Andrew's Dallas Stars Blog

Stars-Kings thoughts

In a nutshell: It’s a mess. I think you can scrap the talk about the positive steps that were made during the California trip and all that other positive spin. The air went out all the tires after this game. And it wasn’t even one of those 5-2 losses. This was a game they were in until the end. It was the lousy start, falling behind 2-0 and never being able to recover. I think there was the reasonable expectation of a high desperation level from the Stars Thursday night, and it wasn’t there.

Maybe there would be a different tune being whistled had they rallied to win because this was supposed to start being about getting points. Well, there were no points to be had and no excuses for the lousy start in the game. They were simply flat out of the gate. They look like a team out of sync and with little confidence as a group right now.

Obviously one of the buzzwords after the game was trust.

“We’re not going to be a very good team until we start playing like a team,” said Stars coach Dave Tippett. “To play as a team you do things well together. You trust your teammates. You make sure your part is taken care of. And when you mistakes or you have situations in a game that go against you in a game you band together tighter. We are not going to be a good team until we do that consistently”

And there was this from Tippett: “The guys that have the most influence in this are your top players and when they don’t have trust in the whole group, then you are in trouble. And we have some trust issues right now.”

And from the players there was talk of a lack of chemistry and a lack of work ethic.

Not good signs when you are basically one-fifth of the way through the season and have won just five of 16 games.

I have no idea what happens moving forward. I am sure there is going to be a lot of speculation about trades and shake ups. Time will tell on all of that. Right now little is going right for this team. They’ve got the goals against down to a reasonable level, but they are now struggling to generate offense. They score two on the power play, but they give up two on the power play. They fall behind again and end up chasing the game all night long.

Nobody on this team is stepping up as a difference maker. Nobody makes the big play at the right time. A player here or a player there makes a nice play, but no one comes up with the big play at the crucial time.

You add all that up and you get what they are right now, which is not a very good team. You can spin it any way you want, but 5-8-3 is the 28th worst record in the league. Only the Blues and Islanders have worse points percentages right now. 

It’s a little early to panic about the standings, but it’s time to be highly concerned about the play of this team and where things are going. Call it a lack of consistency, a lack of chemistry or a lack of indentity or a lack of what ever buzzwords you want to throw out there. What ever it is they need to be successful, they don’t it have right now. That’s become evident. 

Tippett’s postgame audio is here:

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