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Dallas Stars Daily Links: The Playoff Picture

Posted on by Tyler Mair

Things aren’t going great for the Dallas Stars right now. They’re currently riding a five game losing streak*, and they’ve failed to score an even-strength goal in their last three. And to make matters worse, they’re doing this all during the final stretch of the regular season:

The losing streak is scary for the Stars, for sure. It’s exposed the team as too reliant on the power play to create offense and as leaning too heavily on Ben Bishop and Anton Khudobin, who (unfortunately for Dallas) cannot also score goals in addition to preventing them… It’s brought back bad memories from March of two years ago, when the Stars blew a playoff spot with an eight-game losing streak.

But before we hit the panic button, it’s worth pointing out that the streak has actually done little to change the Stars’ playoff aspirations. With a six-plus point cushion on both sides, the Stars are more-or-less locked into 3rd in the Central Division (and honestly, they pretty much were before this slump as well).

So at the end of the day, we should get to see some playoff hockey in Dallas. Though if the Stars end up limping into the playoffs, we probably won’t see much of it:

The Stars are lucky there are still 14 games before the postseason to try and round into shape… If this continues, though, and the Stars become more in danger of dropping into a wild card spot, maybe it doesn’t matter whether they finished in third or fourth place. A team playing that poor before the playoffs probably couldn’t be depended on to win any sort of series, no matter the opponent.

You can read more from Matthew DeFranks here.

*That is, unless you use the NHL’s method for calculating losing streaks, in which case the Stars are only on a two game losing streak because they lost to the Edmonton Oilers in overtime. Because that makes sense.

Stars News

Honestly the best thing about Saturday’s loss to the Nashville Predators:

Normally I’d argue that Roman Josi would have been suspended had he not hit Corey Perry, but Zdeno Chara only got a fine for his throat-check earlier this season, so…

Central Census

Half of the Stars’ division rivals took the ice last night:

  • Thanks to their 2-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks, the St. Louis Blues are now 9-1-0 since losing back-to-back games against the Predators. Hmm…. [Second City Hockey]
  • It took overtime to do it, but the Minnesota Wild secured a 5-4 win over the Anaheim Ducks. [NHL]
  • Finally, the Colorado Avalanche stay within striking distance of St. Louis after beating the San Jose Sharks 4-3./

In honor of International Women’s Day, NBC put on an all-female broadcast last night for the Blues-Blackhawks game:

Let’s all take a moment and feel bad for the Colorado media members who can’t… hug the players?

The salary cap could rise substantially next season, except it almost certainly won’t:

The headline is weird (calling them the nine “best” when your criteria narrows it down to nine total is just plain silly), but an informative piece nonetheless:

Finally, need some fantasy advice to help finish our your season? I got you covered:

Talking Points