The Tenuous Balance of Patience and Urgency for the Dallas Stars

The third-best team in the NHL is giving its fans second thoughts, and not for the first time

Under Pete DeBoer, the Stars haven’t lost three regulation games in a row during the regular season for nearly three years now.

That’s a streak the coaches and players are and should be proud of, as it speaks to the resilience of the group and the consistency and depth of the team. Even when they play below their true talent level, they have succesfully avoided season-altering losing streaks.

The other side of that streak is higher expectations. And at no point this season have those expectations been clearer than after the Stars got a point in a shootout loss against Tampa Bay, only to have DeBoer give a curt, critical press conference saying he was disappointed with his team’s effort. The word “inexcusable” was used, and DeBoer gave only a one-word answer (“No”) when he was asked about why he didn’t think the effort has been there lately for Dallas.

It was as critical as DeBoer has been after almost any game this season. Coming after a game the Stars could easily have won at multiple points in the third period, overtime, or the shootout, it seemed clear DeBoer was sending a message larger than just a response to one game.

And today at practice, DeBoer confirmed that the team isn’t happy about how things have been going lately.

“The one thing about our group, we’ve got an honest group, and they’re not hiding from it. It wasn’t close to the standard we expected to play with here,” said DeBoer on Friday. “We had an honest conversation about that, and I’m sure it will be fixed for tomorrow.”

As far as what that meant for Friday’s practice, DeBoer acknowledged it wasn’t a punishment of a day—no teams really do bag skates in the NHL these days. But the Stars were, as the Stars usually are, working on shoring up details that are lacking in their game.

“We didn’t go out there and bang heads from a competitive point of view,” DeBoer said. “But we worked on some things that we really didn’t do well the other night, including puck support and things like that.”

The team doesn’t want to confuse that with a lack of urgency, though.

“You’re patient, you’re patient, you’re patient—to a point,” said DeBoer. “And then you have to get their attention. And we got to that point last night. Hopefully we get that fixed.”

As for the “we” in that sentence, when asked about the role of the leadership group of the players in turning things around, DeBoer pointed to the captain.