The Dallas Stars are in the middle of a four-game West Coast swing that continues Tuesday night against the Edmonton Oilers — the only NHL game tonight due to a wild and crazy schedule that looks to hit the NBA and NHL around Thanksgiving.
Last week, the Stars went 1-1-1, including a regular 3-2 loss to the New York Islanders at home, a 4-2 win against the Vancouver Canucks and a 3-2 win. shootout loss to the Calgary Flames.
Related: Cooley’s brilliance fuels Flames to 3-2 shootout win over Stars
Through the three games, Mikko Rantanen was suspended, Jason Robertson continued his hot streak, and the Stars’ special teams were still weird. With all the ups and downs from week to week, the team continues to win games and sits in second place in the Central Division with a record of 13-5-4 and 30 points.
Okay, enough settings. Here’s a closer look.
Rantanen receives automatic suspension for punching Coronato
This is old news now, but we still have to mention it. The NHL suspended Rantanen on Saturday evening for his hit from behind on Flames forward Matt Coronato. Rantanen was ejected from the match and given a five-minute major for boarding, fighting and ten-minute misconduct. This came four days after he was ejected for a similar performance against Alexander Romanov against the Islanders. While everyone knew there was likely to be a suspension, the reasoning behind it was a bit of a surprise.
On Monday, The Staff of Hockey Writers has done a great job breaking both fouls, the suspension and a season-long trend with Rantanen.
First, the suspension. Under Rule 23.6, if a player is excluded twice within 41 matches and within the same season, he will automatically receive a one-match suspension. You could argue that this line saved Rantanen. I’m not saying he deserved more games, but that automatic play seemed to take further discipline off the table. The fact that this was Rantanen’s first suspension didn’t hurt his case either.
Rantanen was assessed 22 penalty minutes on Saturday, catapulting him into first place in the NHL with a total of 57 minutes. He has never been that kind of player. Sure, he’s a big man and has always played with a bit of edge, but this is different.
Star fans know that playing with a physical presence is a new trend after not having one under the previous coaching regime. With 28 points in 22 games, this new team hasn’t hurt Rantanen’s production, but he needs to take his foot off the gas and play more responsibly. (For more insight, check out the article mentioned earlier.)
Roberston continues Hot Streak
If you’re a frequent reader of mine (thanks, by the way), you’ve read this before. That’s because Robertson’s streak seems to be endless. In the first eleven games of the season, he scored three goals and 14 points. The fourteen points were good, but the three goals? Not so much.
He has now scored in six consecutive games, with two or more goals in three of them. In that trajectory, Robertson has 10 goals and 14 pointsfor 13 goals and 28 points on the season. I’ll delve deeper into his incredible start to the season in another post. But there’s one thing I found really interesting on Saturday night.
At 6:44 of the third period, Robertson scored to cut the Flames’ lead to 2–1. When his teammates surrounded him for the post-goal conversation, he had an emotional release that we don’t often see, and we saw him say, “Let’s go.”
He seems like one of the more unenthusiastic scorers in the NHL. He often scores a goal as if we were all drinking water: without emotion or enthusiasm. I made a pass in the beer competition and shouted with more emotion, at the same time looking for scouts in the stands. On Saturday, although it was short-lived, it was different and amazing. Robertson is undoubtedly a leader in the locker room, but that brief moment on Saturday showed him bringing that leadership to the ice.
The star power play is good until it isn’t
The Stars’ special teams have been bizarre all season, and that continued last week. Through three games, the Stars went 0-for-9 on the power play and 9-for-11 on the penalty kill, which is the exact opposite of how their special teams have developed so far this season.
Despite a bad week with the man advantage, the Stars are ranked second in the NHLwith a pass rate of 29.3%. Still, there’s no denying that their power play let them down on Saturday.
With the game tied 2-2 late in the third period, the Stars had a 5-on-3 power play from 5:34 to 7:34, and a regular 5-on-4 power play that briefly went into overtime. Down 2-0 early in the period, the Stars stormed back and took all the momentum away from a Flames team that had earned two points to that point.
Now Rantanen is a big part of their power play success, and he was ejected in the second period. Okay, fair enough. Still, the Stars, with talent like Robertson, Wyatt Johnston, Roope Hintz, Tyler Seguin and Miro Heiskanen, should be able to capitalize on a key moment like this.
How much is it important to keep track of the avalanche?
I bring up the back-to-back Western Conference Final losses to the Edmonton Oilers often, and for obvious reasons. In total, the Stars have lost three straight Conference Finals, leaving them unable to get over the hump.
However, it’s easy to forget that the Colorado Avalanche have been eliminated by the Stars in consecutive postseasons, and if the Oilers are the hump the Stars can’t get over, the Stars are the hump the Avalanche can’t get over.
As a Stars fan, there is a lot to be excited about. The team has the second-most points in the NHL with 30 (tied with the Carolina Hurricanes), they are second in the Central, and have done all this with injuries to some of their best and most important players. But when we look at the standings, we see the Avalanche, who sit atop the division, conference and league, with 37 points and just one regulation loss. That’s right, one. They are 16-1-5 in 22 games and show no signs of slowing down.
Does this matter to the stars? I’m not in the locker room so I can’t say. But it shouldn’t matter. In the past three seasons, the Stars have won the division and finished second twice. In 2023-2024, the year they won the division, they were just one point away from being the best team in the NHL.
What is the common denominator between these three seasons? That’s right. They lost in the Western Conference finals. The Florida Panthers were an eight-seed team the year they lost to the Vegas Golden Knights in the Stanley Cup Final. They won their division the season in which they won their first cup, but were third in the division last season. What is the common denominator between these three seasons? That’s right. They made it to the Stanley Cup Final and won twice.
My point is that the Stars have been a dominant Cup contender for three seasons now, and they are at the point in their evolution where the only thing that matters is the playoffs and how they play once the playoffs start. Who cares about the AVs? Let them do what they’re going to do. They certainly have two of the best players in the world, but they also have their own postseason demons to slay.
While the Avalanche’s success could overshadow the Stars’ success for the rest of the league, it shouldn’t overshadow it for you. The Stars are having a great season and they are doing great.
Stars & Oilers take center stage on Tuesday
The Stars continue their road trip up the West Coast Tuesday night when they take on the Oilers. Every time these teams play each other, there’s talk of a Western Conference Final rematch (literally heard it on the radio as I was typing this), and that’s all well and good. But right now, these teams are in two different places, and their postseason history doesn’t really matter.
The Oilers are 10-9-5 and trail the Utah Mammoth by two points for the final play-off spot. In their last ten games, they are 4-4-2, compared to Dallas’ 7-2-1 record. It’s been a rough start to the season for the Oilers. The hockey writers I have great writers on the Oilers who have been talking about this for months (check them out). All I’m saying is the Oilers need to focus on two points, not a rematch, and I assume they will do just that.
While the Stars have gotten off to a great start, there are still things that need to be cleaned up, including the penalty kick, the recent infighting, and allowing the first goal, to name a few. They need to come out and pounce on a team that is still trying to find itself. Oh, and they’ll have to do without Rantanen.
Related: Oilers’ Stuart Skinner: There’s no defense for him anymore
Regardless of what this game looks like from each team’s perspective, we’re in for a great night. With Thanksgiving on Thursday, the NHL has broken away from its typically tough Tuesday-Thursday schedule. A combined 30 matches will be played on Wednesday and Friday, leaving one match on Tuesday. The Stars and Oilers will steal the show on Tuesday and we can expect a great game.
#Stars #Weekly #Rantanen #Robo #special #teams #staying #date #Avs #Hockey #Writers #Latest #news #analysis