The Stars have one preseason game left to play, but most of the roster is already set. We have reasonable guesses about what the starting lineup will look like come October 10, and that means the most interesting discussions these days are about the margins, not the core. This is very good news for the Stars, and a pretty radical change from where they’ve been in seasons past.
In 2019, Jim Montgomery led Dallas back to the playoffs after a two-year postseason drought. Ben Bishop was in elite form after rocking a .934 save percentage during the regular season, Miro Heiskanen was looking every bit as good as promised in his rookie campaign, and with the addition of Mats Zuccarello, the Stars were primed to go deep into the playoffs.
You know what happened, though: they went up 3-2 against St. Louis in the second round, only to lose in double overtime in Game 7 after the offense cratered. In fact, in its final eight periods against St. Louis, Dallas put up just two goals. Montgomery leaned heavily on the top line, but with Zuccarello and Roope Hintz not fully healthy, the Blues smothered the Stars. It was only because of Bishop’s excellence that they made it as far as they did.
It was much the same story under Rick Bowness in 2022. Against Calgary, Jake Oettinger had a world-class playoff debut that ended with a .954 save percentage in a series that went three games longer than it should have, and just like Marty Turco against Vancouver in 2007, Oettinger walked away from that series having done everything you could’ve asked other than scoring goals himself. Once again, the top forward line was the only consistent threat Dallas had, and it wasn’t enough to overcome a deeper team.
But since the beginning of the Peter DeBoer era the following summer, that depth has steadily improved. In that group’s first playoff run, Jani Hakanpää, Ryan Suter, and Joel Hanley were asked to punch above their weight alongside one-time miracle workers such as Joel Kiviranta and Luke Glendening. But Wyatt Johnston’s rookie explosion brought secondary scoring, and Thomas Harley came up just in time for the playoffs and immediately vaulted himself onto the second pairing.
And just last year, the Stars finished the regular season one point shy of the President’s Trophy, but the addition of Chris Tanev at the trade deadline was crucial for a blueline that needed work. Suter’s ice time dwindled, and Nils Lundkvist’s cratered. Thus, the final game of the season ended with Heiskanen playing 30 minutes while Suter and Alexander Petrovic played just six minutes apiece. Mavrik Bourque played his first NHL playoff game (and second NHL start, period), but the AHL MVP couldn’t help Dallas solve Edmonton’s special teams. Dallas didn’t have enough bodies.
This year, Jim Nill didn’t wait until the trade deadline to add players. The Stars’ forward group was already the envy of the league, and Nill brought back Matt Duchene on another bargain contract for the middle six, and added jack-of-all-trades Colin Blackwell to supplement Sam Steel and Evgenii Dadonov on a loaded fourth line.
That’s why Nill shored up the edges. Blackwell has historically played third-line minutes, but he will probably be a fourth-line player on opening night. Duchene was almost exclusively a top-line forward before coming to Dallas, while Steel averaged nearly 15 minutes a night in Minnesota before playing in the bottom six in Dallas. But the recipe for depth is just that: having players who are better than the lines they are likely to face. The Stars have that in spades.
As a veteran penalty-killer who came into the league as a center, Blackwell should be a perfect complement to Steel, who told D Magazine on Tuesday this is “definitely” the deepest team he has been a part of. Steel said with a group like this one, he’s more than happy to play up or down the lineup as needed, and he already has shown that by accepting what was effectively a fourth-line role last year.
Blackwell, who on average played 14:30 a night for Chicago last year with a young lineup, said he’s more than happy to play a lesser role if it means more success. He mentioned last week that one of the reasons he came to Dallas is because it’s a group that’s ready to win. If that means he’s on the fourth line, then so be it. As someone who can kill penalties and play on either wing or up the middle, Blackwell is yet another player who most likely will outclass players on an opponent’s equivalent line.
As for the other major forward addition, Bourque is just the reigning MVP of the second-best professional league in the hockey world. Oh, and he has proven chemistry with Logan Stankoven, the reigning AHL Rookie of the Year. That duo has been skating with Jamie Benn throughout training camp and in preseason games, and there’s every reason to believe Benn will be an NHL version of Curtis McKenzie, who facilitated much of the young duo’s outrageous success last year in Cedar Park before Stankoven showed he was more than ready for the NHL.
Assistant coach Misha Donskov also praised the depth of this year’s team when he spoke to the media at morning skate last Friday.
“We’ve got great depth on this team, and that’s an asset for us,” Donskov said. “It’s at a premium in this league. You know, we always say it’s a 3-2, 2-1 league, and that’s how tight the margins are. If you have depth, you have a competitive advantage.”
The Stars also have at least four candidates for the 13th forward spot, with Oskar Bäck and Matěj Blümel expected to battle for that final spot alongside Kole Lind and Arttu Hyry. On almost any other team, any one of these four would be a no-brainer for a bottom-six spot, but the Stars are too deep, if there is such a thing. (Note from Jim Nill, probably: there is no such thing.)
That depth is present in the goaltending as well, with the organization finally having found a proven number three goaltender in Magnus Hellberg, who is much more likely to be trusted to take regular turns if needed for Oettinger or backup Casey DeSmith than Matt Murray was last year. That’s not a contingency plan you want to talk about loudly, but it’s one that any organization needs to have.
And finally, the depth is most improved in the Stars’ newly nasty defense group. When Tanev chose not to fork over a whole lot of tax dollars by coming to Dallas full time, Nill had to pivot to an accuracy-by-volume approach in his free-agent targeting. Matt Dumba, Ilya Lyubushkin, and Brendan Smith were all signed to complement Lundkvist. None of those players was terribly exciting on paper, but with the wonderfully terrifying specter of Lian Bichsel looming on the left side, the closer you look, the more there is to like.
Dumba was frequently asked to be the top guy in Minnesota, but with Heiskanen and Harley running the power plays in Dallas, he can focus on assisting one of the best defensemen in the world and contributing on the penalty kill. He’s not Tanev, but he also isn’t Suter. By moving Heiskanen to the right side and being more trustworthy than Lundkvist, Dumba gives the Stars more options for maximizing Heiskanen’s abilities than they’ve had in years past.
Lyubushkin has looked more than serviceable next to his presumptive defense partner Harley, and the guess here is that Harley will be encouraged to own that pairing and activate more often rather than deferring to Heiskanen. And there’s no reason Harley can’t still be moved up alongside Heiskanen situationally, just as the Stars used to do with John Klingberg when the offense needed some juice. Again, the depth isn’t just about one player; it’s about putting every player, line, and defensive pairing in a more advantageous position.
Smith and Lundkvist round out the third pairing, but even if neither convinces the coaches he can help the team every night, Bichsel is going to be ready for NHL games at some point this season. It probably wasn’t an accident that Lindell moved to the right side to play with Bichsel last week against Colorado, in other words.
No NHL team is perfect, but the Stars aren’t aiming for perfection. They’re aiming to be better than they were last season, and the best way to ensure quality remains consistent is to ensure the talent doesn’t dip. Dallas’s ceiling has yet to be determined, but its floor has certainly risen. That’s a pretty good jumping-off point.
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