Pondering Dallas Stars Playoff Matchups and Fatal Flaws

Does the Edmonton loss mean the Stars in for another impossibly brutal road to the Stanley Cup Final?

Before we dig in today, I’d be remiss (and nobody wants to be remiss) if I didn’t mention my piece in D Magazine yesterday on Mikko Rantanen. Now I’ve mentioned it. Check it out if you haven’t already, or if you have, check it out again and tell ‘em I sent you for a 100% discount on their usual price of “Free.”

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The Edmonton game Saturday night was a bummer in multiple respects, even if the Stars nearly exploited Edmonton’s Achilles heel in the third period, i.e. “when Edmonton tries to play defense.”

Seeing the Stars get skated out of the rink for 40 minutes to the tune of a 5-1 deficit against the team that knocked Dallas out of the playoffs was a bitter pill to swallow. It was a special sort of letdown with the team ready to show off their brand new superstar acquisition, only for a nasty injury to Roope Hintz to wind up as the cherry on a fertilizer sundae (Rantanen’s beautiful one-timer notwithstanding).

As for Hintz’s health, we may not get an update until Wednesday’s practice. As for the Stars’ hopes of reversing their fortunes from last spring, Saturday’s game was a bucket of cold water thrown on a burgeoning bonfire of hope. Have the Stars really done enough to beat Edmonton in a seven-game series this year after losing in six last time?

In the 14 games since losing Miro Heiskanen, Dallas has:

• A 10-3-1 record,

• Outscored opponents 62-43 (+19)

• 15 power play goals on 39 chances (38%!)

• Killed 30 of 35 penalties (86%)

• An NHL-best 13.65 shooting percentage

Their record in Miro Heiskanen’s absence suggested the Stars were nearly unstoppable. The result of that game suggested they were still extremely vulnerable to targeted excellence from another top team in the West.

There was a special sort of grousing among the fanbase after that loss on Saturday, because it was a special sort of loss. It was not, however, an altogether unique one. In fact, that game felt a lot like some other eggs the Stars have laid against top teams in the league this year. How about a trip down Repressed Memory Lane?

Oh, and let’s give an honorable mention to the 4-1 loss against Nashville in December, a stinker so stinky that it might have killed a decades-old tradition, but that’s just a theory. Anyway, that was one game against a bad opponent, so I’m okay with tossing it into the same cardboard box as the two losses to Anaheim this year and shoving it in the garage. Let us never speak of it (or them) again. Deal schmeal?

Now, let’s talk about the Stars’ Stanley Cup aspirations, and what kind of hit they’ve taken from what I think are their three most disappointing measuring-stick games this season other than that Edmonton loss: