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Dallas Stars Daily Links: Weird Science

A.k.a. projecting the Stars’ 2019-20 season using #fancystats. Plus, the Stars beat the Wild last night, an interview with Colton Point, and more.

There have been countless pieces talking about the Dallas Stars’ upcoming season these past few months. But now is the time to do it with science!!!

Dom Luszczyszyn of the Athletic has the Stars projected to be the 11th best team in the NHL this season according to his analytics model. That’s all thanks to a star-studded core, though depth — as always — is a slight problem:

The team’s seven player core (Seguin, Radulov, Benn, Pavelski, Klingberg, Heiskanen, Bishop) is worth 17.6 wins combined which is behind only the league’s three best teams. What separates Dallas from that group and being a top five or top 10 team themselves is the supporting cast, a problem that’s been plaguing the Stars for the past few uneven seasons.

There are many positives to take away from the piece, but personally my favorite is Luszczyszyn’s glowing review of John Klingberg, because who doesn’t love it when Klingberg gets recognition?

To date, Klingberg really hasn’t received the love he should be getting with his highest Norris finish being sixth in 2017-18. He was arguably the league’s best defenseman that year, at least according to my model, finishing 0.8 wins higher than the eventual winner, Victor Hedman... The knock on him is his defensive ability, which doesn’t seem at all fair as his performance there has been above average in back-to-back seasons all while playing tough minutes. That’s to go with elite offense. My model considers him to be a top five defenseman.

You can read (much) more from Luszczyszyn’s piece here.

Stars Stories

The Stars beat the Minnesota Wild last night! Here’s what Justin Dowling had to say about the game and his OT goal:

And here’s the other goal scorer, Roope Hintz:

Miro Heiskanen should be better this season. That should excite Stars fans and terrify everyone else:

Sean Shapiro has been interviewing each of the Stars’ goalies under contract. Next up is Colton Point:

Around the League

Ex-Star Jason Spezza opens up about his quest for the Stanley Cup:

The NHLPA declined to reopen the CBA, but was it the right decision for the players?

Down Goes Brown concludes his “bizzaro-meter” rankings for the offseason, and you honestly shouldn’t be surprised by the winner:

Finally, fantasy season is right around the corner. Here are some dark horse candidates to keep an eye on:

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