What do the numbers say about the Stars’ triumphs and troubles so far? Let’s take a deep dive.
The Dallas Stars season is underway, and a new season is a chance to form a bunch of new opinions about a team we’re otherwise familiar with. The Stars are off to a strong start with a record of 5-2-0, but beneath their overall record there have been highs (the penalty kill, Jake Oettinger) and lows (the power play).
Seven games is not much to go on in the way of meaningful trends. All the usual early-season disclaimers about small sample sizes absolutely apply here. So, keeping in mind that these stats may be closer to trivia than meaningful and borrowing a format from The Athletic‘s Dom Luszczyszyn, here are 9 stats that caught my eye in from the first seven games of the season.
All statistics cited in this article are derived from Evolving-Hockey’s Play-by-Play query tool and NHL EDGE unless otherwise noted and are current through October 22.
1 – Goals From Defensemen
So far this season, the Stars have gotten a just a single goal from the backend: Thomas Harley’s late goal against the Buffalo Sabres. That leaves them in a five-way tie for third lowest in league, ahead of just the New York Islanders and the San Jose Sharks. Defensemen scoring is not necessarily an indicator of team success – five of the top ten teams in defenseman scoring missed the playoffs last year – but this is a significant drop-off for a Stars team that finished middle of the pack last season (14th).
One could also refer to the number of Stars defensemen who have registered a point, as Harley once again stands out as the only defenseman with any offensive touch so far. There is some puck luck at play here: As a group, the Stars defense corps has accumulated 2.3 individual expected goals, which ranks 23rd, with Miro Heiskanen leading the way with 0.7. The goals will come, but the forwards will probably drive most of the offense for the Stars this season.
1.54 – Goals Against Rate Per 60 Minutes Shorthanded
The Stars boast the best penalty kill in the league by goals against rate, allowing just 1.54 goals against. With Colin Blackwell’s shorthanded goal against the Washington Capitals, the Stars have an even goal differential shorthanded, also the best in the league.
The underlying statistics support the Stars’ ranking as well, though the numbers aren’t as gaudy. By expected goals against rate, the Stars rank 10th best at 7.34 xGA/60 (score and venue adjusted). So the penalty kill may not continue to be as good as it has been to date, but it should still be expected to be a strength for this team. One encouraging note on this front, however, is Jake Oettinger. Oettinger has historically been a strong shorthanded goalie, posting a positive goals saved above expected (GSAx) in each of the last two seasons, even despite struggling overall last year.
02:42:12 – Time Spent Leading
Not surprisingly, a team with a 5-2-0 record has spent a significant amount of team leading. The Stars’ 02:42:12 lands just outside the top 10 for total time leading. More impressive is the 01:04:43 they’ve spent trailing (seventh best), a number largely inflated by their most recent loss to Buffalo. In total, the ratio of the Stars’ time spent leading to time spent trailing is 71.5%, sixth highest in the league. This is something to keep in mind when looking at score and venue adjusted statistics early in the season, which are based on a much larger sample size with a smaller variation in the range of outcomes and therefore may not capture the full extent of score effects in small samples.
3.34 – Goals For Per 60 Minutes on the Power Play
The power play: a source of much frustration in the early season. The Stars’ power play has been particularly impotent so far, scoring just two goals and sporting the fifth worst goals for rate in the NHL.
More concerning than the lack of goals, however, is that this is what the Stars have earned so far. While their expected goals for rate is over three goals better at 6.42 xGF/60 (score and venue adjusted), that still ranks sixth lowest in the league. In fact, the Stars’ power play fares similarly poorly by every shot metric available, whether it’s Corsi, Fenwick, or shots on goal. Although they have been a bit unlucky when it comes to converting their chances into goals so far, this has not been a dangerous power play by any measure.
3.52 – 20+ MPH Burst Rate Per 60 Minutes
The Stars were not a fast team last season, ranking just ninth in 20+ MPH Bursts according to NHL EDGE. However, through seven games, the Stars have been even slower this season despite losing two of the slowest skaters in the NHL last season in Joe Pavelski and Ryan Suter. Of the 18 skaters on the Stars who logged significant minutes last season, 14 have seen drops in the burst rate, though for a few (Logan Stankoven, Miro Heiskanen) the difference has been very minor. As it stands, their 3.52 20+ MPH bursts/60 ranks fifth lowest, and they are one of just two teams that have yet to record a single burst above 22 MPH.
13 – Posts Hit by Opponents
In the season opener, the Nashville Predators hit an eye-opening five posts. The New York Islanders followed that up with three of their own the next game. If that seems like a lot, it’s because it is: Those two games make up more than half of the posts the Stars’ opponents have hit through seven games.
Are all these posts a cause for concern, though? Individually, Jake Oettinger has allowed 12 posts so far, one behind Igor Shesterkin’s league-leading 13 and just 3 ahead of fellow $66 million man Jeremy Swayman’s fifth-place 9. If you have to be lucky to be good, Oettinger has been both so far.
On the flip side, the Stars have only hit three posts of their own, the fewest of any team in the league.
14 – Different Forward Lines Combinations
One of the storylines of the early season has been the slow drip of injuries, with the Stars not dressing their expected starting lineup until the seventh game of the season. This has been reflected in the number of line combinations and defensive pairings Pete DeBoer has deployed so far this season at 5-on-5.
This may have something to do with how disjointed the Stars have looked at times this season. For comparison, through the first seven games of the 2023-24 season, Pete DeBoer only used 8 different forward lines and 3 defensive pairs. Of course, this is a bit of a chicken-egg situation: Is the poor play due to the shuffled lines, or are the lines being shuffled due to poor play? At the moment, I’d lean toward it being a bit of both, with injuries forcing the initial shuffling, and poor play prompting continued rearrangement as the coaching staff tries to find the optimal line combinations. Whether the lines stabilize or not will be something to keep an eye on as the Stars get healthy this season.
28 – Average Age Weighted by Ice Time
The offseason saw the departures of Pavelski and Suter, two of the oldest players in the league. In their place, the Stars have iced a trio of rookie forwards and brought in defensemen who, although not young, are also not pushing 40. As a result, their average age has dropped almost a year and a half, despite relatively little roster turnover. In a league that has been a young man’s league for awhile now, the Stars are much more in line with the trend than they were a year ago.
40% – Faceoff Percentage on the Power Play
I’ll wrap up with one more stat from the power play. The Stars currently rank dead last in the NHL in faceoff percentage when up a man, with just a 40% win rate. As with most early season statistics, this is an unsustainable rate, but it does highlight something else the Stars have struggled with: offensive zone time.
According to NHL EDGE, the Stars are a bottom 10 team (9th worst) in offensive zone time percentage on the power play. While the importance of faceoffs is often overstated, the Stars’ poor performance on the dot with the man advantage is almost certainly a contributing factor to their power play woes. The Stars have several players who have been strong at faceoffs, so expect their zone time to increase as their faceoff percentage reverts to the mean.