Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends, family and readers! By now you’ve had a day full of family, football and mountains of food, and I hope it will be a blessed day and weekend as we all celebrate the beautiful lives we have.
As for the Dallas Stars, they also have a lot to be thankful for, starting with a 3-2 win over the Seattle Kraken that helped them finish their West Coast road trip at 3-0-1 before having the day off today and a return game Friday night at the American Airlines Center.
Related: Stars Weekly: Rantanen, Robo, special teams and keeping up with the Avs
Additionally, there is a long list of things to be thankful for this season, but we will discuss the things that I think are the most important. Let’s get started.
Excellent track record while battling injuries
When you’re the Stars, it’s easy to look at the leaderboard and be grateful for your record. They enter Thanksgiving 15-5-4 with 39 points, which is five points behind the Colorado Avalanche, who first in the Central Division.
But when you look at it deeper, what the Stars have done is actually very impressive. Between injuries to top players and having a new head coach, they haven’t lost a step.
The Stars have played 24 games so far. Captain Jamie Benn has played five and Matt Duchene has played four. These two are huge parts of this team, both on and off the ice, and they have barely played.
In defense, Nils Lundkvist has played four games, Thomas Harley eighteen and Ilya Lyubushkin seventeen.
Under former head coach Pete DeBoer, Lundkvist was in and out of the lineup, constantly fighting for a spot in the lineup. He has also had quite a few injuries in his young career.
As for Harley, he is a big part of the offensive production at the back. Yes, he is a solid defender. But it’s his work on the power play and 5-on-5 offense that helped him receive his recent raise.
Lyubushkin’s presence is also largely missed, you would think. While not for big numbers, he is a steady and physical force there and it would have made sense if their defensive play had dropped off dramatically.
Well, that’s not true. It wasn’t perfect, but they keep winning hockey games, and at the end of the day, that’s what matters.
Earn profits along the way
Historically, the Stars have been a very good home team. So far this season, they are in the middle of the pack with a 6-4-1 record. Usually their track record looks like this. This season, however, they have turned that narrative around and gone 9-1-3 from Texas best road record in the NHL.
Additionally, they rank first in goals per game on the road with 3.77, and seventh in goals against with 2.54. On special teams, the Stars rank 10th on the power play at 23.8%, and eighth on the penalty kill at 84.4%.
Robo, Rantanen and Johnston
If we wanted to, this article could be all about Mikko Rantanen, Jason Robertson, and Wyatt Johnston. Whether it’s 5-on-5 or on the power play, these three players have driven the offensive production all season.
Robertson’s goal streak ended after seven games after Wednesday’s match against the Kraken. Anyway, he didn’t go every night, even though it felt that way for two weeks. Robertson ranks second in the NHL in goals with 14 and shared third in points with 31. His assist total isn’t that bad either, ranking sixth with 17.
Rantanen has 10 goals and 18 assistswhich puts him tied for sixth in points with 28. Besides his points, it is his playmaking ability that has made him so valuable to this team. Whether it’s passing or making the opponent miss with his skills, he really does it all.
The Stars have placed more emphasis on physical team spirit than in years past, and that was epitomized by Rantanen. That came with good and bad, including leading the league with 57 penalty minutes and a recent suspension for two misconducts in three games. However, having a superstar lead the way with his body is something the Stars desperately needed.
Then there’s Johnston. The 22-year-old budding superstar then delivered another phenomenal season consecutive campaigns with more than 30 goals. In Mikael Granlund’s absence, Johnston played a big role in both top teams, fitting in wherever he was placed.
12 goals and 25 points in 24 games is astonishing in itself. His production about the power game is remarkable. Nine of his goals and fifteen of his points came on the man advantage.
Casey DeSmith has been the perfect backup
Jake Oettinger is the Stars’ number one netminder and is considered by many to be one of the best goalies in the NHL. I wholeheartedly agree. However, Casey DeSmith has been a sneaky key to the Stars’ success, and that can’t be overstated.
DeSmith does 5-1-2 with a .919 save percentage and 2.20 goals against average. Beyond the numbers, there seems to be moments in every game he plays where he has to make multiple big saves to keep the Stars in the game or maintain a lead.
There is one more factor that will be difficult to measure until the season is over. Oettinger has played between 54 and 62 games in each of the past three seasons, and it seems inevitable that he will run out of gas when the Western Conference finals roll around. Additionally, Oettinger will almost certainly be part of Team USA at the 2026 Winter Olympics in February. Whether he’s playing in Italy, that’s a lot of hockey, and that’s a lot of travel on top of the travel he already does during the regular season.
If DeSmith continues to play well, and the Stars continue to play well for him, his play could be a huge factor in getting the Stars over the hump to a Stanley Cup Final.
Stars One of the NHL’s best this Thanksgiving
After all this, there’s more we could talk about. We could point to the fact that they have the second-best power play in the NHL at 31.4%, which is just 0.1% less than the league-leading Pittsburgh Penguins.
Related: The Dallas Stars’ 3 Best Opponents for the 2027 Stadium Series Game
We could talk about how they’ve scored 81 goals, which is third in the NHL, and allowed 65, which is 11th. The list goes on.
The fact is, the Stars are one of the best teams in the NHL and should be a tough match every night, especially in the spring.
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