Why You Should or Shouldn't Worry about the Stars through Four Games

It's time for a good ol' fashioned argument

You’ve heard it often enough by now: the Stars would have absolutely taken a 2-2 series split before things started.

Without their top scorer and top defenseman, it’s hard to argue with that point of view. Given the last month of the regular season, winning even one game felt like a monumental task, let alone another one on the road. But the two most tenured Stars players stepped up in one game, and a couple of role players did so in another, and thus the Stars have an even series with three games to play, at most.

So, the Stars should be feeling good about where they are now…right? They’ve banked a road win, so they can advance by just holding serve in Dallas. That’s as enviable a position as any higher seed in the West right now can boast, with all four series in the same 2-2 spot.

Logic tells you the Stars are sitting in the catbird seat in this best-of-seven series. Dallas got to 50 wins this season, while Colorado only put up 49. That’s why the Stars have two games left in Dallas while the Avalanche get just one more homecooked meal in the first round.

But that little voice just won’t go away. You know the one I’m talking about. It’s the same one that started creeping into your thoughts before (and after) Game 1, and it’s definitely been making itself more comfortable in your cognitive kitchen since the Saturday night shellacking that was Game 4.

That voice has been whispering some unsettling things in the last couple of weeks. Maybe it’s just the altitude in Colorado, but those little seeds of doubt are getting tougher to hand-wave away. So with a massive Game 5 awaiting (late) tonight in Dallas, it’s high time to have it out with that voice and finish this debate between confidence and fear in an effort to decide exactly how optimistic Stars fans should really be feeling about tonight.

This isn’t quite the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other situation, but it’s not not that, either. So let’s ring that metaphorical bell before the fight tonight and have this out once and for all—Or at least, until the afternoon before Game 7.

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Confidence: Look, the Stars have a great home record! Only eight teams lost 10 or fewer regulation games at home all year, and the Stars were one of them, with a 28-10-3 record in “home” games that gets even better if you toss out that loss in Finland last fall.

Here are some of those other teams in that elite eight group of ten or fewer regulation losses at home: Carolina, Vegas, Los Angeles, Washington, Tampa Bay, and Winnipeg. The Stars at night have been big and bright when they’re home in Texas this year, and that’s a big change from last year, when Dallas actually lost fewer road games in regulation than they did at home.

All Dallas has to do is win Games 5 and 7 at home, and boom: second round, here they come!

Fear: I noticed you left out a team on that list up there, big guy.

Confidence: Look, nobody has time to list every team, the point is that lots of good teams have-

Fear: Including…

Confidence: Don’t make me say it.

Fear: Including?

Confidence: *sighs* Okay, fine. including Columbus.

Fear: *Nefarious laugh* So let me get this straight. You’re counting on a measly home record to save your bacon when the Stars are basically holding the same home ice weapon as the…Blue Jackets? That’s some kind of security blanket you got there, bud.

Confidence: It’s called a stat spoiler, and I’ll have you know -

Fear: It’s called fantasy. Even if you think it means something, the Stars that put up that home record haven’t been around since February, and they’ve been lucking and power playing and goalie-ing their way to wins down the stretch, right up until the chickens all came home to roost in that seven-game skid. You really think that team just ran into a phone booth and tossed on a cape once the playoffs got going? Ppsh, okay.

And by the way, speaking of records…