathered early struggles on the power play and quieter-than-expected starts from players like Wyatt Johnston and Jason Robertson (who also dealt with injuries in the preseason, lest you forget).

So after a get-healthy game for the power play in Boston during which the Stars scored three goals on the man-advantage, an almost-perfunctory win over Chicago sent the Stars to Finland sporting a 7-2-0 record and all the hope in the world as they prepared for a litmus test on a global stage and a battle with the white-hot Winnipeg Jets in the week following.

Four games later, the Stars are 8-5-0, smack dab in the middle of the NHL standings and just barely holding off a team in Utah that can’t even figure out its own name. The goaltending has continued to be amazing at 4th in the NHL in save percentage, and Oettinger has looked the part except for when he’s had to face playoff teams, when the Stars as a whole haven’t looked like a team rounding into form so much as one starting to get exposed against better opponents. The power play revival against Boston is looking more like a treatment of symptoms rather than disease, and the quiet scorers have remained quiet, by their standards.

Apropos of nothing, I remember a moment in like 1995 when I read something in a magazine about how George Lucas had actually planned to make nine Stars Wars movies. Could you believe it?! At the time, li’l ol’ Robert couldn’t help but marvel at what could have been. What incredible adventures could our lovable band of rebellious, scruffy-looking nerfherders get up to without that dumb old emperor harshing the vibe? Wow, if only Mr. Lucas could be convinced to make more Star Wars movies happen! How cool would that be?

Anyway, remember last year when the team was outscoring its problems early in the season, and one of you wished that Jake Oettinger would just be in top form to start the next season, just to ease your concerns? Wow, how much fun would it be to watch the Stars begin a season with a top-tier goalie in top form?

Well, thanks a lot, kids. Because of your selfish dreams, you now have a Stars team that feels like Jake Oettinger and Matt Duchene, along with whichever one of Mason Marchment and Tyler Seguin can deal with long-term soreness and puck-induced trauma to keep the Stars’ best/only offensive line chugging along. They’re dragging their team to victory more often than not, but often not by much.

(In fairness, we also wound up with Jar Jar and the sequel trilogy, so it’s not like my hands are clean either.)

So with the Stars set to face one of the many other NHL teams whose fans also harbor serious concerns in Pittsbugh tonight, how much of the current sour mood around the Stars’ is warranted, and how much is just your typical overreaction to the first bit of true adversity in the season?

Well, let’s start with the record. Dallas is third in the Central Division, and with Colorado and Nashville looking even worse, there’s every reason to suspect the Stars won’t have to put up 113 points just to face Vegas in the first round again. In fact, if the Stars began the playoffs today, they’d face Minnesota, which is always a good time, for one of the teams. And if that means the Stars could rest some of their big names (including Oettinger and Miro Heiskanen) a bit more often on the way to the postseason, some lower seeding would almost be a good thing, right?

That’s true, so long as you assume the Stars’ record isn’t also a product of their fairly easy schedule to start the year. Because, if the Stars’ losses recently indicate that they’re going to sink in the standings the tougher things get, then you can’t count on an automatic playoff berth by any stretch, right now.

And true enough, Dallas hasn’t looked dominant in most of their games against not-Chicago this year, even if they pull a W out after 60 minutes. So, even if I wanted to point to underlying numbers (which are about as average as you’d expect them to be), I don’t think you can really take 13 games’ worth of data to draw any extremely encouraging or discouraging conclusions about this team. In their games against Florida and Winnipeg, Dallas has been second-best (and possible even third-best against the Jets, as I’m inclined to give people who willingly live in Winnipeg a consolation prize just for attending the game at all. You’re the real heroes.) But in their games against worse opponents, Dallas has found a way to win. That’s more than Minnesota was able to do against Chicago last night, by the way. All NHL teams are pretty hard to beat, actually!

I think everyone would agree that the Stars would be content to eke out a 6th-place finish in the West as long as they had something of a healthy team come April. So maybe wanting the Stars to maintain a .750 points percentage all season is a little unnecessary. Just stay north of .600, and things should probably be fine. That’s not so tough, right?

As for the details, though: should the Stars’ be concerned about special teams? The penalty kill has gone from elite to leaky in a hurry, and the power play, despite some improvements in their underlying numbers, looked like the JV team to Winnipeg’s Varsity when you watched the two units on Saturday. As Sergei Zubov always said, the power play doesn’t always have to score, but it does need to give you momentum. And that hasn’t been a consistent-enough result after two minutes of what are supposed to be the Stars’ best players, with an extra skater to work with.

But I’m not going to mash the big red button just yet, because I think you always bet on young talent and recent history. Steve Spott may have gotten outfoxed against Edmonton last spring, but the team also went 4-for-14 against Vegas, and 5-for-17 against Colorado on the job in addition to getting things done during the regular season.

Playoff series become much more about exploiting tiny little advantages than about Power Rankings, so it’s silly to try to worry about whether the Stars’ guns will get jammed in the Western Conference Finals again because Jason Robertson only has 7 points through 13 games’ so far. Fun fact: Evgenii Dadonov has more power play goals this year than Wyatt Johnston, Jamie Benn, Miro Heiskanen, or Roope Hintz. Either that means the Stars’ roster is inherently flawed and needs to be blowed up super duper fast, or else it’s just One of Those Things, and some of the best hockey players in the world will probably figure out how to do the things they’ve done really well for years prior. After just 13 games, I think there’s only one safe bet—but it is a bet right now, not a certainty. Teams have to prove themselves again each year.

At 5-on-5, it’s a bit more complicated. The Stars are actually 6th in the NHL in Expected Goals-for at 5v5, but 21st in the league in actual goals-for at 5v5. Some of that is due to regress when players like Logan Stankoven and Jason Robertson hit the streaks that scorers tend to hit at some point (there’s a guy in Washington who’s on one right now, you might have heard). But when you watch the games, it’s also pretty apparent that the Stars aren’t often forcing other teams out of their comfort zones unless the Duchene-Seguin-Marchment line is on the ice, and that’s not gonna get it done. The technical term for what top lines are supposed to achieve against their opponent is “discombobulation,” and Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson, like Wyatt Johnston and Jamie Benn, just haven’t been able to do that with nearly enough consistency.

On the defensive side of the team, it’s kind of hilarious. The Stars have been one of the less-effective defensive teams in the league (23rd in expected goals-against at 5v5), but they’re even better than Winnipeg in terms of actual goals-against at 5v5, at 4th in the NHL. (These are all from Natural Stat Trick, obviously.) Jake Oettinger and Casey DeSmith have been very good, and even if Oettinger hasn’t gotten victories in games against Florida and Winnipeg, anyone who watched those games knows that you could have stapled Ken Dryden to Georges Vézina in the crease and still not have won those two contests, given how poorly the rest of the Stars played. (though I suppose both Dryden and Vézina would have been screaming in pain from all the staples, so maybe that’s not a good example.)

We’ll do a deep dive around 25-30 games to get a clearer sense for what’s going on under the hood, but right now, I think it’s fair to ask for more from your best players without panicking in the meantime. Heck, one of Robertson’s best games this year came when he was moved away from Hintz, so I think some mild motivation might be more than enough to get his confidence to match his results. Certainly he’s got the talent and track record to do it, and when Robertson is scoring, the Stars typically follow suit. And who’s really going to bet against a 21-year-old Wyatt Johnston? I just can’t bring myself to believe these players are really going to turn into scoring pumpkins unless there’s something else going on we don’t know about.

Hintz, I have to say, is the one who worries me a bit more. even so, he’s third in goals on the team, and fourth in points. And Hintz has always been a player who can look like the best center in the entire league for stretches before fading into the background a bit for other periods. Without trying to contruct some narrative about distractions from the Finland trip or any nonsense like that, I’ll just say that the Stars do need Hintz to really get going (and maybe Robertson needs him more than anyone else). It’s great that 33-year-olds like Seguin and Duchene are dominating every night, but the Stars’ depth is only a strength if the deep water makes opponents flounder, and right now, the pool is far too comfortable in far too many places for enemy defensemen.

Outside of that, the Stars do have a good fourth line this year (though their metrics are near the bottom of the team, as you’d expect). With the unexpected presence of Mavrik Bourque, the fourth line has created momentum and even chipped in to win a game or two for Dallas. And honestly, I’m not sure there’s a better fourth line that a player like Bourque could be on than one with Sam Steel and Colin Blackwell, both of whom can play fast and score goals. Again, if Bourque is anywhere near as good as everyone (including me) believes he can be, then I don’t see any reason he can’t start to do things on that line that Wyatt Johnston did with Benn and Dadonov in his rookie season. Also, I can’t imagine Bourque won’t find his way back up to the top nine before long anyhow, so if he can keep putting together solid games in the meantime, all should be well. I really believe that, right now.

So that means the defense is, as it’s been for years, the last, best concern. Except, it’s not concerning quite in the way I expected, as Ilya Lyubushkin has been playing 17 minutes a night of reliable, even entertaining defense. Lyubushkin, Thomas Harley, Esa Lindell, and Nils Lundkvist are all positive players in expected goals as well as actual 5v5 goal differential when they’re on the ice, and when you throw Miro Heiskanen on top of that group, it should make for Good Times on the Blue Line, yeah?

Except for two things: First, Miro Heiskanen is only barely a positive player at 5v5 right now (ten goals for, nine against). Those results obviously will improve, as he and Thomas Harley have the best expected numbers of any defensemen on the team (which is likely why the coaching staff tends to put them together when the group struggles, as we’ve seen). But one wonders if there’s a risk of frustration creeping into the defense when players like Heiskanen aren’t seeing the results they’re accustomed to getting.

I was talking with Harley about this last week, and after trying to form some version of the question, “Do you think the change in defense partners has hindered your team’s improvement on the blue line,” he essentially responded with, “I agree with everyone on the team who says we have to be better.” That’s an absolutely fair response to a convoluted question, and of course, no NHL player is going to say anything like, “Oh yeah, the coaches’ tinkering with the defense pairings is the reason I’m not playing well, please publish that so the coaches can see me complain about them and implicitly blame them for any mistakes I might make.” That wouldn’t be true in any case, and Harley in particular is a player who has proven that he can lead the blue line and play big minutes with success, as he did when Heiskanen went down last year.

After our exchange, I really just came away thinking that the Stars, players and coaches and management alike, are probably wise to continue to stay the course and hope for positive regression. After all, they’ve shown what they can do far too often to overreact to a 13-game sample size. Everybody has their blind spots, but professional athletes do not stay in the best league in the world by being oblivious. Listening to them is a good place to start.

But the last concern I wanted to point to is the most obvious one, partly because it was the biggest attempt at helping Heiskanen: Matt Dumba went down with what looked like a knee injury early in the season, and despite working hard to come back, he hasn’t looked solid enough to play alongside Heiskanen against top competition. He’s got the worst defensive metrics on the blue line outside of Brendan Smith, and his rough turnover against Winnipeg that led directly to a goal was a pretty direct shot into the confidence balloon of fans already skeptical about the player who knocked Joe Pavelski out of a playoff series just two years ago.

And that’s a problem, given Dumba’s contract and role. Because if he’s not playing next to Heiskanen, Harley is the only other real option for that pairing the coaching staff sees right now (and not without reason, it must be said.) But as we’ve discussed, if Harley moves up next to Heiskanen, then the Stars have three right-handed defenders and only two pairings to put them on, and that leads to a host of problems. There’s a reason the Lundkvist-Lindell pairing has worked well this season, and while Lyubushkin-Lindell has been a great pairing on the penalty kill, I don’t think it’s an ideal pairing for serious minutes at even-strength, especially when it comes to moving the puck north. Those two players are too similar to complement one another most effectively, and Dumba with Smith is at best a very neutral pairing that will get sheltered against top competition, so that means the top defense pairing has to play a ton of minutes and do all of the offensive transition. It’s just not a tenable strategy, long-term. Or at least it hasn’t looked like one.

That’s why, I think, Dumba has been put with Heiskanen so consistently. After the Lundkvist-Heiskanen pairing failed to work over the last two years, Dumba was Jim Nill’s cost-effective solution to get Heiskanen on his strong side, and Harley on another pairing moving the puck well. Dumba didn’t need to be Chris Tanev, but if he could just be Roman Polák or a right-handed Ryan Suter, that would be sufficient. But because of the early injury, Dumba never really got a chance to show what he could do at 100%, and he’s struggled to establish himself as the ideal option during his return, particularly against Florida and Winnipeg.

With Dumba’s contract and the Stars’ lack of other right-handed options, the reality is that he’s going to be in the lineup for a while to come. And that will either give him time to figure things out as he gets back to full health, or it will force the coaching staff to get even more creative. We’ll see what happens.

Smith is clearly the seventh defenseman and has looked the part, for better and for worse. But the two reasons that doesn’t merit serious concern are Smith’s role and his expectations. Smith came into the season just hoping to make the team, not looking for any presumptive spot or pairing. That means his attitude has been great despite a lot of healthy scratches so far, and everything I’ve seen and heard suggests he’s going to be the best possible version of a seventh defenseman you could want for that role during the season, or until Lian Bichsel forces the Stars to make some tougher decisions. He’s not going to lead transition play or anything like that, but he can kill penalties, and he hasn’t actually been on the ice for a goal against at 5v5 yet this season (or a goal for, in fairness). He’s been fine. And that’s pretty much all you want or need from that role while the better long-term option continues to marinate.

And yes, that’s where my concern finally starts to fade a little bit. Because Lian Bichsel was always the ideal solution to the blue line, or at least the best one Dallas has, given their lack of ability to find and develop a right-handed defenseman for the better part of the last decade. I believe the coaches see the Stars’ best five defensemen, if everything goes to plan, as some combination of Heiskanen, Harley, Lindell, Lyubushkin, and Bichsel. The Stars need at least one more right-handed defender in that lineup to balance things out, but if Bichsel shows he can do what Harley did a couple years ago and come up late in the season more than ready for playoff hockey, I think it’s less of an issue which of Dumba, Lundkvist, or even Smith plays in that final spot. Harley-Heiskanen is probably the pairing the Stars are looking at for game one of the playoffs right now.

For the time being, the Stars don’t have Bichsel up, and that’s by design. Hopefully, the Stars can get enough other parts of their game going to be able to endure what’s been the annual admission of a less-than-ideal mix on the blue line. Maybe there’s a killer deadline move to be made by Jim Nill, but even if not, the Stars have too much talent, and too many skins on the wall, not to be able to figure things out.

Or at least, they have enough talent not to shore up other areas enough to weather their weaker ones, even if it’s only en route to a B-to-B-minus sort of regular season. No, they haven’t been up to their own standard from years past, but there are a lot of ways to get to playoffs. And for the reigning Western Conference Champs of the regular season, they really couldn’t care less about how they get back to the dance, so long as they have the right people when the day arrives. No one hangs report cards in the rafters anyway.