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Dallas Stars Daily Links: The Defensive Conundrum

Posted on by Adam Gaston

Ohhhh man, I almost don’t want to write about this piece Mike Heika just dropped, but I think I have to.  I’ll keep my commentary to a minimum, because I’m a Links guy and not in the opinion giving business.  I think I know the opinions of most DBD writers on the matter at hand.

The premise being discussed is whether the Stars should be playing and developing their young defenseman now in order to win later on down the road, or whether they should try and play the “more experienced” guys in order to win now.  Hmm…

“You can’t develop five at a time, so we’re trying to work with each one  and develop each one as best we can,” Hitchcock said. “Players who have  the most top end like Lindell are going to get more minutes. We’ve seen  even with players like Klingberg there is still development needed  there. So it’s a big job, trying to get it all to fit together, but we  really think we are making progress with the entire group.”

On the one hand, I can see how difficult a situation this is for the coaching staff.  It is their job to win games, and if they don’t, their jobs are in jeopardy.  So while it may be easy for fans to say play the young guys and develop them for the betterment of the franchise long term, it’s more difficult for a coaching staff to do so.  On the other hand, the logic being used here is kind of a catch-22: you get priority to play by being  a more experienced guy, but you can’t become a more experienced guy without playing.

Another (very sensitive around here) issue is whether to play Jamie Oleksiak or Julius Honka.  I’ll just leave one of Hitch’s comments here to chew on:

“We’re trying to build a team that’s hard to play against, and we feel he [Oleksiak] has a very positive influence on that,” Hitchcock said. “We feel he’s  a player who is getting better daily. Honks is the same way, but there  are just times we feel Oleksiak helps us more.”

See this and more over at Mike’s place. [SportsDayDFW]

Stars Stuff

Congrats to Marc Methot and his wife Ellie!  Do you think the baby is named after the former Stars’ goalie prospect, the sci-fi writer, or just a coincidence?  I’m going with option 3:

In case you need to relive Tuesday night’s beat down, here are Scott Burnside’s 5 Takeaways:

If you have a hankering for some Stars equipment, I have some good news for you:

A little prospect news:

aaaand a little more:

Hopefully this isn’t serious:

Better news:

Scott Burnside has a nice piece about how Ken Hitchcock has remained friends with Blues GM Doug Armstrong even after being canned by him. [NHL]

The Other 30

SHOCKING!: The leader of the Putin Team, Alex Ovechkin, will still support Russian hockey athletes at the Olympics even though they can’t represent Russia. [Sporting News]

Where might John Tavares end up next year?  Here are 8 possibilities:

Luke Fox’s Power Rankings looks at trade candidates for all 31 teams.  To no one’s surprise (and in line with every single DBD contributor’s fake trades a few weeks ago), Jason Spezza is the name being thrown out for the Stars. [SportsNet]

I mean, it’s kind of a bummer the NHL players won’t be there, but a vast majority of athletes I root for in the Olympics are people I’ve never heard of, so what’s a few more?  (Also, I know Wyshynski is pretty polarizing and he’s been on here a lot lately, so I apologize if you aren’t a fan, but he’s been writing like 20 articles a day since he moved to ESPN).

Ugh, the Kings are good:

Rumors: The Sabres and Flyers could be looking to make some moves. [The Hockey News}

Roberto Luongo is out for an extended period of time, which is potentially devastating for the Panthers. [SB Nation]

Yesterday (today when this was written) in NHL history:

Talking Points