In the end, the Dallas Stars simply ran out of gas. After spending much of the month of March in first place in the Pacific Division -- buoyed in large part by going 3-0 on their first of two western Canada road trips in the month -- Dallas felt apart in the final two weeks of the season.
The season was not lost in last night's 2-0 defeat in Nashville. Yes, that was the final dagger to the team's hearts, ensuring that the stars would finish the season out of the playoffs for the fourth straight season (dating back to 2007-08). But there is no shame in working hard but coming up blank in any one given game, especially against an excellent team like the Predators.
What really cost the Stars a playoff berth again was that, on merit as well as points, they are only the fourth-best team in the Pacific Division. The team just doesn't have the depth up front and lacks a true top defensive pairing relative to the true contenders. Whenever there were key injuries in the lineup, the Stars just didn't have the personnel to compensate --- especially in the goal-scoring department.
If the team's failure to earn a playoff spot can be boiled down to a few specific areas, the following would be good starting places:
* The Stars' hideous 1-11-2 record in the second half of back-to-back games (4 of a possible 28 points) accounted for 1/3 of the club's losses this season.
* The Stars have the bottom-ranked power play -- a paltry 13.8% -- and the second-fewest power play opportunities (240) in the NHL. While they fared well at even strength, the negative differential in special teams situations proved to be too much to make up in the long haul.
* When things were going so well early this season, the Stars were getting a lot of offensive contributions from the blueline, especially Alex Goligoski and Sheldon Souray. That source of production dried up and disappeared (never really to return) in the second half of the season.
* After producing a 33-goal campaign last year, team captain Brenden Morrow looked like an "old" 33-year-old power forward due to his assorted upper body ailments. He tried to grit it out at the end of the season, but just could not play up to his standards. The addition of Michael Ryder (35 goals) was a godsend to the club, but still not enough in and of itself to make up for the fall-off in Morrow's play coupled with the loss of Brad Richards to free agency last summer.
* Souray's play dropped off a cliff after the two foot injuries. No faulting the effort he turned in or the example he set but he was ponderously immobile and unproductive offensively in the second half of the season.
* There are still too many undersized players in the defensive mix. The trade of Nicklas Grossmann to Philadelphia ended up being felt in the final two weeks of the season. Except for Souray and Mark Fistric, the Stars' defensemen were not able to handle the physical battles around the net because they lacked size and strength.
* It was rare that the Stars were able to get two productive scoring lines going at the same time. There were stretches where the various incarnations of Jamie Benn's line got hot, but the Mike Riberio line was cold. At times, the Ribeiro line was hot but the Benn line went quiet. There was even a stretch in mid-November to early December where the third line (primarily Eric Nystrom) carried the team offensively. But there were rarely two lines going well at once for a sustained period.
At any rate, the Stars had a chance to win last night, largely due to the efforts of Lehtonen. The big Finn was absolutely the team's MVP this season. Through two periods last night's game was a scoreless tie, but then Francis Bouillon (of all players) pinched in from the point to forge a lead for the Predators. Dallas went all out looking for a tying goal, and came close a few times. Finally, with 2:00 left in the game, Patrik Hornqvist delivered the killing blow.
********
KINDLE USERS: Please subscribe to Stars Buzz; a one-stop feed for all things Dallas Stars-related at HockeyBuzz. Content is automatically updated whenever a new blog is published. For more information,
click here.
Dallas Stars Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»