Stars Taking Stock and Finding Perspective at Midpoint of the Season, Olympic Rosters Notwithstanding
What's done is done, even if it wasn't done by you
Before Olympic conversations started up today, the question on my mind at Stars practice today was this: How do the players feel about the first half of the season?
As the literal men in the arena, the players’ perspective on the season tends to be different than the average fan’s—particularly after losing four games in a row (though only the last two in regulation, to be technically correct). Nobody in that room is panicking about the fact that the team with the second-best points percentage in the league hasn’t won a game since before Christmas. (Or “since last year,” if you want to be really dramatic.)
I asked three Dallas players the following question: Describe the first half of the season in ten words or fewer. Here are their answers:
Player 1: “Pretty good.
Player 2: “Not bad.”
Player 3: “Good start, room for improvement.”
Earth-shattering, I know.
Because it turns out that players don’t get worried about too much in January when they’re high in the standings, except in the slightly-annoyed-after-a-loss equanimity that players on good teams usually tend to demonstrate. You don’t make three Western Conference Finals in a row without learning to handle a bit of adversity.
We would later find out that the team had actually discussed this precise topic in meetings that morning with the coaching staff. So even if someone had been tempted to be down on the team’s current form earlier in the day, a dose of healthy perspective would surely have taken care of it.
Yes, the Stars didn’t play their best hockey against Chicago or Buffalo over the last three games. It’s also true that, of the Stars’ nine regulation losses all year, five have been at the hands of less-than-fearsome opponents like Vancouver, St. Louis, Chicago, Columbus, and Buffalo.
As high as this team’s floor has been for much of this year, Dallas have still shown the uncanny ability to have a doozy of an off night when the stars (don’t) align, even against ostensibly inferior opponents.
One can’t help but think back to the first two rounds of last spring’s playoffs, when the Stars would defeat Colorado or Winnipeg one night, only to get shut out 4-0 the next game. One person’s resilience is another’s inconsistency, I suppose. (I’m told it’s a good league where anyone can win any night.)
After starting the season 3-3-1, the Stars went on an absolute tear for the next 30 games, staying as close as anyone reasonably could to the otherworldly Colorado Avalanche. From games 8 to 37, the Stars went 22-4-4. Special teams were dominant at both ends of the ice, the big scorers were scoring big, Miro Heiskanen was playing like one of the best defensemen in the NHL, and the goaltenders were doing their job every night, even when shot totals tended to be in the opponent’s favor.
But after that has a four-game slide (with some lingering illness still working its way through the team) sapped some of the confidence built over those 30 games? It sure doesn’t sound like it, according to Glen Gulutzan.
“We put some energy into certain spots,” Gulutzan said today. “One of those spots was just kind of a collective perspective of where we are after 41 [games].”
Lending some perspective seems wise, given where the Stars are right now. Minnesota has caught them in points (though not in points percentage), and the chasm between the top three teams in the Central Division and everyone else could distort the picture about just where, exactly, the Stars are.
That’s why slowing down to consider things big and small doesn’t sound like a bad idea right now, for this team.
“It allowed us to take, actually, a look at our season to the point at the midway pole, and there’s some really good things,” Gulutzan said on Saturday. “Perspective’s important. Lately, we haven’t been great, so we did a micro of lately, where we can be better. And we did a macro of where we stand today: Second in the NHL, 3rd in PP, 7th in the PK, top-10 goaltending in the league. We’ve done some good things.”
This added more light to the answers I’d gotten earlier. A good start indeed—entirely “not bad” in a lot of “pretty good” ways—but with pretty clear “room for improvement,” which Gulutzan said the team is working on.
“We’ve looked at our areas of growth, and we’ve also looked at what we’ve done,” Gulutzan said. “I think it’s important to take stock of that, because the next three-quarter pole is probably right after the Olympics, but our push is now. All of us would have signed up for 2nd in the National Hockey League at the halfway pole, but there’s work to be done. And that’s kind of how we addressed our day.”
Call it four losses in a row, two regulation losses in a row, or a 25-9-7 record overall; any way you slice it, the job remains the same: Keep getting better, no matter how good you already are. Seeing things clearly is a big part of that approach.
For example, Gulutzan talked about special teams a bit, and how when one team’s penalty kill has had some success against Dallas, they’ve noticed subsequent teams trying to emulate those approaches. It’s just a natural part of being one of the best teams in the league, and the Stars are still dealing with the inevitable ebbs and flows that come with a target on your back every night.
“We wanted [to discuss] our areas of growth today,” Gulutzan said. “There was about three of them. We want to put our energy there and acknowledge what we’ve done well. Keep looking at us, and not around us. I think it’s important to do that. I think it’s critical to do that.”
The Stars face the Canadiens (who lost 2-0 in St. Louis today) on Sunday at 1:00pm.
Jason Robertson Talks about Being Left off Team USA
Back in September, we talked about Lian Bichsel’s ineligibility to play for Team Switzerland this year.
Even before the season had begun, it was clear that Bichsel didn’t want to touch on the subject any more than he already had done in prior interviews with Swiss media. And you can’t really blame him. As he put it himself, there’s not a lot to be gained from dwelling on things you can’t control.
That’s been a key theme for players left off their nation’s roster like Mark Scheifele this year, too. All you can do is move on. The old standby “it is what it is” was built for these sorts of situations, and that was Jason Robertson’s approach today when asked about being left off Team USA.
(I’d highly recommend watching Robertson’s interview just to get the full context and tone of his comments. It’s about three minutes long.)
Making the team was something Robertson clearly wanted—who wouldn’t?—but as far as any remaining chance of being on the team, Robertson’s comments today seem to suggest that he doesn’t expect to be named even as an injury replacement for Team USA.
“It was definitely a possibility, and now that it’s over, I have all the time to focus on our team and do that,” Robertson said today of his previous hopes of making the team.
Was there a discussion between Robertson and Bill Guerin or someone else with USA Hockey with Robertson, or was it just a call to inform him that he hadn’t made the team?
“No, it was pretty much that,” Robertson said. “There wasn’t much [discussion]. It is what it is.”
When asked if he felt like he’d put himself in a better position to make the team compared to last year ahead of Four Nations, Robertson said he thought he had done so. But of course, he isn’t the one making the final decision.
“I thought that this year was different from last year. Obviously last year, I didn’t think I was good enough. Now I think I did. It’s their choice and their decision, and that's it.”
Like Scheifele, Robertson thinks he’s playing some of his best hockey right now. And as we and everyone have discussed ad nauseaum, it sure looks like he’s right.
So if being one of (and possibly the) best scorers eligible for Team USA wasn’t enough for USA Hockey to include him in their plans, Robertson now has to reckon with the fact that it’s not his level of play that Bill Guerin and Mike Sullivan don’t like, but that it might just be a matter of who he is as a player.
“I mean, obviously it hurts your ego, but I'm not going to change the way I play,” Robertson said on not being selected. “I’m happy to keep doing what I do.”
I’ve read and listened to a ton of people speculating about what it is about Robertson’s game that Team USA leadership doesn’t like. Some say it’s his lack of speed (and I tend to agree that that’s part of it), and others have written that he might be perceived as a one-dimensional player.
Elliotte Friedman on 32 Thoughts today theorized that it could be Robertson’s lack of a “Wow” factor in his game that hurt him, without the size of Tage Thompson, the top-end speed of Kyle Connor, or in-zone speed of Clayton Keller.
The results are there in spades for Robertson—he scores points like very few players can—but the process is apparently perceived as one that won’t translate well to Olympic hockey, whether with the puck or without it. Without knowing what the criticisms are, we will simply have to wait and see how a (still extremely talented) Team USA performs in Milan. Becuase if they fail to meet expectations, Robertson’s omission would very likely be one of the first things laid at the feet of Bill Guerin.
As Sean wrote the other day, Robertson may never have had to chance to make the team to begin with. How that will affect Robertson’s relationship with the national team in upcoming tournaments like the 2028 World Cup of Hockey remains to be seen.
Robertson’s answer to a question about whether the USA asked him to remain on the reserve list and continue participating in the anti-doping testing that’s required for alternates to be eligible for Olympic participation was pretty striking:
“I don’t know.”
Robertson clearly didn’t want to parse things in detail—and understandably so—but the fact that the nation’s top scorer doesn’t have a clear idea of where he stands with Team USA is pretty surprising, to say the least.
Stephen Whyno reported today that Team USA has identified “a number of players” who can fill in, should injuries occur to any of the players currently selected. It’s unclear whether Robertson is among those names (and perhaps as unclear to Robertson as to us).
Additionally, Elliotte Friedman reported tonight on SportsNet that as of now, no player has opted out of any of the testing protocol.
What we do know is this: Robertson loves hockey, and he’s planning to keep getting better. For the Dallas Stars, that’s only going to be a good thing—especially if they meet Guerin’s Minnesota Wild in the first round of the playoffs.
“I just strive to be the best at whatever I can be,” Robertson said. “It so happened that this year was the Olympic year, and that's not gonna stop me from doing that the rest of the season.”
As for Robertson’s coach, Gulutzan said Robertson’s not being selected came as a surprise to him, but he admitted some bias on his part.
“He’s our player, and our guy, and you’re hoping for him,” Gulutzan said. “There’s not one coach of the 32 of us that doesn’t think their guy should be on their team.”
Gulutzan added that he’s heard the comments from other coaches like Jeff Blashill defending their players, and he feels similarly about his own guy—Robertson, in this case.
“Would’ve loved to see him on it. He’s been so good for us. I’d hate to be making those decisions, but I thought, obviously he should be on it,” Gulutzan said.
Another person who was disappointed not to have Robertson on Team USA is one of the players on said team: Jake Oettinger, who was officially named to the team earlier this week after being all but a certainty to reprise his role from the Four Nations Face-Off last February.
As far as Oettinger is concerned, Robertson is and will continue to be one of the best goal-scorers around—which he should know, given his personal experience facing Robertson all the time in practice.
“He’s the most pure goal-scorer I’ve ever played with,” Oettinger said of his teammate. “His Hockey IQ is off the charts. Drives me nuts in practice, because he’s putting a lot by me. So it’s fun battling him, because he makes me better too. Obviously wish he was going over there, but not my decision.”
They say that confidence is key for scorers. And from what Oettinger has seen, he expects Robertson’s confidence to continue remaining high, even after being left off Team USA.
“He’s a hell of a player, and I don’t think that’s gonna change anything for him,” Oettinger said. “He’s gonna continue to dominate and show that he’s one of the best in the world.”
One final note: Speaking of best-on-best competitions, a fun moment happened at the end of Roope Hintz’s media availability today when he and Jake Oettinger had a little back-and-forth about Finland’s recent victory over USA to eliminate the hosts from World Juniors:
Nothing like a little bit of healthy competition between teammates.
US loses in a shootout….
I don’t think Johnston being left off is a snub, but I am curious as to how he feels/any reaction?