Hockeymetrics: Stars Must Play Better Within the Pacific

On January 21st, Stars fans took a peek at the Pacific Division standings and saw the Dallas Stars in the lead by six points over the Phoenix Coyotes and by 10 points over the eventual division champ, for the 4th year in a row, the San Jose Sharks.

As we all know, that came crashing down in the month of February. Just a month after leading the division by six points, the Stars found themselves in a three way tie with Southern California's two hockey teams in the cellar.

After the last two seasons, I'm not sure you could blame the most hardcore of Stars fans for being positively jaded on the day after the Stars set a franchise record for most consecutive games unbeaten on the road. Still, there were two statistical areas where we should have considered this fool's gold.

Today, I'll look at how the Stars fared in the Pacific and why they need to be better when the new season kicks off in 75 days. One in which Stars may finally get to say goodbye to the Coyotes, Ducks, Kings, and Sharks as divisional rivals.

Statistical Sagacity after the jump

First, the overall stats, which are posted in a "running total" format so that you can spot trends:

When you look at the stats, the first thing that should jump out to anyone is that the Stars were in a negative goal differential right out of the gate. That is if you disregard Brad Richards' 5-on-3 goal that gave Dallas a brief 1-0 lead in their first divisional game against Los Angeles way back on October 26th.

As it was, Los Angeles and Anaheim delivered back to back 5-2 drubbings to put the Stars at a -6 goal differential. And they never really got close to even treading water in this department finishing up with a -20 differential.

So naturally after looking at that stat, I'm sure you'll knee-jerk in pointing your finger of blame at the special teams. And you'd be about half-right.

But not for the reasons you might think.

As you can see, the power play actually did a pretty good job in the 24 divisional games this season, potting 20 for a GF/60 of 8.466. And the PK unit held opposing power play units to a lower GA/60 of 6.892 on 17 goals.

The problem for the special teams was that by the 9th game of the year, the Stars hit what turned out to be the halfway mark for goals at 10. They added two goals against San Jose at home to bump that up to 12. So in their final 14 divisional games, the power play only managed to score eight times.

And the stats also say that the Stars had issues on the power play stopping the other team from scoring short handed the rest of the way as they finished with 5 shorties against. Almost half of those where given up in that infamous 6-3 loss to San Jose on March 15th when they surrendered a pair of empty net 6-on-4 goals.

No, if you want to point a finger of blame at any aspect of the Stars game against their Pacific bunk mates, look no further than the 5-on-5 play.

Yes, that's correct. Dallas was outscored in 5-on-5 situations within the division to the tune of 54-32.

The closest Dallas got to treading water in this category was -3 in their first game against Los Angeles. And that was thanks to a Dane Coo...err...Brandon Segal garbage time goal.

As a point of comparison, the Stars outscored the opposition 118-98 in non-Pacific division games in 5-on-5 situations.

And if these stats don't tell you Dallas needs to improve their play within the division, the fact that they lost the season series to Anaheim, Los Angeles, and Phoenix by a combined 9 points should tell you all you need to know.

And apologies if my mentioning of that stat conjures up memories of Lubomir Visnovsky, Teemu Selanne, and Michal Handzus throwing late regulation daggers into your heart from this past season.