We’ve now made it past Thanksgiving and the holiday season is right around the corner. Like the last few years, PHR will take a look at what teams are thankful for but this year comes with a bit of a change. Normally teams would have an idea of where their season was heading, coming up on the one-quarter mark with mountains of statistics to analyze. Instead, in this unprecedented year, the season hasn’t even begun. We’ll still take a look at what each group is excited about and what they could hope for once the calendar turns to 2021.
What are the Stars most thankful for?
Last season’s Western Conference title.
Yes, ultimately losing in the Stanley Cup Final typically isn’t something to be thankful about but it has changed the perspective of their program in its entirety. This was a team that had been viewed by many as potentially vulnerable, offensively deficient heading into the bubble with a veteran core that didn’t exactly have a good regular season. Were they on the way down?
Clearly, the answer was no. Instead, those players produced at better rates than they did during the regular season when a lot of times, the opposite occurred. Anton Khudobin stepped up in Ben Bishop’s absence, showing that they have one of the top tandems in the league (another thing they’re certainly thankful for). Now weeks away from the anticipated start of training camp, the Stars are viewed as a team that’s capable of winning now. Not many were saying that during the pandemic-induced layoff; their run to the Final shows that this core still has something left in the tank.
Who are the Stars most thankful for?
Naturally, after speaking positively about their veteran core, let’s now go in the exact opposite direction and look at their youngest player in Miro Heiskanen. There are young defensemen that teams hope can one day ascend to that number one role. The 21-year-old is two years into his career and is already at that level. He’s coming off of a stellar postseason where he led the team in scoring and the sky is seemingly the limit.
Dallas is also certainly thankful that he’s still on his entry-level contract that restricts him to a base salary of $925K (including his signing bonus). It’s rare to have a number one blueliner making less than a million dollars in base pay and it’s the type of high-value contract that has allowed them to keep the core of the team intact for another run in the postseason. That will soon change as that deal is up at the end of the season but for now, their best defenseman just happens to be their lowest-paid regular.
What would the Stars be even more thankful for?
Further delaying the start to next season. That may sound crazy but they are down their starting goaltender in Bishop and their top center in Tyler Seguin with both players expected to be out into March at a minimum. The fewer games they play without those two, the better off they should be in the standings, especially with Khudobin having relatively limited experience as an every-game starter.
What should be on the Stars’ holiday wish list?
More scoring depth.
One way of looking at things is that they scored enough to make their way through the Western Conference in the playoffs. The glass half-empty viewpoint mentions that they were 28th in the league in offense last season with their goaltending allowing the second-fewest goals that helped keep them in the top half of the conference. It’s true that they’ve been able to keep their core intact but at the same time, they didn’t really add to it. There’s room for optimism for some of their younger players to take steps forward and grab a bigger share of the offensive pie but they’d undoubtedly love to add another veteran with a track record of consistent production.
They’ll have LTIR space to play with early on due to the injuries of Bishop and Seguin while Stephen Johns’ availability is uncertain but their cap room when everyone is healthy is minimal so GM Jim Nill will have his work cut out for him to try to add to their attack. It’d go a long way if he could find a way to do so.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.