The Dallas Stars' 13-game gauntlet in November was a roller coaster ride of highs and lows. It is fitting that the team posted a .500 record overall (6-6-1), because there was a lot that right and just as much that went wrong over the last month.
The month started with the Stars coming off a five-day stretch between games. Dallas, which had been pretty solid defensively in October (despite allowing a high number of shots per game), won a wide-open 7-6 home game in overtime against Colorado to open the month. The win ran Dallas' record to 9-3-0 on the season.
Things really seemed to be looking up for the club when they won their first two games of a brutally difficult road trip that saw the team start out in Carolina and then play in Washington, Pittsburgh and Detroit over the span of four nights. After downing the Hurricanes and Capitals, the Stars sat in first place in the Western Conference.
In a nationally televised Friday night game, the Stars took a 1-0 lead in Pittsburgh (despite being largely outplayed). Then adversity started to set in. James Neal scored a pair of goals to establish a lead the Penguins never relinquished.
The next day in Detroit, the Stars managed to get the game to the second intermission tied but were outplayed once again. The wheels fell off early in the third period for the Stars, and the team as a whole started to go into a tailspin after the 5-2 loss to the Red Wings.
Dallas endured a stretch of 9 straight periods without scoring a single goal (starting with the third period against Detroit, continuing through miserable 6-0 and 3-0 shutout losses to the Florida Panthers and Colorado Avalanche and finally ending in the third period of a chippy 4-1 home loss to the San Jose Sharks). The losing streak grew to five games.
However, just as the terrible third period in Detroit was a harbinger of the struggles to come, the Stars began to re-establish things they build from -- forechecking pressure, getting traffic to the net -- in the third period of the game against San Jose. That carried over into the team grabbing five of a possible six points in a stretch of home games against the Edmonton Oilers, Los Angeles Kings (who had beaten the Stars twice in the first month of the season) and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Stars' win against Los Angeles was especially satisfying. The team competed hard but trailed 2-0 after two periods. An early third period goal by Jamie Benn put Dallas back within striking distance and then an improbable Loui Eriksson goal with 20 seconds left in regulation -- scored off a perfectly executed set play on a neutral zone faceoff -- sent the game to overtime. Steve Ott then won the game in the extra frame, converting a 2-on-1 rush created when Mike Ribeiro willingly absorbed a crushing hit from defenseman Jack Johnson at the defensive blueline to spring his teammates on an odd-man rush.
Along the way, injuries started to pile up for the Stars as November rolled along. Alex Goligoski was lost to a broken thumb. Adam Burish suffered a broken hand. Team captain Brenden Morrow missed several games with an upper-body injury. Starting goalie Kari Lehtonen went down with a groin pull early in the next-to-last game of the month. Defenseman Trevor Daley sustained a back injury in the same game. Meanwhile, Michael Ryder (leg) and Vern Fiddler (groin) had little choice but to play through their ailments because the team was so shorthanded.
After completing their homestand with a shootout loss to Toronto, the Stars got shut out in Phoenix, 3-0. It was hard to get too upset about the outcome, because Lehtonen, Fiddler and Daley all had to leave the game early and the injury-decimated team was playing for the third time in four days (and fourth in six). The month closed out with the Stars earning a gritty 3-1 win in Colorado, despite all the injury absences. Ryder's two goals in the third period proved to be the difference.
NOVEMBER MVP:
Eric Nystrom. No one was expecting offensive production from Nystrom when the Stars claimed him off waivers. The club was merely hoping to get some forechecking help, penalty killing assistance and a little more forward depth. But Nystrom came in and, shockingly, compiled 7 goals and 9 points during the month. In addition, the 28-year-old winger's grit and upbeat locker room presence have helped mitigate the absence of Burish, without whom the Stars struggled mightily in the many second-half games he missed last season due to injury.
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Here's a look at some team comparisons between October and November
GF per game: 2.62 NOV, 2.36 OCT, 2.50 overall (19th in NHL)
GA per game: 3.15 NOV, 2.09 OCT, 2.67 overall (17th in NHL)
PP efficiency: 15.8% NOV, 13.2 % OCT, 14.5% overall (21st in NHL)
PK efficiency: 79.3% NOV, 86.5% OCT, 82.7% overall (17th in NHL)
Faceoff win%: 47.3% NOV, 50.5% OCT, 48.7% overall (21st in NHL)
Shots per gm: 29.4 NOV, 26.6 DEC, 28.1 overall (22nd in NHL)
Shots against: 33.0 NOV, 32.6 DEC, 32.8 overall (29th in NHL)
Areas of improvement to focus on December:
1) Fewer penalties. The Stars are among the most penalized teams in the NHL, and it has a wear-down effect even when the penalties are killed successfully. Despite the team's overall poor PK numbers for the month, the Stars are 15 for their last 16 on the PK. Part of that it due to execution and part of it is due to somewhat reducing the number of kills necessary, especially in the Colorado game. Taking fewer penalties will also cut down the number of shots opposing teams fire on the Dallas goalies.
2) The Stars need to get the Benn and Ribeiro lines scoring again on a more regular game-to-game basis. The team was shut out too many times this past month, and it's unlikely that Nystrom can keep up what he did in November. Hopefully, with Morrow about to return and offensive defenseman Goligoski on the mend, the Stars can start generating a little more consistent offensive from the top two forward lines and top two defense pairs.
3) Improved power play. That walks hand in hand with the need for the skill players to avoid getting blanked for stretches of multiple games. The Stars outscored opponents in 5-on-5 situations in October, but got outscored at even strength in November. If the power play doesn't start clicking soon, the team could be in some trouble.
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