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Dallas Stars’ Porous Defense Shows Again in 6-3 Jets Win

22 goals against in their last 11 periods.

On a day when the Chicago Blackhawks acquired Andrew Ladd to bolster their already iron clad, playoff-experienced championship shoe-in team, the Dallas Stars played the hapless, sinking, demoralized Winnipeg Jets

And surrendered six goals. Again. It’s the third time in the team’s last four games they’ve surrendered at least six goals.

Huh?

And you who have paid your hard earned money to watch these guys play on home ice have now witnessed 21 goals against in their last four home games at the American Airlines Center in a 1-3-0 stretch.

Woof.

Math and 100 years of mathematic evidence says the Dallas Stars will probably make the playoffs, but the comparisons to what a successful playoff team typically represents end there as this descent into the undeniable statistical basement continues.

Scoring three goals per game without seeming failure is a trick that so many would enjoy emulating- But these guys can’t keep the puck out of their own net lately. The same group that showed it could for three months in the fall of 2015. The exact same group.

Tonight it started late in the first period. The Stars looked to be off to a good start with an 11-4 shot advantage and a disheartened Jets team. How could they not be? But they had nothing to lose, and played like it- Taking chances others wouldn’t.

It translated to three goals in five minutes- Essentially losing the Stars the game. Blake Wheeler, Tobias Enstrom and Jacob Trouba would score three times in 4:54 to end the first period and send Dallas into a world of hurt.

Add it to the three-goal period against in Phoenix. Add it to the Bruins hanging six unanswered on them here in this space last Saturday. When things are going wrong for the Stars, they really go wrong- That might be the biggest takeaway- But I digress…

Hope would spring eternal in the second period but only because it was the Jets. They take penalties. It’s what they do. The Stars used a couple of good bounces to score two quickly on the job and make things interesting again, though afterward there was nothing to be seen at even-strength.

The Jets, without hope or even possibility of playoffs, played a spirited game just for the sake of spoiler. And though Dallas was gifted a freebee early in the third on a goal that resulted from what was anything but a “scoring chance”, it wouldn’t last as the defense continued its futility.

Armia took his abysmal 39% Corsi rating to a slightly less horrible number tonight at 43%- Yet recorded three points. Stars goaltending was not always as good as it could have been.

St. Louis lost. The Blackhawks “lost” (traded for Ladd, not really a loss). The Stars could not take advantage, and home ice gets that much further away with only a smattering of games left and the pressure ratcheting up.

Next up it’s the New York Rangers. Who have allowed two or fewer goals in eight of their last eleven games. That sounds like a fantasy at this point, for Dallas.

The Stars have 20 games left. To find 18-20 more points. To find the recipe for a low scoring game. To find a few teams that will have allowed more goals than have this Dallas team- As they pile up, the Stars have now allowed (far) more goals than has any other Western Conference playoff team at 178. Below them? The Flames and Oilers.

See you Saturday? I guess?

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