Dallas Stars Daily Links: State of the Nill Union

Happy Monday, everyone! Next season is still very unkown for Dallas Stars fans. Will the team finally make the leap and be a threat in the Western Conference, or will they remain mired in mediocrity and battling for a playoff spot? A lot of that comes down to new head coach Jim Montgomery’s style of play:

“I believe you don’t give up any easy ice, it doesn’t matter where the puck is,” Montgomery told The Athletic. “I want to challenge every puck with a good angle speed and body on top of it and layers in behind it. So, the layers is similar to last year. I think how quickly we pressure pucks is going to be different. I don’t think guys are going to be able to stay out on the ice as long as they did last year — not that they stayed long last year, because they had to work last year and they did a great job. I mean, the defensive numbers speak for themselves but we, as a team, are going to try and aggressively cause more turnovers this year. I guess that will be the difference and that’s all over the ice. It’s in the D zone from what I’ve seen, it’s on rush defense in particular, the forecheck is probably going to be very close.”

That was an incredibly long quote and I don’t want to steal too much of Sean Shapiro’s thunder, so I’ll leave it at that. See the rest of the article at Sean’s usual digs. [The Athletic]

Stars Stuff

Hmmm...I don’t think that this was the issue. I believe “greasy” was the word du jour last year:

Albin Eriksson gets a little less love than some of the other Stars’ prospects, but he (hopefully) has a bright future as well:

Mike Heika caught up with Ben Bishop and discussed being tall and having a baby:

The face graphics are on point (I guess?), but man, those are like JJ Watt shoulders:

Around the League

The NHL Network put together a little #MDK primer for you:

The Stars didn’t really have any prominent rookies last year, so nothing to worry about here:

Strong disagree with this list:

Karlsson updates:

This is big if true: