They were such a special team this year. I hate that we lost, but I loved watching this season and reading Shap Shots along the way! Thanks for providing us with quality hockey and Stars coverage, Sean! This space and Spits and Suds are my go-to’s. Hockey is indeed a weird and wonderful game.
This one is going to hurt for a while. It definitely felt like Dallas lost this one, not that Edmonton won. It's one thing to lose to a better team (like Vegas in 23 or Tampa in 20) but losing to a lesser team when they're not playing well? Terrible feeling.
I can’t get there at all. This is a team that won 16 games in a row at one point and absolutely laid waste to the league after a terrible start. My frustration is more with the fact that the Stars got the top seed in the conference and their path to the Cup was THAT. Probably a once in a century type situation where a team draws a road like that, especially with the top seed, and that’s a really tough break to swallow.
1. For a team that had great depth, there was no one who was *the guy.* Eight 20-goal scorers is great, but you really want a killer who can take over a period when it matters in a do-or-die game. Robertson is the closest the Stars have to someone like that, but he hasn't been *that guy* all year in the same way guys like McDavid, MacKinnon, Panarin, Pastrnak, or Tkachuk are.
2. This team was just gassed. They didn't get a Nashville or an LA or a Washington to start their playoffs. They got 7 straight games against the defending champs, who "magically" got all their players back healthy for Game 1 to go along with big TDL purchases. Then 6 games against the 2022 champs. Almost all while playing 5 dmen.
Tanev was only on one leg at the end of the series, but the other guys were totally gassed too. Our dmen were #1, #2, #3, #5, and #24 among all skaters in ice time for the playoffs. Ryan Suter had more total ice time than every single dman on the Rangers not named Adam Fox. He's 39.
Full props to Edmonton though. They played well, and they deserve to be in the SCF. I hope they beat Florida.
Thanks for your work Sean! I enjoy reading your stuff.
*The* guy thing is a bigger deal than people want to discuss. Depth requires everyone to pull on the rope. Having a “get a bucket” dude isn’t mandatory, but probably only 10-20% of Cups are won by teams with the complete balance formula.
I consider Hintz that guy, and he was last year…only for the lack of defensive depth and a bad series by Jake to derail the series.
Having that guy is a concern for me going forward, but to me it has to be some combo of Hintz/Johnston.
Agreed. The running out of gas problem is one that doesn't worry me. Sign better defensive depth and pray you don't get the worst draw in the playoffs 2 year in a row.
But the "that guy" problem is real issue. Hintz is almost always injured by the time the playoffs roll around, and Robo seems like more of a "really, really good complimentary offensive piece" (like Phil Kessel) than a "take over the game as the leader" killer-type. As good as Heisky is on D, he's not the guy you turn to when you need that step-on-their-throat goal.
Benn used to the "that guy;" he was just type of player. But age has caught him. And I just haven't seen a real replacement for that type of mentality.
Hintz absolutely has the talent, it’s the injury concern like you said. I follow the Caps pretty closely too and his Jekyll and Hyde reminds me so much of Kuznetsov. As he went, the Caps went. And when he had a great playoff run, they lifted the Cup. I’m still holding out hope the Stars get that run from Hintz someday with the right set of circumstances around him. Johnston only continues to get better and I suspect he may have that level of dawg in him too.
Also, development isn’t linear but if this run occurred a year from now I think Stank might’ve provided enough offense to get them over the hump. He’s a wonderful play driver but is still adjusting to the NHL game a bit. If he doesn’t dust off that cross-ice pass from Pavelski yesterday it’s a tie game
No stress over the 20/20. Like you said we all understand... plus I'm not sure any of us really wanted to read it in the immediate aftermath of... whatever that was.
It feels like there are 100 small reasons for why the Stars lost this year, as opposed to one glaring reason for why they lost last year. And somehow, that makes it suck more because it’s harder to patch 100 small holes than 1 big hole.
Given that the Stars have typically been very good at special teams in DeBoer’s time in Dallas, I’m not sure there’s an obvious fix to this other than “don’t go cold at the wrong time”, but the Power Play and PK combined for 88% in the playoffs. You simply cannot win a Stanley Cup that way.
Just sucks because it really feels like they just went cold and ran out of gas at the exact wrong time - and to compound matters, ran into a white hot PK and and a goalie who decided to play the best hockey of his career.
I know they’re all still relatively young, but I can’t help but think about the massive postseason workloads already in the careers of guys like Heiskanen, Oettinger, Hintz, and Robertson. The future is bright, but we’ve been saying that for 3 years now. Eventually that bright future becomes the present, and that present starts to really fly by when you fall a little short year after year.
Suter is well passed his prime. I have been critical of him for the past two season. His contract is a noose around the teams neck.
As a team of disciplined players, it would be nice to have a real crusher on defense. It got a little chippy in there last night. Having someone one really pushing back against an aggressive Edmonton forecheck might have stemmed the Edmonton flow.
Tanev injury helped in the loss, as I am sure he is not 100% let alone 80%. Losing him for a game did not help and Heiskanen missing 4 games probably did not help.
Skinner played above expectations. There were not enough second/third chances. Nobody wanted to crash the crease.
It felt like this series shifted after the first period of game 4 - the Stars looked different from that point forward. Maybe Edmonton made them look that way; maybe they were just tired. Such a shame to waste this team; this was their best shot since the lockout.
The problem for the Stars is that hockey is a “strong link” game kind of like basketball. It is very, very difficult for a team to hoist the Cup if the squad does not have a generational talent who is simply playing better than anyone during the playoffs. Get “that guy” and surround him with enough talent & eventually they break through.
There are but a handful or fewer teams that have one of those generational talents. And it is rare for a team to win it all without that guy.
Unfortunately, Stars are not a team that has one & they don’t have one in the pipeline either. McDavid, MacKinnon, Bedard, Crosby, Kucherov, Ovechkin, Pasternak are about the short list of dudes that fit the bill.
So that means the only path for the Stars is to go on a run and get lucky one year while having several really good players, but not the superstar. The Blues did it. Maybe Vegas unless you think Eichel fits the bill. LA did it a few years back. That’s about it.
Short of getting one of those dudes, the Stars just have to hang around. Stay relevant. And then pray that everything breaks their way one year and get lucky. It sucks, but in hockey unless you’ve had that number one pick, that’s about the best you can hope for. The Oilers had what seems like 5-6 first overall picks. They have two top 5 in the world players. We will see if they have enough around them to allow those two dudes to elevate them to a title.
I firmly believe the Stars were in prime position to take full control of the series and their destiny after putting up 7 goals in a span of 39:54 over Games 3 and 4. They were up 2-1 in the series. They were up 2-0 in Game 4. And then their ability to score went poof, just like that. They went on to pot just two more goals in the remaining 174:31 of the series. Meanwhile, the Oilers finally found their PP and scored on four of their final five man-advantage opportunities.
As one of the highest scoring teams during the regular season, the Stars rarely had reason to worry about putting the puck in the net. They had top end scorers. They had a balanced attack. They had scoring depth that was the envy of the league. But for some reason, that depth mostly disappeared in the playoffs as key contributors like Hintz, Pavelski, Duchene, Harley and Marchment suddenly struggled to produce. And when the rest of the team went dry at the net during most of Round 3, Game 4 and beyond, the Stars effectively were doomed. And maybe that’s just the nature of the playoffs. Every game carries so much weight that, what many may consider a brief slump during the season suddenly turns into a fatal slump in the playoffs. As we’ve seen, losing three straight at any point in a playoff series is usually fatal. The Stars beat Vegas and Colorado three straight and both teams lost the series, just as the Oilers just did to the Stars.
Sean thanks for the excellent reporting no matter the post time. Even with the second best record in the League, I saw some glaring defects during the season. I think Suter should retire and free up some cap space. Beating 2 teams that could legitimately been WCF players on the way to meet Edmonton, had to have a big factor in the lose of energy. After going up 2-0 in game 4 had to be crushing to team morale, even if they did not say it.
I quietly didn’t feel like the Stars were a true Cup contender for the exact reason you mentioned. The “defects” were some truly abysmal losses on home ice, usually either by virtue of a terrible start or a blown lead. What three themes lasted the entire postseason? Slow starts, blown leads, and failure to win at home.
They were such a special team this year. I hate that we lost, but I loved watching this season and reading Shap Shots along the way! Thanks for providing us with quality hockey and Stars coverage, Sean! This space and Spits and Suds are my go-to’s. Hockey is indeed a weird and wonderful game.
This one is going to hurt for a while. It definitely felt like Dallas lost this one, not that Edmonton won. It's one thing to lose to a better team (like Vegas in 23 or Tampa in 20) but losing to a lesser team when they're not playing well? Terrible feeling.
I can’t get there at all. This is a team that won 16 games in a row at one point and absolutely laid waste to the league after a terrible start. My frustration is more with the fact that the Stars got the top seed in the conference and their path to the Cup was THAT. Probably a once in a century type situation where a team draws a road like that, especially with the top seed, and that’s a really tough break to swallow.
Appreciate all the coverage this season on the stars! Looking forward to next season
There were several things.
But I think there were 2 biggies:
1. For a team that had great depth, there was no one who was *the guy.* Eight 20-goal scorers is great, but you really want a killer who can take over a period when it matters in a do-or-die game. Robertson is the closest the Stars have to someone like that, but he hasn't been *that guy* all year in the same way guys like McDavid, MacKinnon, Panarin, Pastrnak, or Tkachuk are.
2. This team was just gassed. They didn't get a Nashville or an LA or a Washington to start their playoffs. They got 7 straight games against the defending champs, who "magically" got all their players back healthy for Game 1 to go along with big TDL purchases. Then 6 games against the 2022 champs. Almost all while playing 5 dmen.
Tanev was only on one leg at the end of the series, but the other guys were totally gassed too. Our dmen were #1, #2, #3, #5, and #24 among all skaters in ice time for the playoffs. Ryan Suter had more total ice time than every single dman on the Rangers not named Adam Fox. He's 39.
Full props to Edmonton though. They played well, and they deserve to be in the SCF. I hope they beat Florida.
Thanks for your work Sean! I enjoy reading your stuff.
*The* guy thing is a bigger deal than people want to discuss. Depth requires everyone to pull on the rope. Having a “get a bucket” dude isn’t mandatory, but probably only 10-20% of Cups are won by teams with the complete balance formula.
I consider Hintz that guy, and he was last year…only for the lack of defensive depth and a bad series by Jake to derail the series.
Having that guy is a concern for me going forward, but to me it has to be some combo of Hintz/Johnston.
Agreed. The running out of gas problem is one that doesn't worry me. Sign better defensive depth and pray you don't get the worst draw in the playoffs 2 year in a row.
But the "that guy" problem is real issue. Hintz is almost always injured by the time the playoffs roll around, and Robo seems like more of a "really, really good complimentary offensive piece" (like Phil Kessel) than a "take over the game as the leader" killer-type. As good as Heisky is on D, he's not the guy you turn to when you need that step-on-their-throat goal.
Benn used to the "that guy;" he was just type of player. But age has caught him. And I just haven't seen a real replacement for that type of mentality.
Hintz absolutely has the talent, it’s the injury concern like you said. I follow the Caps pretty closely too and his Jekyll and Hyde reminds me so much of Kuznetsov. As he went, the Caps went. And when he had a great playoff run, they lifted the Cup. I’m still holding out hope the Stars get that run from Hintz someday with the right set of circumstances around him. Johnston only continues to get better and I suspect he may have that level of dawg in him too.
Also, development isn’t linear but if this run occurred a year from now I think Stank might’ve provided enough offense to get them over the hump. He’s a wonderful play driver but is still adjusting to the NHL game a bit. If he doesn’t dust off that cross-ice pass from Pavelski yesterday it’s a tie game
I felt overly confident going into this series. Just made it all the more frustrating watching this team struggle so much.
On the bright side, excited to watch Wyatt and Stank (and others right on the cusp) roles grow next year
No stress over the 20/20. Like you said we all understand... plus I'm not sure any of us really wanted to read it in the immediate aftermath of... whatever that was.
It feels like there are 100 small reasons for why the Stars lost this year, as opposed to one glaring reason for why they lost last year. And somehow, that makes it suck more because it’s harder to patch 100 small holes than 1 big hole.
Given that the Stars have typically been very good at special teams in DeBoer’s time in Dallas, I’m not sure there’s an obvious fix to this other than “don’t go cold at the wrong time”, but the Power Play and PK combined for 88% in the playoffs. You simply cannot win a Stanley Cup that way.
Just sucks because it really feels like they just went cold and ran out of gas at the exact wrong time - and to compound matters, ran into a white hot PK and and a goalie who decided to play the best hockey of his career.
I know they’re all still relatively young, but I can’t help but think about the massive postseason workloads already in the careers of guys like Heiskanen, Oettinger, Hintz, and Robertson. The future is bright, but we’ve been saying that for 3 years now. Eventually that bright future becomes the present, and that present starts to really fly by when you fall a little short year after year.
Suter is well passed his prime. I have been critical of him for the past two season. His contract is a noose around the teams neck.
As a team of disciplined players, it would be nice to have a real crusher on defense. It got a little chippy in there last night. Having someone one really pushing back against an aggressive Edmonton forecheck might have stemmed the Edmonton flow.
Tanev injury helped in the loss, as I am sure he is not 100% let alone 80%. Losing him for a game did not help and Heiskanen missing 4 games probably did not help.
Skinner played above expectations. There were not enough second/third chances. Nobody wanted to crash the crease.
Excellent summary, Sean, even with the added level of difficulty writing it in the wee morning hours!
It felt like this series shifted after the first period of game 4 - the Stars looked different from that point forward. Maybe Edmonton made them look that way; maybe they were just tired. Such a shame to waste this team; this was their best shot since the lockout.
Five great minutes in Game 3 and Game 4 each not withstanding, it never really felt to me like the Stars had a grip on the series.
The problem for the Stars is that hockey is a “strong link” game kind of like basketball. It is very, very difficult for a team to hoist the Cup if the squad does not have a generational talent who is simply playing better than anyone during the playoffs. Get “that guy” and surround him with enough talent & eventually they break through.
There are but a handful or fewer teams that have one of those generational talents. And it is rare for a team to win it all without that guy.
Unfortunately, Stars are not a team that has one & they don’t have one in the pipeline either. McDavid, MacKinnon, Bedard, Crosby, Kucherov, Ovechkin, Pasternak are about the short list of dudes that fit the bill.
So that means the only path for the Stars is to go on a run and get lucky one year while having several really good players, but not the superstar. The Blues did it. Maybe Vegas unless you think Eichel fits the bill. LA did it a few years back. That’s about it.
Short of getting one of those dudes, the Stars just have to hang around. Stay relevant. And then pray that everything breaks their way one year and get lucky. It sucks, but in hockey unless you’ve had that number one pick, that’s about the best you can hope for. The Oilers had what seems like 5-6 first overall picks. They have two top 5 in the world players. We will see if they have enough around them to allow those two dudes to elevate them to a title.
I firmly believe the Stars were in prime position to take full control of the series and their destiny after putting up 7 goals in a span of 39:54 over Games 3 and 4. They were up 2-1 in the series. They were up 2-0 in Game 4. And then their ability to score went poof, just like that. They went on to pot just two more goals in the remaining 174:31 of the series. Meanwhile, the Oilers finally found their PP and scored on four of their final five man-advantage opportunities.
As one of the highest scoring teams during the regular season, the Stars rarely had reason to worry about putting the puck in the net. They had top end scorers. They had a balanced attack. They had scoring depth that was the envy of the league. But for some reason, that depth mostly disappeared in the playoffs as key contributors like Hintz, Pavelski, Duchene, Harley and Marchment suddenly struggled to produce. And when the rest of the team went dry at the net during most of Round 3, Game 4 and beyond, the Stars effectively were doomed. And maybe that’s just the nature of the playoffs. Every game carries so much weight that, what many may consider a brief slump during the season suddenly turns into a fatal slump in the playoffs. As we’ve seen, losing three straight at any point in a playoff series is usually fatal. The Stars beat Vegas and Colorado three straight and both teams lost the series, just as the Oilers just did to the Stars.
Sean thanks for the excellent reporting no matter the post time. Even with the second best record in the League, I saw some glaring defects during the season. I think Suter should retire and free up some cap space. Beating 2 teams that could legitimately been WCF players on the way to meet Edmonton, had to have a big factor in the lose of energy. After going up 2-0 in game 4 had to be crushing to team morale, even if they did not say it.
I quietly didn’t feel like the Stars were a true Cup contender for the exact reason you mentioned. The “defects” were some truly abysmal losses on home ice, usually either by virtue of a terrible start or a blown lead. What three themes lasted the entire postseason? Slow starts, blown leads, and failure to win at home.
I was confident they would extend the series to 7 games. the Oilers scored twice on the PP however. Stuart Skinner raised his game.