You’re the Exception until You’re Not

I was driving to Fort Worth the other day, and it was pouring. And one thing that people tend to do in severe rain (and particularly on roadways that still aren’t remotely prepared to deal with the seasonal extremes of Texas) is turn on their hazard lights. This is done, I presume, to prevent other, more oblivious drivers from rear-ending them on slick roadways. It’s illegal and confusing, as it tends to trigger an immediate reaction from drivers who assume there’s something in the road other than the huge ponds that just collect so naturally on our roadways. But the justification, I would imagine, is pretty simple: it keeps me safer. That transcends all

I passed multiple cars doing this. None of them was doing less than 30 or 40 mph, and it meant a lot more people were preemptively changing lanes in bad weather, anticipating further dangers that weren’t there. This is, I am aware, what old men do: complain about all the other drivers. Dave Barry always said that the one unifying aspect of humanity is that we all believe we are above-average drivers, and this is certainly true. But my annoyance at the hazards-in-the-rain folks isn’t the misguided nature of their behavior. It’s the low-key selfishness of essentially turning a Baby on Board sticker into a rear-mounted laser cannon.

This isn’t just the case with passive headlight usage, though. It’s far worse with headlights, which are dumb and absurdly bright and probably shining right in your rear-view mirror, unless you’ve decided to compromise your budget to buy a nice SUV, which over half of the country is now doing. In that case, your headlights help you see tons of stuff, like that small Mazda sedan in front of you with the dent in the driver’s door and a grumpy hockey writer behind the wheel. Congratulations on your purchase, I’m sure it’s fun to drive big trucks. I know I always enjoyed pretending to have big trucks as a kid, so it’s nice to know that childhood dream has been realized by so many people in this country. But if you’re gonna drive a giant car that mostly just serves to deal out more damages than it takes in every accident, could you at least not blind me before you run into me? It’s the little things.

Of course, I’m not talking about your SUV, no. You are the exception, you are the actually above-average driver, the one whose choice to flout basic rules of respectful driving is excusable on account of you don’t like to wait, don’t like to feel poorer than the next person, don’t like to feel like you “don’t have room” for stuff. Basically, unless you’re a hockey player who actually has to lug around a giant pile of sticks and equipment everywhere you go, just buy a car with a trunk. That’s what those things are for, you know.

We’re all experts at justifying why we should be exempt from the rules. We hate everyone else standing in front of us at the game, but sometimes we want to stay standing because we can’t see if we sit down, and hey, the people behind us just have to make their own choice, right? It’s not selfishness explicitly, but just the basic sort of choice we make every day. You can approach a door with an eye to get through it as quickly as possible, or you can approach it with caution, knowing that everyone has to use that door, and prepare to hold it for someone. Roadways are the same thing. Something about the power of a (giant) car makes us hurry, makes us want to gain every bit of space we can. And we want to see that space before we grab it, so too bad if you’re in the way. Also, please don’t run into me, can’t you see my hazard lights?

We’re always the exception, though. Texans in particular experience this temptation to be selfish when ERCOT asks us to conserve energy. We begin scoffing at the state who refuses to connect to larger, better power grids. Why should I, after all, go without when my energy bills have gone up 50% in the last few years? If we’re all gonna lose power, I might as well just get my power while it’s there, and to hell with the other guys.

(This clip should start at 25:26, but skip there if it doesn’t.)

Good city planners and politicians have planned for this selfishness, and occasionally even designed with it in mind. Any logistics person knows that you don’t plan for the lines to all attract equal queues; you plan for the most obvious lines to be the longest, and you work on making the alternatives as attractive as possible in hopes that people will eventually disperse themselves somewhat equitably (though never entirely so).

This is true in hockey, too. Good coaches know that you can’t coach selfishness out of every player. You just have to make the alternatives more attractive and hope everything balances out in the long run. In some cases, that means you restrict the player in one situation but reward them in another. In other cases, you might give them carte blanche, with the mutual understanding that the privilege is lost if their mistakes cost the team too dearly. Both can work, but what can’t work is never tolerating an iota of selfishness to begin with. Heck, even Ken Hitchcock had to put up with Brett Hull, and he knew better than to think he could turn Hull into Jere Lehtinen.

With the new season approaching, it’s easy to start forecasting what will happen. Who will be a breakout star, who will regress, and what new avenue of humiliation will be created for Nils Lundkvist in crunch time. It’s fun to think about! But now is the time when I start really looking backward, when I can really think about what was lost after the Edmonton series ended. Specifically, now is the time when I start really wondering how Joe Pavelski can be replaced.

1. Wyatt Johnston was ridiculous last year
2. Joe Pavelski's production will be tough to replace
3. Nils Lundkvist only had four fewer primary assists than Tyler Seguin. pic.twitter.com/8xE28dNNpB

— Robert Tiffin (@RobertTiffin) August 24, 2024

Yes, Pavelski was slipping as the year ended, and his retirement tells us he knew that to be the case. But all the same, Pavelski was fourth on the team in goals, third in assists, and first in primary assists last season. He put up the numbers, even if it became hard to watch when he was doing it. And as much as we want to believe that Logan Stankoven or Tyler Seguin can go all plug-and-play on the top line, Pavelski’s prowess was, for years, something reliable. And coaches love reliable, which is why the team played with five defensemen who fit that description until they reached a tipping point and used an AHL defender to supplement the lineup.

What was lost at the end of last season was everything we came to count on as “reliable.” Matt Duchene started strong, then sputtered alongside Pavelski (albeit in a different sort of way). But sputter he did down the stretch, and now it’s a brand new season. Will Duchene be able to regain his early form, or will he, one year older and with one fewer excellent veteran above him in the lineup, continue to struggle to be reliable?

One of the crew made a comment on the DLLS show the other day about how Lundvkist’s being scratched in November last year was deeply concerning, because that showed the coaches weren’t viewing the regular season a proving ground, but as a place to confirm their opinions. We’ve seen a similar approach with coaches in the past, and not just with younger players. Heck, Lindy Ruff scratched veterans like John Klingberg, Dan Hamhuis and even Aleš Hemský when things got tough. Coaches crave consistency above all else, and any player who considers themselves above the law risks being brought back to earth the moment they forget who controls the lineup.

Losing Joe Pavelski was always going to happen, and the Stars got far more mileage out of that signing than anyone could have dreamed of, so there’s nothing to lament here. But I do wonder what cracks might start to show in the lineup if Mason Marchment or Jason Robertson encounters another dry spell, if Matt Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin fail to acquit themselves well, and if Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin don’t continue to defy the aging curves we expected last season. We’ve seen this organization lose patience with its own in the past; losing a rock like Pavelski leaves points to be scored by others, but it also means that other stress fractures could compound a lot more quickly. Like in architecture, some stabilizing measures can be seen clearly only when they’re taken away.

So yeah, I’m excited to see what happens this year. But I’m also wondering just how many things have gone right the past two seasons, and what will happen when the Stars don’t have quite as deep a bench to draw from. After all, the forward depth is pretty much all in Dallas now. Lian Bichsel is the one big (literally) thing Dallas is looking forward to, and if Thomas Harley and Miro Heiskanen play together, he only has to beat Brendan Smith out for a lineup spot. If that’s not doable for him, then Bichsel and the Stars have bigger problems.

So yes, optimism and all that. But without Chris Tanev or Joe Pavelski, the roster has gotten one year older and a couple of spots thinner. The bones of the thing are still the envy of most teams in the league, but the Stars have to start showing they can elevate their game to an elite level the same way that the Panthers and the Oilers did for long stretches last season. Consistency is great when the pieces are all reliable, but the Stars can’t expect to get tons of double-digit goal scorers again when they don’t have the reinforcements ready to pick up the slack. We all remember how rough things were that February afternoon against Boston when Derrick Pouliot, Joel Hanley and Alex Petrovic made up half the Stars’ defense corps, with Harley playing 30 minutes alongside Ryan Suter and Esa Lindell. Things can change in a hurry. And for all the flak Suter got for playing above his ability, he was eminently reliable in a lower pairing, and now he’s gone. We’ll see what these coaches do if the new old guys (and the old new guy) fail to bring that same repeatable play in their own roles. Certainly we’ve seen what the Stars have done when a young defenseman failed to take the next step in the past, tossing Matt Niskanen into a trade like an aftethought. We’ll see if Dumba or Lyubushkin get the Dan Hamhuis treatment this time.

Maybe the Stars are the exception, and maybe we shouldn’t worry about the fact that they’ve taken some shortcuts with their roster this year after their plan on defense didn’t quite pan out. Maybe the rules of roster evaluation shouldn’t apply to them, given all the great pieces they still have. Genuinely, they might continue to dominate the Western Conference, and it wouldn’t surprise anyone if that’s the case. But with the weather finally turning back into what I might call “survivable” down here, it’s worth wondering just how the Stars are going to weather the storms they are certain to face. They’re really good, and they’ll probably be fine. Unless they aren’t.