The Stars are a tough team to get a read on. Are they good? Are they bad? Right in the middle? Whatever your take, they’re firmly in control of their own destiny. Even with Sunday’s baffling loss to Seattle, the Stars are on pace for 96 points. Is that good? Since the 2005 lockout, only six teams didn’t make the playoffs with 95 or more points. They have a dangerously compressed schedule this month, but 10 of their next 14 games are at home—and at home, they’re a better team. Yes, there’s been some drama: the scratching of Denis Gurianov and Alex Radulov, the ongoing issue of why Thomas Harley isn’t on the power play. But the Stars got through a tough month spent largely on the road without Miro Heiskanen. Some of the secondary scoring is starting to pick up, too.
Then there’s the Western Conference competition, which is beginning to help Dallas out in unlikely ways. Most fans have their eyes on Vegas, who play three fewer games than Dallas the rest of the way and still aren’t 100 percent healthy. Nashville could be a late-season faller, too; they’re only one point ahead of Dallas and have one of the five toughest schedules to finish out the season. Then there’s St. Louis, a long shot for Dallas to catch—the Stars trail the Blues by seven points with just one game in hand—but a team that has just four regulation wins in their last 10, losing to also-rans like Philadelphia, Columbus, and Winnipeg.
But none of that matters much if the Stars aren’t good. And, well, I think they are, even as they continue to lurk on the playoff fringes. Why? For starters, making or missing the playoffs is not an ironclad referendum on a team’s value. The 2020-2021 Montreal Canadiens were a great example of just how arbitrary the border is. They finished the season 18th in the entire league, which in theory shouldn’t have even put them in the playoff field. But they got in anyhow, and when all was said and done, they were good in the playoffs. In other words, a team’s efficiency is fluid, so point totals and points percentage don’t always accurately capture its worth.
Digging into the stuff that does makes me believe Dallas is a good team.
Just like no single grade on a test is the difference between passing or failing a class, there’s no one stat that sums up the big picture. A good grade can be indicative of good habits, however, just as a bad grade can hint at bad ones. That’s more or less what “expected goals” is. That stat measures the goals a team should expect to score when they have been performing well enough—i.e. generating shot quality—to be rewarded (Alison Lukan has a great breakdown). How does Dallas fare in terms of its rate of shot quality? According to MoneyPuck, good.
There are a lot of caveats to this chart, and I’ll get to them in a second. For now, it’s worth noting that while the Stars generate enough shot quality to score more than they are (their registered goals per hour is 2.26), they’re also generating better shot quality than Nashville and St. Louis. Not only are the Stars in control of their destiny, their opponents struggle to control their own. The team also does something really well that happens to be one of the most important aspects of the game: shooting in places that give them a good chance to score while not allowing opponents to shoot in places that help them get scored on. Despite the power play’s rapid decline from a top-five unit down to 12th, the Stars remain seventh in shot quality generated per hour, just below the Colorado Avalanche. Their penalty kill ranks 19th, yet the shot quality rates Dallas allows is second in the league behind only the Carolina Hurricanes.
What else is there?
Unfortunately for my argument, a lot. Shot quality is an important stat, but it’s just one. It doesn’t tell us about Dallas’ movement or tactics. Watching the Stars beat Edmonton and then get dominated by Seattle may seem like just a function of league parity—which I think is part of it—but I’d also argue it’s what their conservative system allows. Keeping games tight might lower the chances of good teams dominating you, but it also keeps you from dominating bad teams.
Shot quality doesn’t tell us about deployment, either. We’ve had that discussion already, but it’s worth reiterating: players like Jacob Peterson and Denis Gurianov provide the good offensive habits this team lacks, which makes their recent string of healthy scratches a warranted point of contention. The shot quality models also heavily favor the totality of even-strength play rather than special teams, a segment that has been brutal lately and could seriously undermine this team’s ceiling. There are signs to expect the worst, should you want to look for them. The Sports Mad part of any fan’s brain will naturally consider questionable roster decisions, shots not taken, and poor special teams play as signs that this team doesn’t have what it takes.
But let’s not let the original point get lost. Whether Dallas misses or makes the playoffs, this is not a bad team. They just happen to be a good team going to war with a lot of other good teams. As Dom Luszczyszyn noted last week, true contenders can be expected to win 60 percent of their games. Over the last 12 years, there are usually two to three teams who hit that win rate. This season there are nine. Dallas isn’t one of them, but they’ve got plenty to offer. They’ve done the homework and put in their hours. So, when the puck drops, why can’t they routinely remember the answers to the test?
That’s the real question. If the pieces are there, why can’t Dallas execute? If the Stars are good, why are they still on- and off-again clinging to a wild-card spot? Again, making the playoffs doesn’t make a team good; it just means they had enough points to make it. Is that splitting hairs? I don’t think so. Look at Florida, Tampa Bay, Colorado, and Calgary: they don’t have to worry about points because they’re not playing like good teams. They’re playing like great teams. Dallas isn’t a great team, but it is a good one. Making the playoffs would be their chance to show they can be a better one.
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