An 82-game NHL season takes patience. When losses start to build up, it takes restraint from front offices to see if a coach and his players can work through a skid on their own.
Stars GM Jim Nill has given first-year Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan and his roster that opportunity over the last month of the season. But after dropping their 10th game since Dec. 23 on Sunday against the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-1, it begs the question of whether the Stars can afford to wait any longer to pull the trigger on making a big change.
The Stars have lost three in a row and 10 of their last 12 games. Their latest came to a Lightning team now on a 13-game points streak. The Stars haven’t scored more than one goal in any of their last three.
When you step back and take a look at the big picture, the Stars are in a fine position. Dallas has a .643 points percentage, which is better than the .633 that it held at the same time last year. It was after this point last year that the Stars traded for Mikko Rantanen, Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci and that Thomas Harley began his breakout campaign after an injury to Miro Heiskanen.
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Over the last month, they’ve dropped slightly to fourth in the league standings but remain tied for second in the West and the Central Division with the Minnesota Wild at 63 points. The Colorado Avalanche are running away with the league at 74 points, but it’s been clear for weeks that Dallas is in a battle for second and home-ice advantage in the first round.
That’s where the problem lies. The Stars are in an arms race with the Wild, and Minnesota is gaining ground. On Dec. 23 when the skid began, the Stars had a six-point advantage over the Wild. Now, the two teams are tied in the standings.
Upon returning from the road trip, Gulutzan offered his assessment about where the team needs to go from here — and it likely didn’t offer much reassurance for his team’s fans.
“It’s not about adjustments right now,” Gulutzan said. “It’s about us starting to stack good days, good games and good plays back-to-back-to-back.”
The Stars have had the opportunity to prove they can “stack good days” with the current roster. They’ve had the chance to stack wins at home before the break, to capitalize on a change of scenery on the road trip and to bounce back with a win at home Sunday.
But the same issues persist. The Stars aren’t generating enough offensively on the power play or 5-on-5. Defensive or goaltending mistakes are proving costly. And they’re not getting enough from players they need to deliver.
They’re also getting outscored 15-6 in second periods since Dec. 23, which crushed them again Sunday. After an energetic first sparked by an early goal from Oskar Back, the Lightning outscored the Stars 2-0 in the second, outshooting them 15-9 in the process.
Jake Oettinger took the bait from Nikita Kucherov, leaving Brandon Hagel open on the first. Then, Jake Guentzel scored off a rebound in transition on the second when the Stars’ goalie didn’t get the help he needed.
After scoring four minutes into the game, Dallas never scored again. The Stars had just two shots on goal in the third period, even after pulling Oettinger with four minutes remaining.
“We just have to go forward,” Heiskanen said. “We just have to play a little harder and want it a little more.”
Nill has said he wants to wait until after the Olympics to make a trade, but with the way his team is playing, they may not be able to afford eight more games without a drastic change.
Because if the current streak issues continue, Minnesota could start to run away with second place in the division before anyone even boards a plane to Milan.
“The responsibility falls on me to get us into the right mindset to get us to play our game for 60 minutes,” Gulutzan said. “Did I ever think at one point that we were a .750 team for the whole season? No, I did not. … We are certainly regressing to the mean, but we’re better than what we’re playing right now. We need to get back to that.”