Stars missing look of champion team

By David Mullen

As the Texas Rangers put the finishing touches on the team that will begin defending their World Championship and the Dallas Cowboys try to bounce back from an unsatisfying 12-win season by retooling their roster through free agency and the NFL Draft, the Dallas Stars and Dallas Mavericks are winding down their regular seasons preparing for an anticipated long playoff run.

Success in the regular season doesn’t assure a title. Being able to gel as a playoff team is the key to bringing home a championship. The Stars seem better positioned to advance than the Mavericks, mainly because the NBA Western Conference has unprecedented firepower.

In the NBA, the Top 10 conference teams qualify for the playoffs. Without a seismic shift in the standings, the 10 Western teams are known. Despite being nine games over .500 and just eight games from first place, the Mavs are in the eighth playoff spot and must take the Wild Card Road where the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings currently reside.

Finishing among the top six teams means avoiding the Wild Card playoffs. The Mavs need a late run to get to the Top 6 for any chance of surviving a brutal playoff challenge. But with two of the league’s best players in Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving and an emerging inside presence from the two-headed monster of rookie Derek Lively II and center/power forward Daniel Gafford, fans are optimistic. The Mavericks seem like a team ready to take shape. 

In the 30 seasons that the Stars have played in Dallas, the team has made the NHL postseason 18 times. That record of success makes the franchise one of the most consistently effective teams in NHL history. 

Remove the stretch between the 2008-2009 and 2017-2018 seasons, when the Stars qualified for the playoffs just twice in 10 seasons under four head coaches, and the accomplishment is even more impressive.

The Stars are the current leaders in the Central Division and have been near the top of the Western Conference all season. 

Their stiffest competition comes from the Vancouver Canucks, Winnipeg Jets and Colorado Avalanche. The defending Stanley Cup Champion Vegas Golden Knights are wallowing among Wild Card teams, but when the second season begins, no team relishes rolling the dice against Vegas in an early round playoff series.

Most oddsmakers believe that the middle-of-the-pack Knights have as good a chance of winning the Stanley Cup as the Stars. That lack of confidence in this Stars team may be saying the quiet part out loud.

Why is there apprehension about the Stars playoff future? It is not about personnel. The Stars have plenty of firepower on offense. Jake Oettinger can be impenetrable in goal. They added toughness and a much-needed right-handed defenseman by acquiring Chris Tanev from the Calgary Flames. In elevating rookie forward Logan Stankoven to the big club, Dallas may have found a future star. 

If the road to the playoffs began today, Dallas has a favorable path to the Stanley Cup Finals. Dallas would face the Nashville Predators. The Stars have finished regular season play against Nashville, going 4-1 and averaging more than five goals per game. In the next round, they would then face the winner of an Edmonton Oilers versus Los Angeles Kings playoff series. Most fans would like the Stars’ chances to advance to the Western Conference Finals.

But even with their current regular season success, the Stars appear to be missing an intangible. They lack composure, often brought not from the bench by a head coach but from veteran leadership in the locker room. No lead seems safe with this Stars team. They don’t have the instinct to put an opponent away when they are down. 

No better example was that on March 12, when the Stars faced the Eastern Conference leading Florida Panthers at the AAC. The Stars jumped out to a 3-0 lead and looked unbeatable. But these are the 2023-24 Dallas Stars. Four unanswered goals lead to a demoralizing 4-3 home loss.

“For us, I think this group, this might come at a good time as far as this is a great reminder of what’s ahead of us,” said Stars veteran Joe Pavelski after the game. “We’re going to be in this situation again against good teams. Take this as a lesson. We’ll be looking to right it and be better next time.” Sounds like a team in quest of a competition ribbon, not a Stanley Cup trophy.

When the Stars won the Stanley Cup in 1998-99, they had a similar record as the 2023-24 team. But the championship team had a quiet confidence. If things didn’t go right one night, there was no panic. Maybe it came from the leadership provided by Guy Carbonneau, Mike Keane and Craig Ludwig.  

This Stars team have veterans in Pavelski, Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene. It is time for the veterans to lead.

If the Mavs advance in the playoffs, most fans and NBA insiders will be pleasantly surprised. If the Stars don’t at least reach the Western Conference Finals, fans and NHL insiders will be disappointed and say they lacked leadership. This Stars team is too good to fail.