Friday, March 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024
61° F Dallas, TX
Advertisement
Hockey

Tyler Seguin’s Revival Is the Stars’ Best Playoff Story

He no longer needs to be a face of the franchise. But at least for this series, he is. And after so many injuries and frustrations, that's its own reward.
By |
Image
Seguin's four power-play goals have driven Dallas to a 3-2 series lead. TODAY Sports

When Joe Pavelski got leveled by Matt Dumba in the second period of their first playoff game, the Stars were stunned. Dallas suddenly was without its most battled-tested player, an extremely durable and dependable top-line forward. The Stars reeled and then rallied, but the Wild took Game 1 in double overtime. 

The series could have gone in a lot of directions from there. In 2007, for example, Dallas opened against Vancouver by setting the NHL record for shots on goal with 76, only to lose in a gut-wrenching quadruple overtime. Dallas fell behind 3-1 in the series, then pushed things to seven games before falling short despite Marty Turco pitching three shutouts along the way. Just one bounce the other way in that marathon first game, and the series could have ended differently. 

After the loss to Minnesota, the Stars faced a similar uphill battle. Only this time they had surrendered home-ice advantage by virtue of their Game 1 loss. Now, however, as the series shifts to Minnesota for Game 6 on Friday night, Dallas holds a 3-2 series lead. And one of the biggest reasons for that is Tyler Seguin, who has stepped into Pavelski’s spot on the top line and led the team in goal-scoring. 

Yes, that Tyler Seguin, the fresh-faced kid from Ontario who 10 years ago was sent to Dallas for a combo platter of players after something of a lackluster playoff run in Boston. Now after encountering a decade of obstacles, Seguin is finally happy, productive, and healthy. It’s a renaissance most of the fanbase feared would never happen 

For Stars fans, it’s still a bit weird to talk about Seguin as anything less than the go-to weapon of the attack. After spending his first five years in Dallas putting up a point per game alongside Jamie Benn, Seguin was rolled out this season on the second power-play unit and on a middle-six line combo under new coach Peter DeBoer. It was strange to see. This, after all, was Tyler Seguin, he of the iconic ESPN photo shoot, who quickly became the heir-apparent to Mike Modano as the flashy, eligible bachelor who would be molded from a young goal-scorer into something more robust by Ken Hitchcock. The similarities in the Modano-Seguin arcs were so obvious that it grew tiresome to make them, and no one must have been more tired of it than Seguin.

But if narratives are written in the regular season, myths are codified in the playoffs. And one thing was missing from the playoff runs Dallas made in those first few years: Tyler Seguin.

In 2013-14, Seguin managed only one goal in a six-game loss to the top-seeded Ducks. It was understandable as Anaheim was heavily favored, but it was irksome to hear people declare Seguin’s lack of significant playoff production to be a validation of the play he was knocked for in Boston. 

The Stars missed the playoffs the following year, but Jamie Benn capped off the regular season by winning the Art Ross Trophy in the final game. You remember the giddiness, the joy, and Seguin jumping up and down on the bench as Benn got that memorable secondary assist, don’t you?

Well, you don’t, actually. Seguin had been scratched for that game after being late for practice. Things didn’t get much better in 2015-16, after Seguin suffered an Achilles injury in mid-March as the Stars were roaring to the top spot in the Western Conference. He valiantly tried to return for the playoffs, but a premature comeback effort ended in disappointment, and the Stars were bounced in the second round. 

The Stars missed the playoffs in the next two seasons as well. Seguin was averaging a productive 77 points per season, but five years after his arrival, he still had just one goal in seven postseason games. 

Enter team president Jim Lites. Dallas got back to the playoffs in 2018-19, but not before Lites, with the blessing of owner Tom Gaglardi, publicly and profanely insulted Seguin (and Benn) in a misguided effort to motivate them. Maybe it worked. A significant contributor in the playoffs for the first time, Seguin put up four goals and 11 points in 13 games during Ben Bishop’s lone healthy playoff run during his six-year contract in Dallas. But the offense sputtered against St. Louis, giving away a 3-2 lead in a series that ended in yet another heartbreaking overtime loss.

The following year, Seguin pushed himself well beyond the limits of caution. He played in 25 grueling playoff matches as the Stars took Tampa Bay to six games in the bubble Stanley Cup Final, fighting through a torn labrum, among many other maladies: 

Seguin may have scored only two goals in the bubble, but that run cemented his status as a playoff warrior. It’s not for me to judge a player’s choice to play through pain, so long as he isn’t endangering himself. Nonetheless, the fact that Seguin missed nearly all of the subsequent season while recovering is a testament to the toll it inflicted to gut out those 25 games in Edmonton.

Part of Lites’ tirade in December 2018 involved a belief by management that Seguin wasn’t going to the front of the net enough, wasn’t trying to get into the heavier action and score what the Wild might call “grit” goals. It wasn’t a fair accusation then, and it’s even less fair these days, as Seguin has demonstrably worked to score goals any way he can, often from the doorstep, as he did in the pivotal Game 5:

At this point, Seguin doesn’t have anything to prove. He has stood up for teammates and fought former ones; he has given up Lady Byng Trophy votes in favor of reconstructed tendons. But while fans can drive momentum in games, hockey players are driven most often by their own expectations. And it’s clear that Seguin, like most NHL players, still has something to prove to himself. 

In taking over for Pavelski on the top line, Seguin hasn’t tried to replace him, but he has produced some of the best offensive metrics of any Stars skater in this series. He is tied for the team lead in goals, and so what if all four have come on the power play? The last time I checked, the objective is to win the series—Brenden Morrow’s goal in the fourth overtime of the series-clinching Game 6 win over the Sharks in 2008 was also on the power play, for goodness sake. Seguin has been capitalizing on the Stars’ best chances, and he has been doing so when they’ve needed it most. (Case in point: the two goals he scored in a must-win Game 4 road victory.) Never has Seguin been farther from his final days in Boston. 

And let’s not forget that Seguin has an even plus-minus in this series, playing against the best opposition Minnesota has to throw at the Stars’ top line. With all the talk of Minnesota’s better play at five-on-five, Seguin has held steady atop the lineup, leading the team to the brink of advancing. He has been playing tough minutes in place of an irreplaceable player, and he’s been doing so with aplomb. 

Pavelski is close to a return, as evidenced by his traveling to Minnesota for Game 6. That means Seguin may be relegated to the second power-play unit and the second forward line, which can only be described as a luxury for DeBoer. But even if Seguin doesn’t have to be a face of the team like he did earlier in his career, or in this playoff series, that doesn’t take anything away from what he has given this franchise. If recent history is any indication, he’s going to keep giving whatever it takes to make this season’s ending his best one yet. 

Author

Robert Tiffin

Robert Tiffin

View Profile
Robert Tiffin covers the Stars for StrongSide. He has worked for SB Nation as a writer and editor, covering the…

Related Articles

Image
Hockey

Presidents’ Trophy?! The Stars Don’t Need No Stinking Presidents’ Trophy!

We called up some NHL scouts to ask about regular-season hardware and what worries them about the Stars in the playoffs.
Image
Hockey

The Stars Prepare to Ride Their Defense Into the Playoffs

Chris Tanev and Thomas Harley have risen to the occasion.
Image
Uncategorized

Don’t Read Too Much Into the Stars’ Loss to the Panthers

We love storylines, but this was about something far simpler.
Advertisement