There’s a funny tradition at Dallas Stars games.
After each opposing goal, when it’s been announced over the PA system, the fans in attendance respond in kind, “Who cares?”
It’s oddly fitting, because the Stars themselves really didn’t seem to care about games until it was too late this postseason.
As the season came to an end with a 6-3 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday, the Stars closed out a postseason where they allowed the first goal in 15 of their 18 playoff contests.
It became so common, and expected, that the Dallas would be trailing early that you might as well have put a big 1-0 on the scoreboard before the game even started.
On one side of the coin you could call the Stars resilient for even making it this far. For somehow being so good at comebacks that they finished with a 9-9 playoff record despite spotting the other team a lead 15 times.
On the other side of the coin, the one the Stars will need to think long and hard about over the next five months, is how if they ever figured out how to start a game properly they might be prepping for the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers.
Thursday was the most damning example.
Yes, the Oilers were the better team in this series and very well could have swept the Western Conference Final if not for power play blip from the Stars in Game 1. But in Game 5, with a chance to do something about it, the Stars no-showed in the first period and doomed themselves.
Edmonton went on the power play less than two minutes into the game, a high-sticking call against Mavrik Bourque, and quickly capitalized on a pretty double-rim play where Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl moved the point of attack while Corey Perry took a center-lane drive to make it 1-0.
Mattias Janmark scored to make it 2-0 on a breakaway less than five minutes later, Edmonton’s second shot of the game, and Jake Oettinger’s night — and season — were over without even making a save.
It was a harsh and desperate decision by Stars coach Pete DeBoer to pull Oettinger.
A move to try and inspire the entire team, but sacrificing their playoff MVP’s pride and potentially his confidence in the process.
It also didn’t work.
DeSmith entered the game and less than a minute later he was beaten by Jeff Skinner making it 3-0.
Only when fully dropped into a pit of their own creation, did the Stars decide to try and dig out.
And they tried, they really did.
In fact, for roughly 15 minutes it felt like the Stars were going to have the response they needed.
Down 3-1 after a disastrous first period with their season on the line, the Stars charged into the sandwich stanza and bullied the Oilers.
They got to the front of the net, created extended zone time, and started making Stuart Skinner feel uncomfortable.
When Roope Hintz scored on the power play with 7:33 remaining in the period, cutting the deficit to 3-2, it felt like, just maybe, the Stars were going to complete the comeback.
The American Airlines Center was rocking, faith had been restored, it didn’t matter that the Stars were trailing 3-2 in the game and 3-1 in the series.
There was belief and hope.
And then Connor McDavid burst the bubble, flying onto a loose puck for breakaway and beating Casey DeSmith to end the comeback hopes.
You could feel the air leave the building. Hope snapped out of existence and the somber reality setting in for those in attendance that they were attending the 2024-25 Stars funeral and not a rally.
In almost a cruel joke to the Stars faithful, Dallas actually tried to rise from the grave again in the third period. Again cutting the deficit to one, only to see it snapped away, again, by an Oilers goal soon after.
And at the end of the day, the saddest part for the Stars, and those in attendance, is that they did it to themselves.
Three straight trips to the Western Conference Finals, three straight sour finishes where the Stars were outclassed when it mattered the most.
The Stars have become the NHL’s answer to the Buffalo Bills of the early 1990s.
Good enough to be amongst the NHL’s elite, final-four worthy, but not good enough to truly be a contender and actually start a game on time.
There are other things to break down, and there’s lots of time for that, but it all starts, frankly, with the start.
This is also a team that finally, this series, ended a streak of losing eight straight Game 1s, another ridiculous starting stat.
Starting strong has never been a point of emphasis for the Stars, if it had been, they would have addressed it long before the Western Conference Final.
So “Who cares?”
Maybe the Stars should.
I hate that stupid “who cares” chant.
Brutal, but accurate.