Dallas Stars Prospects: How Have The Dallas Stars Prospects Performed So Far This Season?

As the NHL enters its All Star Break it is a time for reflection not only on the Dallas Stars season but also how the organisation has faired overall. The Dallas Stars have cultivated, even with high profiled trades in recent years, a good prospect pool that probably ranks in the top half of the NHL.

This can be seen through the arrival, albeit in short stints in some circumstances, of rookies at the NHL level. John Klingberg, Curtis McKenzie, Brett Ritchie and Jyrki Jokipakka have all played multiple games and have, mostly, performed well in their stints in Dallas.

How about the rest of the Dallas Stars prospect pool? How are those prospects outside of the cusp of making the NHL doing. Who is having notable seasons, whether for good or bad reasons, and who are meeting or not meeting expectations.

Below are the tables that have been used for the weekly prospect update. These give the raw numbers for each player in their respective league.

North American Junior Leagues and European Leagues

North American Professional Leagues:

X indicates that a player is currently with the Dallas Stars

Its main flaw is that it doesn’t take into account the various difficulties of each league. The Liiga and the SHL are tougher leagues than the Canadian Major Juniors. The raw numbers don’t help compare players from different leagues. For that a formula known as NHLe (NHL Equivalency) is needed.

This is calculated relatively simply and as follows:

[(Total Points ÷ Games Played) x 82] x League NHLe Value = NHLe

Each league has been given an NHLe Value depending upon the difficulty of the league. These values are below:

Not every league has a figure calculated for the NHLe. The Allsvenska in Sweden doesn’t have a figure calculated which means that there aren’t figures for Niklas Hansson or Emil Molin. Sample size is also an issue, the larger the sample size the more accurate it is likely to be. However it can still be useful to compare players from different leagues.

The numbers below are accurate as of the morning of Thursday 22nd January.

European and Junior Prospects

AHL

The numbers that strike out the most are Cole Ully’s and Esa Lindell’s. Cole Ully has really put on a clinic in the WHL this season, his numbers are very promising for a prospect who will be joining the Texas Stars at the end of this season or for the beginning of the next.

Esa Lindell’s season in the Liiga is put into perspective using the NHLe formula, being the top defenseman out of the Dallas Stars prospects and those signed to contracts in Texas. He’s solidly in the top ten overall. It’ll be very interesting to see how he handles the AHL and how close the organisation believes he is to the NHL.

Would remaining in the Liiga help his development better than heading to the AHL or is the most important thing to see how he handles the smaller ice surface in North America?

Despite his inconsistent playing time in the SHL, Ludwig Bystrom doesn’t appear too badly when his season totals are looked at using NHLe. With more ice time, and more consistent ice time, in Sweden he could be further up those tables. It hasn’t been a great situation for him but hopefully when he joins the Texas Stars he’ll get the ice time he needs to develop further.

Devin Shore’s slow start hasn’t punished him too much and he remains one of the top forward prospects the Dallas Stars have. It’ll be interesting to see how he adjusts to the AHL and whether he continues to be a talented playmaker at the level. More talented team mates should see him scoring and assisting more next year.

Brett Pollock’s numbers in his post draft year are about where I’d expect them to be. He’ll likely move up this list in his final year in the WHL next season when he should dominate. He’s been playing the top line for the Oil Kings and leads them in points this season.

Looking at the numbers from the AHL there are definitely players who are not performing as it would be hoped. Matej Stransky, after tearing apart the WHL, has had a forgettable season in the AHL so far with only five points through 39 games. Radek Faksa and Taylor Peters have low numbers too but have mostly been used in defensive situations. Still, those numbers are less than impressive.

The goaltenders in the entire organisation, from Dallas all the way down to the juniors, appear to have had troubling starts to their seasons. Jack Campbell, Henri Kiviaho and Maxime Lagace have all been backups in their respective teams and have not really had good numbers so far.

Philippe Desrosiers’ numbers, even adjusting for the QMJHL, aren’t as good as it would be hoped. He has improved in recent weeks so it is possible that his numbers will end up at a good level for his last year in the QMJHL. Brent Moran was stuck for a long time trying to bail out a Niagara IceDogs team that kept landing him in trouble. He’s still inconsistent but that isn’t unusual for a young goalie.

Overall, its been a mixed season for many of the Dallas Stars prospects. The top prospects in the Juniors, Europe and the NCAA are performing well, though not at the level it was hoped at the beginning of the season. There is still time for them to improve and this topic will surely be returned to at the ends of their regular and post seasons in a few months time.