Dallas Stars

[NoWayOut]

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.

Tonight will be only the second game all season where he's been on the top line. Ruff has no patience with lines other than Eakin's it seems. Benn and Sequin have had a revolving door on their RW or C depending on where Sequin lines up. That's one component in the Stars issues, no consistency from Ruff with lines. If a line doesn't go bonkers he breaks it up immediately. Eakin has been going great with Benn and Sequin, but he only lasts a game or two and Ruff splits them again. Spezza's line has been even more schizophrenic with the wingers than the top line. At some point you have to let them play together for a stretch to get some chemistry going. Yeah changes have to be made from time to time based on performance, game context, injuries, etc, but Ruff seems a bit quicker on the trigger than most coaches.

From Mike Heika here are the projected lines for tonight....


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

Daley - Demers
Goligoski - Klingberg
Jokipakka/Jo. Benn/Oleksiak <-- One of these three will scratch but no word on who it will be.

Lehtonen

As I said yesterday Lindy is a most perplexing person to try and figure out. In today's practice, Heika reports that the top power play unit was Benn, Sequin, Spezza....Ok nothing unusual there but wait for it.....the other two were Demers and Eaves. Say what!?!? That makes no sense whatsoever. Yes, the last couple of games with Benn, Sequin, Spezza, Klingberg and Roussel/Goli didn't produce a PP goal. Ok so the fix is to bring those two up? Neither Demers nor Eaves are top unit guys, heck Eaves isn't even a second unit guy in my opinion. I can't even begin to explain the rational for that. Let's hope that this is just a bit of experimenting in practice and we won't see this grouping in live game action. Unfortunately though Ruff has a proven history this season with following through and using the PP groupings from practice in games.

[NoWayOut]

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

You look at that and say, well not too bad, they're .500. It's the absolutely gutting manner in which the losses have come. Getting dominated at home by the Canes, fighting back only to collapse in the final two minutes against the Wild, and being totally and thoroughly taken out behind the shed by a very mediocre at best Avs team. And here we are into December and still not a single win in the division(0-6-3) and only 3 out of a possible 18 points so far against the Central. 0-4-0 in the second game of B2B while being out-scored 22-10 in those games. Averaging 5.5 goals against in those games, horrid. And aside from possibly the shutout against the Kings, it's hard to find a win where they looked dominate for the full 60.

This season is shaking out, from a points perspective, much like last season. They're within 2-4 points of where they were this time last year, but no way will another 91 point season get them in. Time is running out to get this righted and still be in contention for a wild card spot. As tough as the Central is and in particular the top three, it's hard to see them getting into the playoffs the easy way, by being one of the top three.

[Instant Karma]

...
Ruff has no patience with lines other than Eakin's it seems. Benn and Sequin have had a revolving door on their RW or C depending on where Sequin lines up. That's one component in the Stars issues, no consistency from Ruff with lines. If a line doesn't go bonkers he breaks it up immediately. Eakin has been going great with Benn and Sequin, but he only lasts a game or two and Ruff splits them again. Spezza's line has been even more schizophrenic with the wingers than the top line. At some point you have to let them play together for a stretch to get some chemistry going. Yeah changes have to be made from time to time based on performance, game context, injuries, etc, but Ruff seems a bit quicker on the trigger than most coaches.
...

You reckon Ruff's starting to feel the heat, NWO?

[NoWayOut]

You reckon Ruff's starting to feel the heat, NWO?

In an on the hot seat sense, nah. Jim Nill is by all accounts a very patient man so Ruff is safe. No doubt though he's being challenged daily by Nill, Lites, and Gaglardi to get this fixed while there's still something to possibly salvage this season.

[Instant Karma]

In an on the hot seat sense, nah. Jim Nill is by all accounts a very patient man so Ruff is safe. No doubt though he's being challenged daily by Nill, Lites, and Gaglardi to get this fixed while there's still something to possibly salvage this season.

Yeah, I tend to wonder how patient Gaglardi will be. He's the wild-card in this deck, if you ask me.

If only Joe hadn't gone and got rid of Tippett, huh? (facepalm)

[VincentVega]

You reckon Ruff's starting to feel the heat, NWO?

Ruff's starting to throw shit at the wall and hoping it sticks.

[NoWayOut]

Yeah, I tend to wonder how patient Gaglardi will be. He's the wild-card in this deck, if you ask me.

If only Joe hadn't gone and got rid of Tippett, huh? (facepalm)

With all three, from Gaglardi down to Nill accountability is key. I get the sense from Gaglardi he's not a meddlesome owner, he's not rash, and mediocrity won't be tolerated. He'll give his people a reasonable amount of time to raise the team back up to where they were in the Modano glory days but he won't let it drag out and stagnate like the situation in Edmonton. A good way to look at it is, he's the anti-Katz. At least that's my take from what I've read about him.

[NoWayOut]

Ruff's starting to throw shit at the wall and hoping it sticks.

I'd love to get Bomm's take. Was Lindy so impatient during his time in Buffalo? If so was it a constant throughout his tenure, or something that started towards the end?

[mister_mcgoo]

You look at that and say, well not too bad, they're .500. It's the absolutely gutting manner in which the losses have come. Getting dominated at home by the Canes, fighting back only to collapse in the final two minutes against the Wild, and being totally and thoroughly taken out behind the shed by a very mediocre at best Avs team. And here we are into December and still not a single win in the division(0-6-3) and only 3 out of a possible 18 points so far against the Central. 0-4-0 in the second game of B2B while being out-scored 22-10 in those games. Averaging 5.5 goals against in those games, horrid. And aside from possibly the shutout against the Kings, it's hard to find a win where they looked dominate for the full 60.

This season is shaking out, from a points perspective, much like last season. They're within 2-4 points of where they were this time last year, but no way will another 91 point season get them in. Time is running out to get this righted and still be in contention for a wild card spot. As tough as the Central is and in particular the top three, it's hard to see them getting into the playoffs the easy way, by being one of the top three.

The Stars are dead last in the league in the number of goals they give up per game, worse than Edmonton, worse than Buffalo...no team has ever been able to make that work for them

[27Blue]

Management in Dallas are realists. They knew a playoff spot would be a fight, and it is turning out exactly that way. They have an abysmal blue line and no depth up front. I would think this team is meeting the realistic expectatins of theor coach and management. Ruff's job is trying to get more out of them and he is trying to get a little more consistency. The media and meesage board hockey fans were the ones expecting more.

[NoWayOut]

The Stars are dead last in the league in the number of goals they give up per game, worse than Edmonton, worse than Buffalo...no team has ever been able to make that work for them

25th in the league in shots against. They're among the worst in terms of possession too. Not sure the exact numbers on the possession front, I need to find a good site with advanced stats and a good explanation of them, but even without geek level stats the eye says they are putrid in that area.

[VincentVega]

Whatever their problems are, I'm not sure how putting Eaves on the top PP unit will help any of them.

[NoWayOut]

How fitting....I was outside watching my dog lay a steaming pile in the yard while at the same time Daley and Co. lay a steaming pile in Toronto.

[NoWayOut]

If that was a system reboot, then obviously the Stars OS is Windows ME....

[NoWayOut]

I've been sitting around thinking about what to say about that game last night. The end result, there's really not much too say. The Stars didn't break any new ground. The same old crap that's plagued them all season was on full display in Toronto. Basically with a few minor edits I could just rehash old posts. That said there are a few little tidbits....

-Lindy did roll out the top power play with Demers and Eaves, and to nobody's surprise they did jack. It should be noted that once Eaves left the game after taking a shot from a teammate off his ankle it was Klingberg who drew in as his replacement. So there's that much. While that's a good thing there was a troubling point. At one point late in the game, with a chance to try and make a game of it yet, the Stars got 1:20+ of 5-on-3 and promptly registered zero shots on goal. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. The square root of jack. How in the hell do get that much 5-on-3 time and not get a single shot on goal? Staggering.

-You know, now that I think about it, the Stars did break new ground last night. With the Eaves injury, they've started taking each other out with shots. That's certainly new, and somehow oddly apropos.

-If you've read the Klingberg thread you will have seen this, if not here it is. On a night where the team lost 5-3, Klinger managed to finish +3. Now that's quite a feat.