2024-25 General Dallas Stars Talk

[Frozen Failure]

I think they're falling into the "if you can't be good be fast" trap right now. They're playing way beyond their foot speed and they aren't big enough to play the mild interference game that every other team plays to beat us.

They get plenty of opportunities but they can't score on the power play. If they had scored a PP goal last night we'd have probably at least gotten a loser point, but they couldn't score on 3 PPs and 2 or 3 calls went uncalled.

Seattle got incredible value. That's exactly the type of move they should be making.

As for Panarin... he's like the opposite of a player who's going to take over a playoff game. He would vastly improve the regular season power play though

I'm really not sure if it's a system or player problem for the PP. The D men have contributed nothing and the regular top unit forwards have been incredibly marginal.

Can PDB resuscitate the PP with what he has? If he can't he should be dismissed if thats what it takes.

It's a lot of gnashing for still being 19-12-0, but I think they could seriously keep some games a little less despondent if they throw down some powerplay production.

 

[Troy McClure]

I'm really not sure if it's a system or player problem for the PP. The D men have contributed nothing and the regular top unit forwards have been incredibly marginal.

Can PDB resuscitate the PP with what he has? If he can't he should be dismissed if thats what it takes.

It's a lot of gnashing for still being 19-12-0, but I think they could seriously keep some games a little less despondent if they throw down some powerplay production.

I think it's a roster problem. The decline isn't only on the PP. These top guys are also down big 5v5, so I think it's some sort of player problem that isn't being solved by shuffling around the RWs every now and then.

Hintz the past four seasons was between 2.1 and 2.8 points/60 5v5. This season is 1.6.

Robertson is on his fourth consecutive season of declining points/60 5v5 numbers stepping down from 2.9 to 2.8 to 2.2 to now 1.8.

 

[Frozen Failure]

I mean, we could see the decline of Pavelski directly impact them last year, while this year, Robertson's had an injury and Hintz has always had something wrong.

There is something about having 3 guys on a line clicking, we saw it with Roberson-Hintz-Pavelski, we saw it for 20 games with Marchment-Duchene-Seguin, so now they need to go find two RWs to fix the scoring.

I still think Alex Tuch should be at the top of the list. I'd like Vilardi but I don't think he'd be available.

I don't think any of the youngins' have the chemistry.

 

[Frozen Failure]

Oh, and that's not a dig against the youngins. They are very talented hockey players who work real hard, but they don't have the it for either of those lines. They succeed with Jamie Benn because Jamie Benn does whatever the hell he needs to do to make a line work and that has been his calling card for years.

The real question at the end of the day is who is gonna bet the odd man out going forward.

I think Bork should get sent down for a few weeks.

And I think PDB needs to let Bichsel eat more minutes than he's currently playing.

 

[Troy McClure]

I don't think any of the youngins' have the chemistry.

This is why I wish they'd had one of the two rookie forwards up all of last season. Being a rookie in the NHL is hard, and the Stars now have three forward spots in the hands of rookies.

We saw Stankoven hit a wall last season after his early success, and the same thing is happening now. Bourque can't produce any offense. I wonder if we'd be seeing more from either one if they had more NHL time played already.

 

[Frozen Failure]

I think being tasked to play in this ticky tack unable to make two passes system does them no favors.

I think Back is doing ok because his task is to cycle and grind and he can do it all day.

Bork isn't here to cycle and grind, he's there to replace 988 games of 2nd overall NHL machine pedigree. Big shoes to fill.

Stanky has just as large of shoes to fill.

Necessary growing pains but it hurts more when the guys you expect to fly cover are playing at 70%.