Sunday Dallas Stars Roundup: Dads, Goals, Mobs, and Frank Vatrano's Big Surprise

The Leafs need a win about as badly as it is possible to need one

The Toronto Maple Leafs have arrived in Dallas after dropping a game in Nashville Saturday night to the league-worst (at the time) Predators. Toronto has officially fallen to a point where moral victories are all they seem to be able to get.

In other words: Things aren’t going super great in Toronto. Questions about the (remaining) core players are getting louder, and the head coach brought in to inspire passion and a playoff mentality is now referring questions about his team’s motivation to the players themselves.

It’s a dangerous place for a team to be, where everyone from the team’s captain to its head coach and even the general manager feel like they all share some blame for one of the most disappointing seasons to date.

Pete DeBoer is being talked about as a potential savior for this team’s playoff hopes. That should tell you everything you need to know.

“You know, every team gets in a little funk,” Glen Gulutzan said of the Leafs this morning. “They’re in one a little bit here and there. But that’s a heck of a team over there. They pose some challenges, obviously. They’re explosive offensively. Matthews, Nylander, two of the best players in the world. They have it all. You just don’t want them to get it going when you’re playing them.”

That’s fairly standard as far as diplomatic coaching parlance goes, but the last line is key: the Stars will want to keep Toronto’s hopes well and truly crushed. Even if you believe the players have tuned out the coach, that team can still burn you if they feel like the game is there to be had.

The Stars know how deadly the Leafs can be, as Dallas have only won two of their last ten games against Toronto—though one of those wins came last January, when Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque combined for three goals in a 4-1 victory.

In that vein, Bourque would certainly love to get back in the goal column tonight, as he is currently on his second 10-game goal drought of the season. But whether it’s Bourque or someone else who does it, the Leafs certainly look like a team ripe for some further demoralizing right now.

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As far as lineup news, here’s what Gulutzan had to say this morning:

• Colin Blackwell will draw back in for Adam Erne, who will come out.

• Jake Oettinger will start.

• Nate Bastian has been a healthy scratch for eight games in a row, but Gulutzan emphasized the importance of communication, saying it’s on him as the coach to make sure he’s talking with players like Bastian to keep them engaged when they aren’t in the lineup.

  • Gulutzan: “I just found over the years, when you have guys sitting out for eight games, nine games, five games, whatever it is, you just make sure you keep in contact with them.”

  • That’s a different approach than Pete DeBoer took last year, and you wonder if it was a point of emphasis from the top down when the Stars made that coaching change this summer.

  • Gulutzan added that special teams is a big part of lineup decisions—Bastian doesn’t play on either side of it—and that “prolonged absences from playing” are part of the role Bastian has. So far, the Stars forward seems to understand that, and has been handling it with a good attitude.

• Lian Bichsel still isn’t able to walk after having surgery a few weeks ago, and Gulutzan said the big defenseman’s return to the lineup might not come until early February, right before the Olympic break, if not after it. The Stars won’t rush if there’s any question about his health leading up to the break, so one suspects they might err on the side of caution.

  • “He’s still a ways away,” Gulutzan said of the big defenseman. “He’s still not fully weight-bearing on that foot.”

Okay, now for what the coach and the players themselves were saying today.