Pete DeBoer Is Concerned about the Dallas Stars. Should You Be?

I mean, yeah, obviously. But why?

Pete DeBoer did not mince words after the game last night/this morning:

“I haven’t had many disappointing wins in my career, but this would be one of them. I thought we played a really immature, sloppy game tonight, especially in the first and third. It’s concerning. It’s late in the season, playoffs around the corner. It’s a concerning trend here lately.”

This at least served to answer a lingering question I had after the Tampa Bay shootout loss: would DeBoer have been as critical of the Stars’ effort if they’d managed to win that game?

Well, turns out the answer is: Yeah, pretty much. DeBoer even doubled down on his disappointment when asked if the game against Calgary would be a good opportunity to move past the Edmonton performance.

“I hope so. You probably deserved to lose tonight, that might wake ‘em up a little bit, but we’ll see.”

The word DeBoer used up top really sticks out to me, though: “Concerning.” Deboer isn’t just saying “not good enough, boys.” He’s saying, on camera, in front of Canadian media, that he is genuinely worried about what his team is doing. That’s not just frustration or venting, but rather the sequel to his Tampa Bay comments, the fulfillment of his challenging his team. They gave a bit of a response against two teams in dire straits at home to Philadelphia (where Dallas nearly did give the game away late in the third to a team about to fire its coach) and Minnesota (who is so banged up you expected one of the referees to be carrying a first-aid kit around during the game, just in case.)

DeBoer pointed specifically to the first and third periods of the game in his comments, and it seems clear the postgame talk in the dressing room before the team spoke with the media reinforced this point, as Jake Oettinger led with similar sentiments.

“Pretty unnecessary,” said Oettinger of the third period near-comeback by Edmonton. We’ve gotta be a lot better than that at the end. There’s no need for that.”

Can the Stars learn lessons from these sorts of games?

“Hopefully,” Oettinger replied to the above question. “I mean, you’re up 4-0, and you make it way more interesting than it needs to be. That’s not sustainable, and you can’t play like that at the end.”

Oettinger also had a good line in there talking about how Robertson scores goals that almost look like accidents, but they’re really a result of his hard work and intense practice routine. That’s an undersold point, I think: the best goal-scorers often score the messiest-looking goals. Most goals aren’t bar-down, even in the NHL.

Jason Robertson pointed to the penalties Dallas took as the inciting incident in the souring of the collective mood.

“We were able to squeeze it out, but we didn’t do a good job closing it out in the third,” said Robertson. “It was definitely a stressful moment. It was one of those few times in the past couple weeks where we’ve had a big lead going into the third period, and I wouldn’t say took our foot off the gas, but got into penalty trouble, and then their crowd came alive, and their players started to feel it. We were able to survive, but definitely don’t want to repeat that again.”

Roope Hintz echoed those sentiments: Jake Oettinger was incredible, Robertson is a goal-scoring wizard, the second period was great, then they took some bad penalties in the third period and let Edmonton build momentum in front of a home crowd aching for a reason to get loud.

The Stars ended the night being outshoot by Edmonton 44-24. And while shots on goal aren’t everything, this was a game where they lined up with the actual experience pretty darn closely:

Incidentally, the Stars have the second-most wins in the NHL when being outshot (trailing only Toronto). Some of that is related to the lack of quality looks they usually give up, but as with too many games recently, that was not the case in Edmonton, where Oettinger was tested from great spots, with Edmonton hitting a couple of posts behind him as well.

Edmonton shots at even-strength in all periods

I mean, look at that cluster of chances right on the front porch. Unsustainable is absolutely the right term for giving up those kinds of looks.