The Playoff Bandwagon Fan's Comprehensive Guide to Every Member of the 2024-25 Dallas Stars
Welcome to everything you need to know about the team you've always loved to root for, if "always" meant "starting today"
Welcome to the NHL playoffs! Better known in these circles as the Stanley Cup Playoffs, this is pretty much the best time in hockey: the first round of the good stuff, where you have intense, high-stakes hockey happening multiple times a day for like two solid weeks.
On Saturday, for whatever reason, the NHL decided to show some restraint and only air two games to kick off the playoffs: Winnipeg vs. St. Louis, and Dallas vs. Colorado.
That last one is (presumably) why you’re here. Look, we know how it is: you’ve spent July through April talking about whom the Cowboys will be, how good the Cowboys will be, why the Cowboys aren’t good, who’s to blame for the Cowboys being terrible, who the Cowboys should be now, and whom the Cowboys will draft. It’s a whirlwind of nonstop NFL action, if local radio is to be believed, and you’ve only just now finally found a moment to peek in and check on the local hockey fellas.
Well, hey, good news! The Dallas Stars finished the season as the fifth-best team in the entire league. That’s great, right? And yes, I know what you’re going to say next: "Wait, didn’t I just see a bunch of Stars fans on the street corner holding signs and megaphones and talking about the end of the world?” Well, ha ha, what a crazy time this is, what with the economy and the rotation of the earth and such. Who’s to say how anyone is doing, really, in these Tumultuous Times™ we are having every day it seems like, am I right?
The point is, the Stars are in the playoffs, and they start Saturday night! And because you are a Very Informed Sports Fan, you want to be able to tell everyone around you, probably loudly, how much you know about the Stars, and how you know exactly how well they will do.
But here’s the rub: you actually don’t, not really, on account of all that Cowboys coverage you’ve barely been able to keep up with. After all, even I somehow couldn’t escape hearing about how this town’s backup quarterback might have missed out on a bonus in the last game of the season or something, and I was actively covering an entirely different sport the entire time! If that’s the sort of minutiae that even a dilettante football fan like myself has absorbed, a Very Informed Sports Fan like you must be bursting at the seams.
That’s where we come in. Here at Stars Thoughts, we’re dedicated to being the solution that comes after the black and white scene in the infomercial where someone says “has this ever happened to you” right before pouring a cauldron of boiling oil down their tuxedo pants. And in this case, the ruined tuxedo pants and maimed legs are you hockey knowledge, and this guide is the balm. That image in your head is free of charge, by the way, just like the rest of this story.
You want to know who these Dallas Stars actually are, and you want to know right the ding-dang heck now. And we are here to tell you, so let’s get right to it, starting with
The Head Coach
Pete DeBoer in his third season as the Dallas Stars’ head coach, and he’s been doing kind of super duper well. The Stars have finished second or first in their conference in all three of his regular seasons, and they’ve made it to the Western Conference Final (for the Cowboys fans, that’s a thing that comes after a Divisional playoff game) two years straight, losing both series in six games.
DeBoer has managed to balance the offense of Lindy Ruff with the defense of Rick Bowness in his time in Dallas, as the Stars have been top-ten in both goals scored and goals allowed in all three of his seasons.
DeBoer has also been doing a masterful job in the last couple of weeks by not marching the entire team out in front of him at every press conference and ordering them to explain themselves, as the Stars have sort of, kind of, maybe been giving up roughly all of the goals in the last month or so. It’s probably nothing though, I wouldn’t worry about it.
Anyway, DeBoer is in his third year as a coach of a great team, and expectations haven’t been this high in Dallas since the beginning of the century. They’ve earned those expectations, but you can bet who is going to draw most of the scrutiny if they lose. Like the Cowboys, even a very good coach is liable to start sweating when his best players get hurt and the team starts losing games.
Oh, and DeBoer’s Stars have also been losing Game 1 in all six playoff series he’s coached so far. That will be something he might like to change on Saturday.
The Goalie(s)
Jake Oettinger is signed to a long-term extension because he is the Stars’ franchise goalie. At 26 years old, Oettiner is right in the wheelhouse of where you’d like to see him start confidently crushing opposing teams’ scoring hopes under his skates with conviction.
Instead, Oettinger has been good, but not lights out this year, coming in around 10th in a 32-team league, which is very good! He’s had stretches, including one of the best goaltending performances in any series in NHL playoff history. But for a town who last saw a Cup get raised by a no-doubt Hall of Famer in Ed Belfour, Oettinger has work to do in order to prove he’s The Guy.
He’s not been unbeatable, though that’s much more understandable in recent months, when the Stars’ defense collectively decided that without their top defender, they might as well make some money by turning the defensive zone into a batting cage for opposing forwards.
Oettinger was selected as Team USA’s backup goalie for the big Four Nations tournament, behind the goalie that may well be waiting for the Stars if they get past Colorado. We won’t worry about him, though.
The point is, Oettinger is a very good goalie who has played internationally and done great things domestically, but he’s at that point of his career where it’s not enough to be the Next Big Goalie anymore. He needs to have his Nathan Eovaldi moment in the playoffs, and given the scoring talent Colorado boasts atop its lineup, he might have every chance to do so.
Casey DeSmith is Oettinger’s backup, and while he spent the latter portion of the season looking like that 2022 version of Oettinger every night (as his team unfortunately asked him to be), don’t be fooled by people point to his best save percentage since the decade began; the Stars will go as far as Oettinger will take them.
DeSmith, however, deserves a ton of credit for having gotten the Stars to this point. He went 14-8-2 in his 24 starts, which is a backup record that would make 2015 Kari Lehtonen weep with incredulous joy. (You don’t know what that means, but one person does, and that sentence was for them.)
If DeSmith is starting a game, it is because something went dreadfully wrong. But if DeSmith has to start a game in exigency, the Stars have every reason to believe he can lead them to victory. He’s the luxury of luxuries: a backup goaltender who put up an identical goals-against average to the starter.
Also, he’s really into disc golf, perhaps nearly as much as Jake Oettinger is into regular golf. Someone needs to film some kind of golf vs. disc golf feature with those two. These are free marketing ideas for the taking, folks! Also I will sue you if you use them, so fast, oh man you don’t even know how fast.
The Forwards
Jason Robertson led the Stars in goals this year! You might even have heard of him after his record-setting season two years ago, when he put up over 100 points and was really good and stuff.
This year, surprise! He got hurt in a meaningless final game of the regular season, because it’s hockey, and because of the salary cap, and because of Norm Green, according to the entire state of Minnesota. Don’t worry about any of that. All you need to know is that Robertson, when he’s healthy, is one of the most delightfully brilliant forwards the Stars have ever had, and also he can drive you nuts in any given game and look like he’s not trying, only to score a hat trick or two, like he did this season.
Robertson also started slow because of his foot, but now his foot is okay and it’s his knee, probably. If nothing else, Robertson should now be able to do yet another impossible thing: predict Texas weather.
For now, Robertson is week-to-week. The Stars will be looking forward to his return, but it might not be for at least a, well, week. Or maybe more. Why don’t we know more? Well, in hockey, teams have a motto when it comes to your favorite player and how they are doing: “It’s none of your stinkin’ business, actually.”
Matt Duchene did not lead the team in goals this year, but he did lead them in points, despite being the third-oldest forward and despite still being paid by Nashville not to play for them. His only crime? Being a remarkably honest and candid person who has little tolerance for nonsense. Also, he plays the guitar, loves Texas, and does things like this.
Duchene is a playmaking center who can pull off wizardry with the puck. He’s technically the Stars’ second-line center, but don’t be surprised if you notice him more than anyone else at every game you go to.
Jamie Benn, he’s the captain, and you know him. Everyone in Dallas does, because he’s been the captain forever. He’s the most recent Stars player to win an award, which he did by getting five more points than Duchene did this year. It was a different time.
Now, Benn plays on the third line, except also it’s sort of the top line, on account of the other two players on it, whom we’ll get to in a moment. Benn at this stage of his career isn’t expected to lead the team’s offense or anything, but he’s still capable of big moments in big situations, of one kind or another.
My personal theory is that Benn is just bored these days, and he’s relieved to be playing games that finally matter. Which is a shame, because when Benn gets bored, fun things happen.
The other players on Benn’s line look like they’ll be Wyatt Johnston and Mikko Rantanen. Johnston is 21 years old, which you don’t have to memorize because trust me, you will hear that every game. Also, did you know he used to live in Joe Pavelski’s house? Again, no need to memorize that one.
Johnston is kind of incredible, which is best demonstrated by the fact that he had a really slow start to the season (like Robertson) and then finished two goals behind the team lead (to Robertson). Also, Johnston has scored some huge playoff goals for the Stars before, with none bigger than his Game 3 overtime goal against Vegas last year, or his Game 7 goal against Seattle (they have a hockey team now) the year before.
This year, Johnston also has two hat tricks, and the Stars will need to get similarly big production from him in a series against Colorado, who are known for being terrifying right before they find a way to fall into a giant tiger pit dug by Valeri Nichushkin or Joel Kiviranta. (You won’t need to memorize those names either, even if they sound vaguely familiar.)
Thankfully, Johnston is playing with Rantanen, who is one of the biggest and best wingers in the entire NHL. Also, Jim Nill traded one of the Stars’ best rookies to get Rantanen along with a package of draft picks so big that it may have included the rights to one of your own children.
Rantanen has historically scored 1.2 points in every playoff game he’s played, which is not just good, but otherworldly. Also, you will hear about how Rantanen used to play for the Colorado Avalanche roughly every time you heard about Joe Pavelski’s former job as a hockey landlord. Don’t be fooled by what you hear, though: Colorado booted Rantanen out to Carolina in order to save dollars and get younger, and now Carolina and Colorado have done a full court press in the, uh, press to make it sound like Rantanen wanted out, or that he wasn’t fair, or whatever. Don’t be fooled, though: he was perfectly honest in his negotiations and he never wanted to leave Colorado. They sent him away regardless.
In other words, Rantanen has all the motivation in the world to remind his former team why it was foolish to get rid of him in exchange for some guy named Martin, whose every goal or point will cause Rantanen’s name to be invoked. This series will be decided, if the media are to be believed, by a Martin vs. Mikko showdown, whichis not to be confused with a marten vs. Meeko showdown. Which, just to be clear, that Meeko would also win.
“Hey, wait a minute,” you’re suddenly realizing, “Isn’t there some guy named Tyler that walked around naked for a game or something like that once?” Well, you are Sort of Close, I will respond, before pointing you to a website that will make you feel guilty about having literally any body fat percentage whatsoever.
Yes, Tyler Seguin is still here, just having got back from a lengthy absence after a second hip surgery. But he’s not here to belabor that point, because he has all the patience of a new father shopping for diapers on the way home from a long day at work. He’s been in Dallas since 2013, and he’d like to finally win a blankety-blank championship, thank you very much.
Seguin has been working like a madman to rehab his repaired hip since December, and yes, even a 33-year-old Tyler Seguin finding out about the Luka trade in the middle of the night during a bottle feed is still going to make you feel like you’re not good-looking enough to live in the same county as him, so you’d better just accept it and move on to the team’s oldest forward.
That would be Evgenii Dadonov, who also has a hat trick this year after he and Sidney Crosby spent an afternoon filming some kind of bizarro version of that old Nike commercial.
Dadonov is a winger who can play on the fourth line, maybe even take a health scratch or two, or maybe play on the top line in Game 1, like he will probably do on Saturday. This is where you start to expect me to use the word “enigmatic” because you are realizing that this is a hockey site talking about a Russian hockey player, but we try to do better than that here at Stars Thoughts, and also Evgenii is the Russian version of “Eugene,” and suddenly he’s kind of your favorite complementary player, and that’s perfectly right.
Dadonov scored 20 goals, and he’ll be playing on the top line, or the bottom line, and probably he’ll score a random goal when you’re not looking, and you’ll be confused and ask someone else what happened, and Dadonov will just give that look where he says, “Ah, you know, it’s hockey,” before he skates back to the bench like he’s 21, not 35 years old.
Also looking likely to begin on the top line with Dadonov are Roope Hintz and Mikael Granlund, both of whom have been top centers, or middle-six wingers, depending on whether they’re playing internationally, or in the NHL, or for the San Jose Sharks.
Hintz has been in Dallas for a while, and he made it his personal mission to destroy the faint hopes of the state of Minnesota back in 2023 which he did by making this face.
Hintz is also famous for being extremely fashionable, particularly in his home country of Finland. You can buy his shoes if you’d like. No, not his shoes, you weirdo, but ones he designed, calm down.
Hintz is large, lightning fast, and an X-factor in any series he plays. In all likelihood, his main job against Colorado will be to Be Fast Enough to Play Against Nathan MacKinnon. And if any of the Stars’ centers can do that, it will probably be Hintz. Also, sometimes you go half a game and wonder how long he’s been in the locker room, only for him to set up Jason Robertson for a beautiful goal. This time, Hintz will have to set up his new linemates Eugene, or else the other guy we mentioned, Granlund, who recently struck fear into the hearts of the entire country of Canada.
Granlund can play wing or center, and he recently spent three games cosplaying as a defenseman quarterbacking a power play, probably because Pete DeBoer caught some of Jamie Benn’s infectious boredom.
Granlund is versatile, but not in the bombastic sort of way. He’ll start with Hintz, but he could show up on just about any line, in any position, and he’ll probably make it better for his presence. Granlund was acquired by Jim Nill in trade when the Stars made their first big trade a month before they made what might be their last big trade, given how barren the draft picks cupboard now is.
I remain entirely convinced that Granlund is going to score a big playoff goal at some point for this Stars team. If he does not, you can hold me personally responsible. Also, if you forgot, my name is Marc Crawford.
With Seguin and Duchene on the second line is their pal and goalie Jake Oettinger’s good friend, Mason Marchment.
Marchment has what I am told are limpid pools of blue infinity masquerading as eyes. Also, he’s a very tall, lanky hockey player who takes and draws a lot of penalties.
Marchment can score goals like this, but he’s also been fined for falling down on purpose before. If he gesticulates with bewilderment towards a referee, you may want to wait to see the replay before joining a screaming throng. Just a suggestion.
On the fourth line, the Stars have four options, so let’s hit the bullet points here:
Oskar Bäck is a 25-year-old rookie. He’s 6-foot-4 and he wears braces because he’s tougher than you or I will ever be. If he scores, it will be as exciting as Radek Faksa’s goal in Game 7 against Vegas last year, because he doesn’t score that much, but also that’s not his job.
Colin Blackwell is very fast, but he is also very 5-foot-8, and that’s a nearly unforgivable sin for modern hockey coaches when you aren’t scoring 25 goals a season. Blackwell is a veteran who went to Harvard a decade ago, and he’s also, like most every NHL veteran, more skilled than you think. He’s part of the go-to penalty-killing duo if he’s in the lineup, and his speed shines in that situation, as he showed a few days ago. At some point, you will watch him and think he should be on the power play, gee whiz. You will not be alone, but also, that ship seems to have sailed.
Sam Steel is either a Chicago firefighter or a coffee snob in the West End. You decide.
Steel is also one of those first-round picks with a depth-player career, and the Stars have liked what they’ve seen, signing him to a two-year extension in February. Steel has also scored exactly 6 goals in five of his seven years in the NHL. Why exactly 6 goals? Probably because of a cool coffee thing that you don’t understand or because of a firefighting emergency. (Have you decided yet?) Steel is also the second member of Blackwell’s penalty-killing duo, and he’s very good at it. He is also a fourth-liner who would be a third- or second-liner on a worse team. The Dallas Stars are not a worse team.
Mavrik Bourque is a Quebec-born MVP of the AHL last year, and he brings a “you probably aren’t as good as me” attitude to almost everything he does—and he’s usually right. If you’re looking for some brief way of understanding this, I have just the thing: the Stars have just a few players who wear no undershirt with their hockey pads, a group which includes Mason Marchment, Tyler Seguin…and Mavrik Bourque. He suffered a groin injury in the preseason, but he rebounded to score 11 goals despite playing on all sorts of lines, and he’s likely to move up the lineup next season. For now, he’s a luxury on the fourth line, playing like a rookie with the confidence of a veteran, and it’s working for him.
Also, he gets scratched sometimes because have you noticed this forward group is ridiculously deep? Yeah, that’s because the Stars have perhaps the deepest forward talent in the league. And wow, combined with the goaltending duo, this team is pretty flawless so far, right? No big holes, no big flaws? Man, what a lucky team this Dallas group is. Hey, wait, why haven’t we talked about
The Defense
Ah, yes, the defense. This year’s group that featured three great players and three other players, until January, when that became more of a two-and-four equation.
“Hey, I know about the defense,” you interject, rudely. “That’s the position where the Stars have that Miro Heiskanen guy, right?”
Well, yes, and also no. Also, rude. And also, you pronounced “Heiskanen” wrong, because everyone does, except me. And I’m not going to tell you, because you’ll just mess it up anyway and then claim I told you to say it that way, and I didn’t go all the way to Finland just to have you blaming me for your saying “HIII-SKA-NEIN” or whatever.
Yes, Heiskanen is the Stars’ number one defenseman. Also, he got injured in January on a play by Mark Stone so reckless that Ray Ferraro simply said, “Oh, what’s he doin’, man?”
And by “injured,” we mean he might not play again until May. Or, he’ll play in Game 2. Or anywhere in between. Nobody really knows, even after I watched Heiskanen skate around and shoot a bit before practice on Friday. All we know if his knee had to get surgically repaired, and the Stars might be waiting to see how badly they need to rush him back before they really do rush him back.
Thankfully, they have another number one defenseman in Thomas Harley, who was so good that he got rewarded by getting to change his February vacation from Cabo to Canada to join the Great White North’s Four Nations roster. He played exceptionally well for them while doing so, and he’s continued that level of play while holding the fort for Dallas’s defense. He’s been one of the best defensemen in the NHL this year, and the Stars have needed him to be.
Also, Harley got a haircut this week, but he said it’s not a playoff tradition or anything. This concludes my in-depth Harley report from today’s practice.
The other member of Dallas’s still-great defensemen group is Esa Lindell, who is also part-owner of a Finnish hockey team, and also he plays roughly 104% of every penalty kill the Stars have to deal with. Lindell is economical with his movement, and incisive with his defensive play. He’s a goalie’s best friend, the sort of player who anticipates the worst-case scenario a tick before everyone else, and saves your bacon.
Also, he’s one of the most convivial Finnish players on the team, hosting his countryman Rantanen for dinner after the big trade went down, and occasionally showing his razor wit when you least expect it.
Lindell has played over 30 minutes of a 60-minute game this season, which is something usually reserved for trivia competitions rather than serious NHL games. Lindell may also have to play 30 minutes in one or more of the Stars’ playoff games on account of the available alternatives, which we will cover in bullet-point style.
Cody Ceci has been Esa Lindell’s defense partner since he was acquired alongside Granlund a couple months ago in trade. Ceci was brought in to keep the ship afloat after the Stars lost Heiskanen and Nils Lundkvist (who was playing excellently as Lindell’s partner despite fighting an injured shoulder that finally won the war) in a devastating week of injuries, and he’s done that, technically.
The fact that Ceci has “done so” in the same way a pitcher “preserves” a no-hitter by repeatedly giving up sharp line drives at the third baseman’s teeth is of little consequence, so long as things keep turning out all right. (Jake Oettinger is the third baseman in this scenario, and the teeth the goal, I suppose.) But Ceci is a player whose results can often outshine his process in the short term, and the Stars will be hoping to defy closer inspection for at least another couple/few/some/peck/bushel of games until Heiskanen returns.Ilya Lyubushkin is a tall defenseman whose primary job is twofold: lead the penalty kill with Lindell and play next to Harley at even-strength in a way that lets Harley do his awesome stuff. Lyubushkin has done that, and then some.
Lyubushkin usually will be closer to his crease, but he’s also gotten on board with DeBoer’s defensive zone scheme a bit more quickly than some other folks we'll get to, and that’s allowed him to quietly thrive as the Stars’ only one of their starting right-side defensemen to stay in his spot all year long. He is the definition of a steady defenseman this year, which is more than some feared when he was signed in the summer. He’s an easy player to root for if your expectations are aligned properly, and they should be by now.
Matt Dumba started the season as Heiskanen’s partner on the right side, but multiple injuries to Dumba (including a mysterious fracture to his eye area that caused him to miss weeks and has never been explained) derailed his season early on. He also got healthy scratched more than a couple of times this year, as DeBoer showed that his trust continues to be quick to be given but long to be regained. Dumba was playing more frequently down the stretch for Dallas, but he looks possible to sit in Game 1 in favor of Alex Petrovic, the steady veteran who has spent most of this year and last in the AHL, before coming up to supplant Lundkvist in the playoffs last year after the defender walked the path last year that Dumba looks like he’s on this time.
Also, you probably remember that Dumba decked Joe Pavelski with a huge hit two years ago in the playoffs, but we’ve all been assured that nobody involved bears any grudges for that, so you’ll seem like a ninny if you try to come up with a conspiracy about it.Lian Bichsel, on the other hand has kept the trust he was given after being recalled to the NHL during a rash of injuries and illness this year. Bichsel is massive, somewhere around 6-foot-7 and 230lbs, and he knows how to use it.
Bichsel can also skate, and he’s even chipped in a few goals this year, including a rather unfortunate one a few days ago.
Bichsel looks likely to continue his rookie year by playing on the third pairing with Petrovic, at least in Game 1. Bichsel hasn’t been perfect this year, but for the youngest and biggest player on the team, he’s been much more fearsome rhino than awkward giraffe, and that’s more than enough for a Stars team that trends smaller as you go up the lineup.
Brendan Smith spent most of the season as the seventh defenseman in a six-man group, even during some times when Dallas seemed like they only had five blue liners of preference. Smith has spent a long career as a reliable and even excellent defender, but he’s closer to the end of his road than the beginning, and DeBoer’s usage of Smith has only reinforced that reality.
That seems like a familiar and rather mundane story, except there’s also this: Smith also played at forward this season, and actually looked pretty darn good at it, I think? It’s crazy to say, but as one of the Stars’ bigger bodies who hasn’t been able to crack the lineup half the time, he could be a surprisingly good option for a fast and powerful body on the fourth line, should the Stars need one.
Oh, and he also scored a beautiful shorthanded goal from Blackwell the other day for his first and only goal as a Star so far. It was beautiful and absurd, and also the Stars lost. They did lot a few times in April, don’t worry about it.
So, there you have it. Now you know something about every Stars player, even the ones who won’t be in the lineup Saturday night. In many cases you know more than you needed to, and in some cases, there aren’t enough hours in the day to explain the depths and multitudes contained therein.
Thankfully, sports fans aren’t expected to know everything. You’re only expected to know more than the guy sitting next to you in order to shout about Sam Steel’s moustache over the arena presentation loudly enough for Sam Steel’s parents to hear you three rows over. This is entry-level stuff, really.
If there’s one thing nobody knows about this year’s Stars, it’s what they’re capable of, in either direction of quality. They’ve been one of the best teams in the league, and they’ve also looked more lost in the woods than an urban cowboy the minute they find themselves in the actual woods.
But in the playoffs, it’s not about how lost you get; it’s about finding your way out before the other guy. You don’t have to outrun the bear, etc. The Stars could well do that, because hockey is weird like that.
So, now that you know the names and faces of the team you’ve dearly loved your whole life, as far as your coworkers are concerned, I hope you’ll do just one thing: finally make a decision about Sam Steel’s moustache.
(Firefighter, right?)
Gotta say it’s neither, Tiffin. Steel’s mustache gives off a buckin bronc rider in the rodeo
The Met Center was a dilapidated barn in an overgrown Bloomington field.