Pre-Game: LA Kings

Considering the hockey gods have me working through tonight’s game in it’s entirety, I will post something up now.

Biggest news for tonight?  Richards is out, resting a groin injury.  Don’t expect him to be out more than a couple weeks after last year, he’s been playing through it this season and decided to rest it for a while.  This means that the weight of being the top line has officially shifted to Ribeiro/Morrow/Benn.  When you have a second line that was effectively our first line the last two seasons, then you don’t really have anything to panic about.  Considering the Richards line was shored up by the arrival of Neal, they will shift down and become an above average 2nd line with Eriksson and Neal on the wings and the new kid in the center.  We can talk about the injury bug and whether or not it’s coming back for the sequel this season or not in another blog.

Look for the Stars to control the tempo.  The Kings got off to a solid start but are back to their struggling selves.  If there’s one thing we can say about the Stars it’s that the rivalries of last season aren’t really much to worry about.  The nights where somehow the Kings beat the Stars over and over again, are probably over in this new high octane system.  Expect either a close one if they don’t show up to play/the Kings come with their A+ game that we saw in the first few games from them – or a blow out if they play like they have been and the Stars play like we know they can.

Coming off of the (surprising) win in Chicago this is the perfect setup to gain momentum.  Take down a struggling team, send their losing streak to 4 – get our first two in a row – take the momentum and lay down death and destruction on the rest of the road trip.  Then let Richards come back and continue on with some solid stats.

Something To Build On

The easiest thing to do is to look at tonight’s game and think of it as just another reason to doubt the Stars this season.  But, with the help of a bad bounce (Robi) and a mediocre goalie (Petersen), they won.  They even put up two solid goals.  This means that even when they are doing nothing right, they have the skill to score against a team that could easily be called the best in the league, despite the Ranger’s current streak.

Now, in a perfect world they will take this much needed luck and build on it.  They will understand that they can win and if they try they will win.  They will watch tape and realize that they did basically everything wrong again, but they have enough skill to still at least put points up.  With the help of a terrible bounce (Robidas’ goal) and a mediocre goalie (Petersen goal) they won.  So they will take this as a boost of confidence and then get back on the Crawford horse which they seemed to step off of for the length of the Boston and Chicago games.

So, lets hope they go over the tape, man up and start skating.

Oh… and start Auld… forever…

Don’t Panic, Yet.

After making my morning rounds over my favorite blogs and other Dallas Stars sources, the common theme is … “AHHHHHH!”

As I’ve said – there is definitely one good thing about Crawford’s system.  It’s all speed and workmanship-based.  You work hard and skate hard and the system will work.  You don’t do one or both and it falls on it’s face and you lose games 3-0.  So when you do lose you can tell easily whether it’s because you were outmatched or simply because your players didn’t show up to play.  I can honestly say that it was the second last night as the Bruins came into town and showed the Stars how to be dedicated to victory.

The message I’m trying to get across today is that panicking isn’t necessary at this point.  Certainly, ranting about the team not being a top 8 team after 6 games isn’t necessary either.

I recommend letting the Stars play out the next 5 or so games before we all start preparing for the apocalypse.  Try to take the Chicago game with a grain of salt, then start paying attention.  Chicago has a way of making the Stars look like amateurs even on their good days, after all.  Once we get that out of the way, start analyzing and either relaxing/combusting accordingly.

That’s all for now.

The State of Things: 10/15/2009

Ah, the state of things.  If you look at the stats on paper you may be confused as to what exactly is happening on the ice.  With a record of 2-0-3, nobody would blame you.  Then add the tidbit that all of those overtime losses were met in the shoot-out and you might even be flabbergasted.

So, what really is going on on the ice for the Stars?  Well, they are dominating the opposition.  Whether it’s the Canadian teams or Nashville, they have really shown their superiority in 5-on-5 hockey.  Due to soft-goaltending and an abysmal penalty kill they have come out with a moderate, but less-than-special ratio.  The good news is they can’t lose forever, in fact they have already defied the law of averages plenty of times this season.  So when Nashville came back into town for Preds vs. Stars in Dallas: Reloaded – it was almost fate that the Stars took them apart like the rapture on ice (which is a lot like Disney on Ice but filled with anger and defensive breakdowns).

They came out and scored 3 goals in the first 6 minutes, effectively running Dan Ellis out of his net.  Rinne faired better, but still allowed two more goals by the time it was over.  Turco was solid when he had to be, which times mostly consisted if in tight break downs to which he stacked pads and other Turco-type things.  It’s not that they beat a team who is coming off of a 6-1 loss the previous game and on a downward spiral.  It’s that they proved to themselves that the system they have been learning in the off-season and the early stages in the real-time is working.  You can out-play your opponents all season long, but until there are clear-cut results are aren’t completely going to buy into this system.  A 6-0 victory is what every player on that bench needed, in order to move forward with Crawford and his schemes and continue what will hopefully come out to “success”.

Want to feel good inside?  Go check out the standings.  Yes, they mean almost nothing this early on.  But, you can’t help but feel reassured as the Stars sit in 6th place in the conference and second in the division.  Now go check out the league leaders.  Grossman in first place for +/- with his d-partner Robidas in close second.  How refreshing is that to see?  A seemingly legitimate top pair.  The only question is if Robidas can play like this for 82 games, he seemed to be wearing down near the end last year.  At least he got the manditory puck to the face out of the way early this year.

So, maybe we were all a bit wrong when we vomited at the news of Crawford’s hire.  Maybe the picking up of Woywitka and Skrastins wasn’t as pointless as we thought.  Maybe the Stars can make this work…  All I know is that Morrow, Richards and Eriksson have me sitting comfortably in first place in my fantasy hockey league.  Thanks guys.

Game One: Late Assessment

Well, this is a bit late; especially considering I was actually at the game – but here it is none the less.

Dallas came out and Turco let a bad goal pop over his pad.  I immediately worried that the lack of a presence in front the net might be a problem since they decided to put Fistric on the healthy scratch list along with Sutherby.  It was so early in the game my heart sunk immediately.  But after that I felt like Dallas dominated the play for the rest of the first period as they built a decent lead in shots on goal and punished the Predators in the neutral zone with heavy back checking and smart plays by the defense.  The second period was pretty even and near the end Dallas let up and they nearly caught up in shots on goal.  We also got to see good ol’ Marty simply… fall over… and they scored their second of the night.  Even so James Neal and the rest of the Richards/Eriksson/Neal line seemed to dominate and produced the first goal of the game for the Stars on a nice rebound conversion.  Neal would come out and score again on a big mistake on Ellis’ part as he passed it right to him.  The Stars obliterated the Preds in this period and they went into OT tied 2-2.  The Stars had a few solid chances in the over-time period as well and controlled play throughout but Ellis saved the day as he had all night long.  The shootout came and Ellis officially proved he was the better goalie; at least for the night – as he only allowed a nice backhand from Ribeiro to get past him.

So the assessment?

The new system seems to have clicked a lot better than it was during the pre-season.  The Ribeiro/Morrow/Benn line didn’t produce a goal but they were firing on all cylinders as they nearly scored quite a few times including a nice pass to Benn who missed the open net on the other side of Ellis.  The defense was immaculate considering all of the doubt we fans have had during the off-season.  I was impressed with Woywitka’s poise in the offensive zone and Skrastins diving play to knock the puck loose from a Nashville players stick.  Daley was using speed to break in and Niskanen looked like he belonged on the powerplay.  I’ll reserve my long term faith for the end of this Canadian road trip we’re about to enter, but for now I am impressed and surprised.  I think by the end of said trip, Morrow will have gained his legs and hands back – which is a good thing.  As far as the goal race goes, I think Neal is in the runnings against Eriksson for the leading scorer for the team this year easily.  I mean he scored 24 his rookie season, so save a sophmore slump, he could easily go past the 30 goal mark this season.

They deserved to win, easily – and that’s what I took away from it.  We will see how they handle Calgary’s stacked lineup and Edmonton’s speed in the coming week.

Good Luck, Tipp…

And my official shoutout to the new head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes.  Good luck, Coach – hope things in Phoenix get ironed out for you and you can put the team to work.

Stars over Avs, 3-2

If you were at the game or have the stamina to sit through the horrid Avalanche commentator (they only had one tonight…) then you know that the Stars won because Richards, Erisksson and Neal are probably individually better than any of the Avalanche team, that is including their top players they decided to field tonight.  Neal scored first off of his skate admitedly by accident, though the announcer would have you believe he was the luckiest person on earth when in actuality it was because he drove the net.

Erkisson scored the next two and Richards had two assists on the night – the line was dominant most of their shifts though the Avalanche had a really strong forecheck going pretty much the entire game.  They let the Stars in the game when they started parading themselves to the penalty box however, letting the Stars have a 5-3 at one point which ended with one of Erkisson’s 2 goals on the night.

They out-shot the stars by double; Auld was amazing and essentially the reason we won the game.  Perhaps the commentator made it seem more one-sided than it was however, I will be glad when I get to watch the games on TV again.  Listening to radio stations in Colorado and St. Louis is grinding me down.

A win is a win and hopefully we can use the victory as a boost so we can end the pre-season 2 games over .500

The Stars Pre-season (Thus far) and NHL10.

Well, I guess there are a few things we can take away from the pre-season up until this point.

• Ribeiro isn’t performing.  This equates to a already rusty Morrow not putting up points.  The question is, why?  Is Ribeiro just not yet back into the groove of things – or – is he clashing with the new staff (e.g. Crawford).  I could see either being the case if not both.  The tandem as a whole seems to be a non-issue.  One more idea could be that Ribeiro tends to over-stay his shifts and the fact that the pace is up so high it’s not allowing him to get any strong play once he’s worn himself down from shift to shift.  Even Crawford said that the system relies on short shifts to make it work.  I haven’t really checked the math but if he is overstaying his shifts then this could easily be one reason.
• Am I the only one who is worried about the injury bug’s return?  Seems like half of the team has had a cramp or a tweak already.  Modano’s having hip problems, Lehtinen is out yet again with some…bodily injury.  Poor kid Warren Peters has a broken face…
• Benn is the best player out there as of now.  Well, maybe second to Richards (we’ll come back to that).  This isn’t necessarily a good thing; though I will say “good for you, kid”.  A rookie is the best player on a team of at least 6 forwards capable of all-star status.  Yikes.
• Richards – ah, yes.  The fabled magic with a puck is evident.  People have been wondering when we were going to see his potential that we’re paying so much money for.  His season was cut short by injuries last year and he came in late the year before on the trade.  It’s already pretty evident that he’s an amazing passer.  I’m pumped to see what him and Eriksson can do full time.  Especially if they settle with Neal on the other wing.
• Brunnstrom: Trade bait if they’re smart.  Even if he blows up and gets 200 points, I think we’re better served trading him off for a top 2 defenseman.  God knows we don’t need another defensive liability on the ice no matter how much  upside the kid has.  In addition, remember how long it took him to get used to the North American game?  Think about how long it could take him to get used to a whole new system with this new staff.   It’s pretty obvious everyone’s having a time of adjusting past the curve; I can only imagine what sort of doom his mind is forgoing.
• For an offensive system we sure don’t seem to be putting many points up.  You would assume that we would give more goals up by making mistakes in a new system but would make up for it partially by scoring more than 1-2 goals per game given the freedom the new system gives offensive talent.  Doesn’t seem to be the case.
• Razor says it looks like a case of fatigue; players not being used to the type of practices the new coach are putting them through yet.  Could be the case, I suppose.
• We ran our top 9 fowards against a mediocre at best line up from Florida in the first game of the back to back double header.  We lost.  Both games.  I wasn’t worried until they took our best roster 3-1 against what is basically a glorified AHL team.

The good news is; last year we didn’t win a single pre-season game; this year we have at least 2 under our belts.  And pre-season isn’t regular season.  The biggest question of all is; will they be ready by October 2nd?  Will they be able to pin down this new system and get used to the new staff in time to excell?

I don’t like the situation for the franchise right now.  Hiring a totally new staff and implementing a brand new system is usually at  least a couple seasons worth of work before it starts to equate into playoff runs.  No matter how good a lineup you have.  Basically, the financial fragility that the Stars backbone is experiencing means they need a good season now.  So what happens when we miss the playoffs again?  We are nearly 10 million under the cap right now; we could hugely solidify our line up if we just used 2-3 million of that on a defenseman; less if we trade for them.  That move is essential; our defense core are a bunch of kids and patch work.  We replaced Sydor with Skrastins – not an upgrade.  We brought in Woywitka – a dman who is starting to come into his own; we have plenty of guys in that stage already.  May as well just give the job to Vishy and save time and money.

At any rate; I’m still trying to stay positive – even if my optimism tends to be drenched in cynicism.  Go Stars.

NHL 10

• According to NHL 10, Niskanen will come into his own this season.
• Then again we’re also going to be picking up Svatos, Tanguay and Zherdev…
• Note: Zherdev on the wing with Richards is dominant.

Assistant Coach: Huddy

So, other than having a built-in hockey nickname – what can be said about Charlie Huddy?

One thing really.  The guy tends to win a lot.  A whole slew of cup finals appearances as both a player and a member of the staff.  He has the winning pedigree in his aura, it seems.  That said, he’s been working a lot with a young defense the recent years and lets face it – we didn’t really change out d-core that much.  Arguably our best assets on the blue line are all young kids and if we want them to be successful we need a guy running the defense that can handle youth.

Granted this isn’t really news, is it?  It was expected for the last week or two that Huddy would be the one the Stars hired in the end.  And with him signed on, there really isn’t much to do.  The wait for Zubov is over, seems the Neiuwendyk is content with our back end and even though we are rumored to be in the “race” for Zherdev, odds are it’s a rumor and only a rumor and the guy’s bulky asking price (4.5 mil) is not something that we see worth it considering our current forward line-up.

Links of Note:

• DallasStars.com Release
• Andrew’s Entry

To Date

While the TDSA blog has been dead as of late, it hasn’t been due to lack of inspiration.  Here’s a list of notable happenings.

• Zubov’s agent essentially confirms Zubov’s disinterest in returning to the Stars, making it clear that we probably won’t see number 56 this coming season.  Analysts are saying Columbus may be the best fit for the 38 year old, injury prone defenseman.  We’ll see.
• The NHL regular season schedule was released, further announcing the home opener and season opener will be Oct. 3rd against Nashville.  I’ll be there!  Some of the less-learned fans wonder why we have to play a “Scrub team” every year for our opener, to which I remind them that both Nashville and Columbus finished ahead of us in points last season and CBJ promptly beat us in overtime in last years opener.  But, while I think people should probably think before they speak, I will admit it would be nice to see us play one of our Californian rivals or maybe the Wild for the home opener.
• NBC extends NHL contract.
• Boston home to this year’s Winter Classic vs. the Flyers.
• Lamb will be head coaching WHL’s Swift Current Broncos

Well, that about covers it for the most part.  It looks like Joey is content with the back end at this point, even though Crawford has confirmed that we do lack a real number 1 defenseman. 

It’s hard not to worry.  I don’t remember the last time I saw a team win a cup without a number 1 defenseman.  Detroit has Lidstrom, Pittsburgh had Scuderi.  I don’t think anyone expects the cup to come to Dallas this coming year.  But, a playoff season would certainly help the team out – I think a successful season is imperative for the Hicks situation at this point.