Dallas Stars

[NoWayOut]

Why is it that friends and family who aren't hockey fans always wait until game time to bug you? Missed the Eakin goal, waiting for it to come up on replay. Good hustle and drive to the net by Eaves on that second goal to get his own rebound and put over Pickard.

And of course only Lindback can get burned for a goal on shot that came straight down the goal line from his right. He drifted forward about a foot anticipating where Briere was going and lets one in off his ribs as Briere slams on the brakes and shoots. And raise your hand if you were at all surprised that Daley has his back turned to a wide open Iggy, tracking a player without the puck, on the second goal off another neutral zone turnover sets up an odd man rush. You in the back, put your hand down, I'm not the hot dog vendor and you weren't surprised.

Sorry Larry haven't really noticed Barrie too much. What I've seen both Barrie and Klingberg have looked solid. Klinger with a good bounce back after a rough night last night.

On the Rynnas watch, the Texas Stars are up 4-3 against the Iowa Wild early in the third.

[NoWayOut]

Whew, that was ugly. The fact that Dallas played last night, and is not acclimated to the thin air in Denver was on full display there in the second. The whole team just looks gassed.

They got out-shot 17-5 in that period, after being out-shot 16-8 in the first. Lindback has done better than I would have thought if you'd told me he would be facing 33 shots. Still that Briere goal should never have gotten by him. And he has to get at least one of those two, either Iggy or Tanguay, or both. Rynnas got the win 4-3, ugly, but that sort of puts the onus on Anders to bow up if he wants this job.

Barrie and Klingberg at this point isn't much of a fair comparison given how fatigued the Stars are all up and down the lineup. They are just flat out getting run over at this point and it's hard to feel like their going to turn it around. We'll see, but they were looking flat at the end of that period.

[NoWayOut]

This has devolved into a complete turkey shoot for Colorado. Shot advantage of 41-17 for the Avs.

[NoWayOut]

If there was a single positive to take out of that one, I'd love to know what it is. 0-6-2 in the division and now the Stars are the only team in the Central without a win in the division.

[larrylintz]

Love your photos after horrible Stars' performances. Thanks for your updates. So you don't think i should take too much from Barrie vastly outperforming Kling last nite? I see that Dallas has no back to backs and plays on road vs toronto and Detroit and then at homesaturday against a montreal team that will have played the nite before. Avs play Montreal at home monday, then calgary and edmonchuk thursday and friday. Would be hard to sit Barrie given he’s now tied for 5th in league in scoring. May all be moot if Letang’s injury isn’t serious, which i’m reading now.

[NoWayOut]

If Letang is out I'd go Barrie. Much as I'd love to tell you play Klingberg I think Barrie is the way to go here.

[NoWayOut]

A few links to dissections of that turd of a game last night....

-Daryl Reaugh's post-game vlog...

http://video.stars.nhl.com/videocent...687209&lang=en

-Mike Heika on whether all the personnel juggling is feeding the inconsistency.....

http://starsblog.dallasnews.com/2014...-changes.html/

The Stars are 0-4-0 in the 2nd game of back-to-backs this season alone, and here's a biggie, the Stars have only won 8 2nd games in the last 42 opportunities. That is pathetic.

Brandon Worley at Defending Big D brought up a good point, that being maybe it's time to say that these struggling Stars are the true Dallas Stars for 2014-15. The ugly reality is this team was likely never as good as the expectations placed on it prior to the season. These kinds of games, all the ugly play and mental breakdowns, are who the Stars truly are. I like to think not but the wreckage left in their wake as we close out November sure points in the other direction. There are rough patches and struggles for all teams including the contenders. Thing is the contenders and even merely good teams find a way to correct them fairly quickly. The Stars aren't finding the answers, and it's on going, night after night. As Brandon said in his short blog post, these issues even raise their heads when the Stars win. Something is fundamentally flawed with this team. It's not just the horrid defense or questionable goaltending.

[The Comish]

Is this a case of a team looking good on paper, but unable to translate it into wins? Man, to me, Dallas should be much better than their record indicates. A very good goalie, depth at center, plus Benn. The only questionable thing on paper was that defence and offensively, they had Goligoski, who has shown he could at least put up some points.

I love Jim Nill and how active he is in trying to better this team. Maybe it's just a question of chemistry and/or coming together as a team. Damn Western Conference is tough.

[VincentVega]

Hey NoWayOut, I noticed Goligoski on the top PP with Klingberg. Do you think he sticks there or is Ruff to unpredictable?

[larrylintz]

Is this a case of a team looking good on paper, but unable to translate it into wins? Man, to me, Dallas should be much better than their record indicates. A very good goalie, depth at center, plus Benn. The only questionable thing on paper was that defence and offensively, they had Goligoski, who has shown he could at least put up some points.

I love Jim Nill and how active he is in trying to better this team. Maybe it's just a question of chemistry and/or coming together as a team. Damn Western Conference is tough.

Your team's struggles remind me of Senators last year, with porous defence and a fire wagon approach to offence that included lots of risky plays, epitomized by Spezza's wonderful passes that sometimes led to highlight goals and other times resulted in 3/1 and 2/1 breaks the other way. NoWayOut has made an eloquent case that the problems go a lot deeper than Spezza acquisition (and I should add it sounds like you have some defence men as inept in their own zone as Jared Cowan was last year) but I'm just putting that out there.

[NoWayOut]

Is this a case of a team looking good on paper, but unable to translate it into wins? Man, to me, Dallas should be much better than their record indicates. A very good goalie, depth at center, plus Benn. The only questionable thing on paper was that defence and offensively, they had Goligoski, who has shown he could at least put up some points.

I love Jim Nill and how active he is in trying to better this team. Maybe it's just a question of chemistry and/or coming together as a team. Damn Western Conference is tough.

Your team's struggles remind me of Senators last year, with porous defence and a fire wagon approach to offence that included lots of risky plays, epitomized by Spezza's wonderful passes that sometimes led to highlight goals and other times resulted in 3/1 and 2/1 breaks the other way. NoWayOut has made an eloquent case that the problems go a lot deeper than Spezza acquisition (and I should add it sounds like you have some defence men as inept in their own zone as Jared Cowan was last year) but I'm just putting that out there.

On paper this is a team that should be battling for a 7th or 8th seed, even with the suspect D. But so many of the D have regressed from last year, Daley, Jo. Benn, Goli, Dillon before he left. That's not to say Daley and Jordie were ever all that good, frankly they aren't, but still they showed that they can play better than this. Same for Goli. Lindback gets all the focus as far as the goalie issues are concerned, but even Kari is off this year. The biggest thing I see with him is rebound control. Kari let's out some juicy, meaty rebounds, which when coupled with D that can't cover their own ass with both hands ends up with easy goals for the opposition.

These guys are also believers in the old axiom it's better to give then to receive. Unfortunately they can't quite grasp the concept that while that's fine for charity it sucks for the game of hockey. Sixteen turnover against the Avs, 16! And it's a recurring theme, win or lose, they just can't hang on to the puck. They constantly over-skate pucks, fall on their ass with the puck on their stick, blow a tire on wind-up for a shot. It's like a Three Stooges routine at times.

They still can't figure out the b2b thing either. I did love one thing Ruff said to the media Saturday night after the loss, he's sick and tired of hearing the damned excuses about those second games of b2b's. Think about it, the Stars are 8-34 in the last 42 back-end of b2b. That covers roughly 3-4 seasons, so they're averaging a record of 2-10 each season on the second games of b2b's. I'll refine that a bit later on when I have more time, but even generalizing like that shows how putrid they've been.

And quite a bit of that stems from mental mistakes. I love Jamie Benn, but like a lot of a fans I'm getting fed up with hearing after every game, win or lose, we need to be better mentally, or, we just weren't ready mentally. Really? Really? We're at the 1/4 pole and you guys still can't get it together mentally. That's inexcusable. If they can extricate their heads for their asses maybe we won't have so many breakdowns on defense, fewer turnovers, on and on. That's the thing that's driving fans crazy, how hard can this be to fix the mental errors? They keep saying they need to look in the mirror. Yeah, fine, but they need to open their eyes when they do so.

As Daryl Reaugh said in his vlog after that game Saturday, everybody from Nill on down to the players need to do some serious soul-searching to find the answers, because this team really shouldn't be this bad. And here we all thought they had found rock bottom after the Canes loss.

[NoWayOut]

Hey NoWayOut, I noticed Goligoski on the top PP with Klingberg. Do you think he sticks there or is Ruff to unpredictable?

He was out there with Klingberg on the first unit. Ruff's just too quick to ditch that arrangement, 3F/2D. He'll go to it, and it works and looks better than that infernal 'supernova', but the first game that 2D look doesn't score on the PP he ditches it. In my opinion I think if Goli doesn't pick up that first goal of the season the night before, Ruff doesn't put him out there on PP1. We'll see what happens tomorrow night, but I wouldn't get my hopes up too high that Goli will gain much traction until he goes on a tear.

Guess that's a long winded way of saying Ruff's too damn unpredictable.

[NoWayOut]

Lindy Ruff can be the most perplexing individual. He's been wanting to get Hemsky going all season. He finally got his wish, so you would have thought the night after finally denting the goal scorers column Ruff would have left Hemmer with Spezza or moved him up with Benn and Sequin. No, his reward for getting his first Stars goal.....Horcoff and Moen as line mates. Now after the Debacle in Denver, Hemsky got to skate with the dynamic duo in practice today. From Mike Heika's He Said It column today....

Could it help putting him with Benn and Seguin?

“I think so. The last time they were together, he had some great opportunities. Again, I thought he got too caught up in the fact he didn’t finish. I think if he does the right things and he’s with those guys, the finish will be there.”

So why not do that against the Avs? Ah well I bring that up just because it's one of those totally baffling lines of thought by Lindy. Some of his decision making is behind all this mess.

Moving on here were the full lines from practice

Benn - Seguin - Hemsky
Cole - Spezza - Eaves
Roussel - Eakin - Garbutt
Horcoff - Fiddler - Moen/Sceviour

Daley - Demers
Benn - Oleksiak
Jokipakka - Klingberg

First off Goli was out nursing a leg injury after taking a shot against the Avs. That's why Klinger was with Jokipakka most likely. Klingberg has been paired exclusively with Goligoski so far. I really like that pairing, Jyrki and Klinger, what I don't like is Jordie ahead of them on the second pair. Lindy doesn't get it. Jordie was actually relatively useful against Colorado(as useful as Jordie can be anyway) partly due to having fresh legs after his benching, but more importantly he was on the third pairing with lesser ice time and a more sheltered role. Now Ruff wants to put him in a larger role where he's proven he'll shit the bed. Nothing set in stone yet, so maybe he won't be in that role come tomorrow night. Daley...well what the hell I guess better him than Jordie there. Still Daley is someone who's time in Dallas really needs to come to an end. He's going to be an albatross around their necks while he's there. Hopefully Goli will be able to go against the Leafs so Ruff can/will move Klinger up and Daley and Benn down.

Speaking of Klingberg, he looked like he was going to have a nice little bounce back game during the first period but that faded away along with the rest of the Stars in the final 40 minutes. That's two games in a row where he hasn't played up to the lofty standards he set in the first eight games. Not to worry though, he still looks like the best defenseman out there for Dallas and games and stretches like this are expected especially for a rookie. And a rookie with so little experience with the North American game at that. He's still a must own player but these last two games have kind of driven a spike through the hysteria, which frankly benefits all parties in the long run.

I guess that...whatever the heck it was Saturday night bought Lindback a stay of execution. Ruff did say afterward in his post game comments that Lindback was way down the list of people to be scrutinized. It still bears watching to see whether or not Rynnas gets the call in the coming days and weeks but so far I haven't heard a single peep about Rynnas to Dallas.

[mister_mcgoo]

Stars are 5-4-1 in their last 10, 30 GF, 34 GA

[blayze]

How long has Hemsky been skating with Benn/Seguin? Any chance that sticks?

Hemsky's been toiling away on our leagues wire for a long time now... I'm wondering if he's worth a flier although I'd have to drop Brayden Schenn for him which my gut tells me would be a mistake.