The Official, Very Important and Correct 2024-25 Dallas Stars Season Preview
Here at Stars Thoughts, we work hard. In hockey terms, we grind in the corners, which is to say we scroll through all the social media you’re too smart to waste time on. We dig pucks off the boards (argue with people in the comments), we keep our shifts short (drink multiple cups of coffee every day), and we get pucks in deep (tweet multiple times about the same thing). If you’re looking for the place where you know things are done the right way, then look no further.
The Regular Season starts tonight, but also it sort of started last week in Germany, and also the Stars don’t play their first game until Thursday. Nevertheless! It is time that we all got ourselves ready for another Dallas Stars campaign. Jim Nill has won two Jim Gregory Awards* in a row, and the Stars finished atop the Western Conference at the end of last year’s Regular Season. Those things surely portend an interesting season, and possibly a very great one.
*Did you know Jim Gregory was the GM who recruited Borje Salming? As someone who also found overlooked diamonds across the pond for decades with Dallas and Detroit, Jim Nill might be the most appropriate recipient of that award there’s ever been in its relatively short history.
You can find Dallas Stars Season Previews all over the place. These are the sorts of articles that do numbers, especially with the rise of sports gambling, as desperate bettors scramble for some idea of how good this random team in Texas is supposed to be. But you can find those sorts of season previews everywhere, including this great one from the worldwide leader in sports that appears to ignore Sam Steel’s return and Esa Lindell’s contract extension. Or you could watch this delightful preview where Juraj explains the population demographic of Lian Bichsel’s hometown in Switzerland, and how that goes into the pronunciation of his name that Bichsel doesn’t trust North Americans to get right. I’m sure The Athletic forced its three remaining hockey writers to cobble together something about Dallas as well, but who can afford a dollar every month to read it? We’re living hand to mouth over here *pauses to sip from V60 brew of freshly ground Lemma Coffee’s La Aguja blend* so let’s just get to the most important Dallas Stars season preview of all: this one.
I figured it would be fun to come up with a snappy title for this year’s version, but our creative team was too busy arguing about the merits of lower RPM when it comes to grinding coffee beans for pour-over brews, so we’ve retreated to convention when it comes to
The Most Important Dallas Stars Season Preview of All
Jamie Benn is the fourth-longest tenured captain in the NHL, and that means he’s learned a thing or two. For instance, he’s learned that scoring the most points in the league doesn’t matter if your team doesn’t win, but also that not scoring enough is also a bad thing if the rest of the team isn’t doing their job. He’s learned that the media doesn’t like it when he refuses to talk, but he’s also learned that talking and joking can get you into trouble.
He’s learned that being too dynmaic and offensive means your team isn’t ready to win, but that being too defensive and safe means missing the playoffs just as often. He’s learned that teams have to be coerced into paying market value, but that the player takes all the blame any time their production doesn’t appear to match the salary the team agreed on. Prediction: Benn will play 82 games and score 60 points while annoying basically everybody except his teammates while also shepherding two more younger players along their way to NHL stardom. He will confuse an interviewer at some point by explaining the “right way” to arrange a kitchen, earning a silent nod of approval from Jessica.
Tyler Seguin has been a star center, a 40-goal scorer, a penalty-killer, a winger, and an outspoken advocate for positive change in society. He scored 80 points in Jim Montgomery’s system and was lambasted by the organization in the midst of it, and he has continued to do everything the team has asked of him despite undergoing a seesaw of coaches and systems more violent than any Six Flags ride the team went on last night. Seguin will forego all his Three Stars of the Game appearances after January in order to get home and put the baby to bed on time. There’s a schedule, folks. Prediction: For his 1,000th game ceremony, the team will give Tyler 1,000 diapers, which should last his family about a month.
Evgenii Dadonov will continue to be a quietly excellent complementary scorer up and down the lineup. He’s missed games due to injuries, which will happen when you’re the oldest forward on the team, but he’s also made whatever line he plays on more dangerous. Prediction: Dadonov will have at least one goal this season that make you frantically double check whether number 53 actually made that move, rather than 63. Nope, that’s him. Still here, still good.
Matt Duchene was drawing the ire of Colorado fans for years before he drew a line through their team with a series-ending overtime goal. He’s also looking to kill penalties, not take other teams’ nonsense, and generally play the villain if it draws the other team offside in any way. His son also scored a sweet goal the other day, so you know he’s motivated not to get shown up by The Next Duchene. Prediction: He’ll continue to play among the most 5v5 ice time of any forward, then get weirdly criticized for not scoring 90 points despite playing on the second power play all year.
Colin Blackwell is essentially what you’d get if you took Craig Smith’s player stats on NHL ’24 and just moved the Offense sliders to Defense. He played with Jason Dickinson, so what else do you really need to know? Prediction: Seguin will repeatedly tell him to spice up the team’s dressing room playlist, and when Blackwell looks confused, they’ll just explain that there was this guy one time named Blake Comeau, and how “Look man, you’re wearing number 15, figure it out.”
Mason Marchment is the sixth-oldest forward on the team, but he has only played 76 more NHL games than the youngest player on the team. He is married, but he’s also subject to the NHL helmet warmup rule. His piercing blue eyes will continue to convince Selke voters to vote for him, and he’ll score a crucial playoff goal right after you start venting to your friend about his skating stride. Prediction: Marchment will argue with Benn about the actual “right way” to arrange a kitchen, and a prolonged argument about the merits of a pot filler will delay at least one team charter flight this year.
Roope Hintz is either one of the best and most underrated centers in the NHL or the second-best center on the Dallas Stars. He’ll start the year looking like the fastest, strongest player on the ice, but you’ll win a bar bet by asking how many 80-point seasons he’s put up in his career. At least, until the end of this season. Hintz may begin to sell off his celebrity t-shirt collection at the behest of his wife, only for Wyatt Johnston to buy them all. Prediction: Hintz leads the team in scoring, but the real winner will be you, when you finally start pronouncing “Roope” with that slightly rolled “R” at the beginning. I’ll show you how someday, for a small fee.
Sam Steel will continue to have the best mustache on the team, to the unending frustration of Marchment and Duchene. November will see a no holds barred mustache-off, after which the men will agree to categorize their respective muzzies (this is the term the kids use, I am so sorry, I am obligated to report this) as Best Cop ‘Stache (Steel), Best Cowboy ‘Stache (Duchene) and Best Apathetic Musician ‘Stache (Duchene).
Jason Robertson is only a year older than Oskar Bäck and Nils Lundkvist, but he will continue to lead the team in screen time per game (ST/60). He’ll sit in on penalty kill meetings until getting kicked out for laughing every time a defender explains how they’ll stop a forward from scoring. He also didn’t play a preseason game this year, so be afraid. Be very afraid. Prediction: Robertson will score 95 points, and someone will call his season “disappointing.”
Oskar Bäck is bigger than you realize. He’ll score his first NHL goal this week, then not score for the rest of the month but also finish the year with a positive plus/minus rating. You will continue to shout into your seat neighbor’s ear during games about how Arttu Hyry had a great tournament in Traverse City until an usher kindly escorts you out of the AAC. Prediction: You will start loudly proclaiming that you were the progenitor of “Baby got Bäck” memes long before you learn how to actually pronounce an “A” with an umlaut, which is to say you never will.
Mavrik Bourque will quietly make his season debut, and after three games, you’ll feel like he’s always been there. He’ll score 50 points with third-line minutes, but he’ll score a crucial shorthanded goal that results in everyone misspelling his name until he feels obligated to pull a Nicklas Grossmannn and tell everyone it’s actually been “Mävrik” this whole time. Prediction: you will wait until one more umlaut gets recalled before learning how to pronounce it. Also, Bourque and Stankoven will combine to lead the team in 5v5 points per minute, which is a stat nobody will care about except you and me. But we’ll know. We’ll know.
Logan Stankoven is in just about the best position he could hope for: familiar linemate(s) with Jamie Benn and Mavrik Bourque, and power play time on the second unit. He’s in contention for the Calder Trophy, but he already has the chance to be one of the most productive returning players on the roster. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the Stars will have as successful a season as Stankoven does. But then, I also don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the internet should have been declared dead the moment people started including that stupid “IF YOU RECEIVED THIS E-MAIL IN ERROR” disclaimer in their e-mail signature, so what do I know? Prediction: Stankoven hits 28 goals to match Dadonov’s career high, and he’s on the top power play by the end of the season.
Wyatt Johnston will confuse media across the league by no longer living with Joe Pavelski, and his greatest NHL performance will be his unendingly polite answers to a question that is essentially, “What is it like being a big boy in your very own apartment?” The youngest player on the Stars for the third year in a row will be the best forward on the Stars for the second year in a row, and the highest-paid forward starting next summer. Prediction: Johnston will accidentally lock himself out of his apartment the one weekend when Pavelski is visiting Dallas, and choose to break a window to get back in rather than let anyone find out about it.
Brendan Smith is in Dallas, and Reilly Smith is in New York. The world makes no sense anymore, but the media will salivate over the possibility of those two teams meeting in the finals. Joe Nieuwendyk will quietly mutter “Told ya so” every time Reilly scores before Tyra informs him that she would prefer to watch the Stars game, actually. Prediction: Smith will have a huge game-saving block in the dying seconds of a game, after which people will still ask him whether he wants to play forward again.
Ilya Lyubushkin will be confused for Jani Hakanpää multiple times this season when killing penalties alongside Esa Lindell. He will be confused with another Stars’ number 46 less often, but only because Gemel Smith is tearing up the KHL in China. I’m not going to tell everyone to get their “Mighty Boosh” memes ready, because then I wouldn’t be able to corner the market myself. Prediction: Lyubushkin will get a nonsense roughing penalty after every small scrum, but he will double his career goals total by scoring five this year.
Esa Lindell has been one of the lynchpins of the Stars’ success for the past few years, but he’s sometimes confused people by being more dynamic than a typical stay-at-home defensemen, and more physical than stereotypical Finnish defensemen. He’ll start the year playing next to Nils Lundkvist on a perfectly reliable pairing until Lundkvist gets caught up ice one time and benched for the next ten games. Lindell will move to his right side when Lian Bichsel is called up in February, and he’ll go on an unexpected goal-scoring streak that causes a new wave of stay-at-home defensemen playing on their off side in order to maximize offensive production. A trendsetter, always. Prediction: Lindell will coerce everyone into eating reindeer in Finland, but he’ll regret it after the team sweeps Florida and he’s obligated to continue cooking reindeer for every pregame meal during the ensuing 24-game winning streak.
Matt Dumba will get two roughing penalties for every one that Lyubushkin gets, and you’ll continue to win bar bets by asking people who the smallest defenseman on the team is, only for them to guess Lundkvist or Miro Heisakenen every time. Dumba might look surprisingly excellent without having to be the main puck carrier alongside Miro Heiskanen, but his defensive zone work will be overlooked all season, as is tradition for Dallas Stars defensemen wearing number 3. Prediction: Wyatt Johnston will buy Dumba a Rolex out of sheer gratitude for no longer being the player most often asked about Joe Pavelski.
Miro Heiskanen is just about due for serious Norris Trophy consideration, and I expect some increased points production this season for two reasons: First, because he’ll be playing on his strong side more often, and Second, because Heiskanen won’t need to play on the penalty kill nearly as often. The Ryan Suter buyout gives the Stars a lot more flexibility on defense, and that means Heiskanen will spend less time patching holes in the Stars’ boat and more time making waves (nautical terms) for the opponents. Prediction: Heiskanen will also tell everyone to try the reindeer in Finland, but he’ll somehow wriggle out of having to help Lindell prepare dinner.
Nils Lundkvist chose to come back to Dallas, and they chose to bring him back. My complete guess is that Nill agreed that he would waive or trade Lundkvist rather than let him get benched for another 20 games this year, but maybe it really just is that good in Dallas. Either way, Lundkvist is a good piece to have on your team, and no one works harder than he does. Invariably the first defenseman on the ice at practice and morning skates, Lundkvist will be ready to do whatever is asked of him, so long as he’s on the invite list. Prediction: Lundkvist will be tasked with playing the Swedish Sergei Gonchar to Oskar Bäck’s Val Nichushkin, only for Lundkvist to confuse everybody by reminding them that he is actually younger than Bäck.
Thomas Harley is already the second-best defenseman on the team. There’s every chance that his scoring increases on his own pairing with a righty like Lyubushkin to stay high in the zone, and the addition of power play time and select deployment with Heiskanen in the offensive zone should only add to his growing reputation as one of the best young defensemen in the league. He is also younger than both Nils Lundkvist and Oskar Bäck. He’s the third-youngest player on the team, in fact. You’ll be winning bar bets left and right with these nuggets, folks. Prediction: Harley gets into a fight after someone goes after Logan Stankoven, and we then have to endure two weeks of discourse about whether that is good or bad while Harley continues to pile up points, ultimately splitting the Norris vote with Heiskanen and being guilted into buying him a Rolex, which Heiskanen will then give to Johnston as a birthday present, who will then re-gift it to Dumba (see above).
Casey DeSmith will play 36 games this season to Oettinger’s 53, then DeSmith will ask his agent why he is making $1 million while Oettinger is about to sign a $70 million long-term contract. His agent will tell him that if he wanted to make the big bucks, DeSmith should’ve stuck to lacrosse. Prediction: DeSmith loses his first start and the fans start to demand that Jim Nill trade for Scott Wedgewood. Meanwhile, Wedgewood and the Predators never get things together, and they finish outside the playoffs while DeSmith goes on to win 20 games.
Jake Oettinger just got married, and he told the media that he never takes off his wedding ring, even when wearing his goalie glove and playing. Whether this is true or not, Oettinger is already showing the sage wisdom of a married man twice his age. This is the sort of leadership your number one goaltender needs to have. Prediction: Oettinger plays 50 games with a far better save percentage than last season, only to miss out on the All-Star Game Four Nations Faceoff USA Roster when Robertson is announced instead. Robertson buys Dumba’s Rolex in order to give it to Oettinger as a consolation gift, which Oettinger has to stop wearing after Christmas, when his new wife gives him a watch. The Rolex is never seen again.
Final Prediction: The Dallas Stars finish the regular season slightly behind last year’s total with “only” 110 points. They then make it to the Stanley Cup Final, leading to a lot of weird stories about how it is good to win fewer games in the regular season, actually, because that is what winners do, is they don’t win as much until it is time to win, then they win more, magically. We all agree that the regular season means nothing and mock teams who hang banners to celebrate great regular seasons, then continue to hand out a dozen awards and massive contracts based on regular season performance for the rest of human history.