Some Reflections on a 3-3-1 Record for the Dallas Stars

What we know and what we don't

The Stars had an optional practice today in Frisco, which is a pretty sensible way to approach their schedule right now. The Stars are in the midst of playing three games in four days, the latter two of which are this weekend’s back-to-back set against Carolina at home Saturday and an away tilt at Nashville on Sunday.

Matt Duchene was on the ice today skating in a tinted visor along with Oskar Bäck and five other players, laughing alongside his teammates as they spent time passing and shooting pucks. Glen Gulutzan said after practice, however, that neither Bäck nor Duchene is likely to play on Saturday, though Sunday is a possibility.

Another player who was on the ice today, though not for the optional practice, was Jamie Benn. Jim Nill said on 105.3 The Fan today that Benn skated on Friday, which I believe is the first time Benn has done so since undergoing surgery for a collapsed lung suffered early in the preseason.

(You can listen to that segment here, if you’d like.)

Nill pointed out the same thing Gulutzan has: the Stars are dealing with some key injuries, and they haven’t been playing their best. That’s a vicious combination, and while everyone is careful to say that nobody is trying to make excuses, it’s not terribly surprising that the Stars have gotten off to an up-and-down start.

In fact, new Dallas coaches have tended to start slow at the beginning of a year in recent memory. Here’s a good little summary Razor tweeted the other morning:

So, the Stars are now 3-3-1 (or 3-4 if you want to count all losses as equal, even though the standings don’t work that way). It’s not a great start, and they haven’t looked like one of the best teams in the league for long stretches of that start—not even close.

But it’s only seven games. That isn’t anything to be concerned about…right?

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Last year, the Stars won seven games in a row twice. The first time you surely remember, as it came when they were rounding into form in late December. They got a slate of five Eastern Conference games with Chicago and Utah thrown in, and they feasted on teams like Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Ottawa as well. Then they got going, and even injuries to Heiskanen and Lundkvist didn’t slow them down enough to let Colorado catch them.

The second time they won seven in a row probably doesn’t stick in your memory as much, because it was immediately displaced by their losing seven in a row to end the season.

From the indispensable Hockey-Reference

Now, I’m not making the argument that seven-game samples tell you nothing about a team. Not even close. In the 2025-26 Stars’ case, these last seven games might literally tell you everything there is to know about this team, on account of they are the only meaningful games they have played. You don’t want to extrapolate too confidently, but you also have to bake a cake with the ingredients you have, and the Stars have laid seven very different eggs to start Glen Gulutzan’s reunion tour. So almost any criticism you can levy against them has at least one or two data points to back it up, if you look for them.