It’s been roughly a month since the Dallas Stars took the ice for the first time with this new-look group. New coach, new goalie and plenty of other new faces lined a roster that was heavily boasted as a playoff contender throughout the latter parts of summer.
The early season contests have not lived up to those expectations.
They haven’t been bad, they’ve just been inconsistent. That isn’t totally unexpected with the amount of turnover the team endured. Still, something doesn’t feel quite right about an 8-7-0 record with the group Jim Nill has constructed.
What do some of the numbers say about this team as a whole? Let’s dive in.
All statistics via the great corsica.hockey unless otherwise stated.
5v5 Shot Attempt Differentials
As a team, the Dallas Stars sit 7th in the NHL in their overall adjusted shot attempts share %, currently controlling 52.38% of shot attempts during 5v5 play (as of 11/8). That’s a solid look, so let’s take a gander at how the players on the team are showing up in that department individually.
Some things in the chart above are not particularly surprising.
The top line of Alexander Radulov, Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin are cruising early on. Jason Spezza looks good in this department, as does John Klingberg. None of that is too shocking.
A couple of the pleasant surprises can be found on the blue-line. Both Esa Lindell and Stephen Johns are enjoying strong starts in the shot attempt department and are doing their parts in keeping the puck away from their goaltenders. One thing I’ve noticed watching each of them is it seems as though they are taking chances more often in the offensive zone than they have in the past. Johns looked passive at times last season after turnover-laden games while Lindell seemed to struggle to create much of anything in the opponent’s end of the ice.
I also find Brett Ritchie to be in an interesting place here as he has yet to truly make his mark on the Stars since becoming more of an NHL regular. The shot attempt numbers are impressive but Ritchie will need to show up more frequently on the score sheet to really get fans excited about his game.
As for the not-so-good, look no further than two of the bigger offseason acquisitions by Nill.
I’m not going to go to into too much depth about Martin Hanzal right as his situation and contributions to the Stars is going to require a much deeper look into the numbers and the reasons he was brought to Dallas. His struggles are going to take more than a short paragraph to dive into.
Methot is odd to find in that position. He’s played most of his 5v5 minutes with John Klingberg and is barely in the positive in terms of shot attempt differentials when on the ice with Klingberg.
His other two semi-regular partners have been Johns and Jamie Oleksiak. Both of those pairings fall below the zero mark when looking at shot attempt differentials. I’m certainly not ready to write Methot off on one bad statistic, however. We’ll see how he adjusts moving forward and if that number starts ticking in the positive direction.
5v5 Expected Production
Let’s talk expected goals so we can look at who is translating the above shot attempt differentials into quality chances for the Stars.
I’m not sure I can say anything about Honka here that hasn’t been said already so let’s just leave that one alone and be upset about it together some other time.
Once again, the top line is looking great. No surprises there.
Gemel Smith is in a pretty interesting position, especially considering who he has spent most of his ice time with. That certainly isn’t meant as a slight against Radek Faksa and Tyler Pitlick, just more of an observation of the overall offensive upside of that line. They’re getting into quality areas of the zone and putting pucks towards the net, they just aren’t finding the back of that net often enough.
Let’s look at the same chart, this time colored by their actual goal differentials.
Woah, hello there again Gemel Smith. (I said I’m not talking about Honka.)
For the most part, everyone is roughly where they should be. You’d expect the top-line to improve a little bit in the goal differential column and for Spezza to jump up as well.
The players at the bottom, at this point, probably deserve to be there. Hanzal has been really rough, the group of defensemen containing Methot, Pateryn and Oleksiak have looked off at times. Remi Elie has a ton of compete in him but nothing to really suggest he’s going to start racking up the points.
Of the players near the bottom of that chart, Shore is due. He needs to be shooting a little more often as he has frequently looked to pass and probably to a fault. His shot-share numbers aren’t doing him any favors, so some production offensively would help alleviate a bit of those issues. His goalies would appreciate it.
5v5 Goaltending
The Dallas Stars were a rough goaltending team at 5v5 last season (7th-worst in the NHL in 5v5 save-percentage). Ben Bishop is the guy they targeted to help turn that around. How is that looking so far?
While the bottom-left quadrant of the above graph isn’t where you want to be, Lehtonen is at least somewhat close to the “good” side. Bishop, so far, is saving roughly what is expected of him to save at 5v5 this season. He hasn’t been overly spectacular, but he’s been solid overall. (Just for “fun”, that’s Niemi in the top-left. Ouch)
The Stars are going to need more game-stealing performances, however, if depth scoring continues to be an issue (more on that another time).
Special Teams
We’ve arrived at the Stars’ time to shine. Let us bask in their glory.
The Stars (and the Leafs) are exactly where you want to find yourself if you were wandering around this chart for whatever reason. They need to start drawing more penalties so they can continue to punish teams with the man advantage.
The penalty kill has been special as well, especially in games where they didn’t see Patrick Laine and the Winnipeg Jets.
Special teams is keeping this team around the playoff bubble while Ken Hitchcock attempts to sort out the play at even strength.
Has the even strength play been horrendous? No. But scoring talent isn’t exactly riddled through the lineup like it was in 2015-16. They’re going to need to find some answers quickly in order to start stringing some wins together.