How Does It Affect The Stars? The Florida Panthers are your 2024 Stanley Cup Champs

Well-earned, and well-fought.

The Florida Panthers are your 2024 Stanley Cup Champs.

I know that hurts to read for a lot of Stars fans, but it’s hard to imagine a more well-deserving team. This was their second trip to the Finals in consecutive seasons, and they played with the attitude of a team that knew the outcome in advance — even if it looked like they were gonna choke it away.

If there’s any consolation to Stars fans it’s that the series only looked lopsided in terms of outcomes early on. Under the hood, it was anything but, with Edmonton deserving a better fate than what they got. (Sound familiar?) Corey Sznajder wrote a really great breakdown on that early Florida lead the other day too.

Topsy Turvy

I’ve been a broken record with this whole “monocausal narratives suck, bla bla bla” I know. But this is yet another case in point. Florida’s best players were not their best players across seven games but they found a way. Part of this on how they’re built, but it’s also about how thin the margins for error are once you get deeper into the playoffs. Dallas had great special teams in the regular season. Some of that carried over, while some of it didn’t. But both got taken to the woodshed at just the wrong time, and they didn’t have a way of offsetting it the way Florida was able to win even with Matthew Tkachuk mostly absent.

I didn’t care for the “best series of the cap era” narrative. This series felt too much like two heavyweight fighters in the late stages of the fight, able to throw hard, but not as precise with the air a little more thin; an analogy made all the more explicit with McDavid and Draisaitl doing everything in their power just to take a step forward. However, like a great dramatic fight that’s not the most technical (think Gatti-Ward instead of Duran-Leonard), it was still a great series, historic more for the patterns than the on-ice play, but still a ton of fun involving two of the best teams.

It’s never simply a matter of one elite team being better than another elite team, but a sequence one elite team can leverage over the other at just the right moment. Edmonton had the power play while Florida had its forecheck and the ability to beat forechecks. Dallas is missing that lever they can pull at any time. For a minute, it was the top line’s dominance. They lost that with Paveslki’s decline. Now they must search for a new one.

Programming Note

As for the Dallas Stars, again: there’s no slowing down here.

For the anal-retentive reader, here’s a calendar through August. Keep in mind, some of this is subject to change, especially if something big goes down following free agency. But seeing as how I suck at managing my time, I can only move past that if I stick to a strict regimen, so if anything changes — it’ll be because I’m adding something, not because I’m taking anything away.

I’ll also update the calendar and finalize the offseason schedule once the free agency dust settles. As always, let me know if there’s something you’d like to see more of, less of, or even something to brainstorm. As I figure out the schedule, we’ll definitely get into some Texas Stars stuff, prospect rankings, and my personal favorite — the “Metapuck” series; a riff on my favorite series from my old stomping grounds covering MMA called ‘So Meta’. The podcasts seemed to be something of a dud, so I’ll revisit a better organization of that format if I do. But let’s forget about all that.

What can Dallas learn from the 2024 Cup-winning Panthers?

Does Dallas have a Barkov?

Barkov was, for my money, a worthy Conn Smythe winner despite it going to McDavid. At the highest levels, your two forwards can’t just be producers — they have to control all three zones. It’s not just offense and defense, but leveraging territory for either/or.

For awhile, Roope Hintz seemed like that kind of player. He’s a premiere shooter, a lowkey playmaker, and good enough defensively to earn Selke votes. Compared to Barkov? The offense is close, but not the defense. In fact, it’s a testament to how good Barkov is that Hintz is damn good defensively and still doesn’t come close.

Not sure what this chart means and need a quick and dirty explainer? I’ve got you covered! Click here to learn more from a man who knows less.

What about Wyatt Johnston? It’s too early to give him that responsibility, but for a player his age to rate this well says a lot.

These bars will only go up with time.

That’s not to crown Johnston the next Barkov, nor is it to crown Barkov the only type of center that can get it done. Jack Eichel wasn’t the player Barkov is, just as neither are Nathan MacKinnon nor Braydon Point. However, Johnston seems on a trajectory that will put him in a special tier.

Bill Zito and Panthers management: building without the draft

No doubt, we’re gonna get a serious influx of the “Florida model” takes about how in order to win, you have to do exactly what Florida did. Which is drastically different than how Vegas won, who did it differently than Tampa Bay, who did it differently than Colorado, etc. This is all boilerplate BS.

That’s not to say there isn’t a common theme. To that end, I think Florida is a great example of a team where pro scouts can pay serious dividends. Eetu Luostarinen, Anthony DuClair, Sam Bennett, Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe, Gustav Forsling, Brandon Montour, Mason Marchment, Jonathan Marchessault, Evan Rodrigues — as an organization, the Panthers have absolutely knocked it out of the park in bringing in players from outside the organization that run the gamut, ranging from reclamation projects to veteran stopgaps.

If there’s anything Dallas can learn here, it’s to stop the parade of Dudes With Resumes. Look how varied that list is. Nill and his group, conversely, have a type, and they don’t stray away from: Suter, Pavelski, Duchene, Tanev, Radulov, Spezza, Raffl, Glendening, Comeau, Cogliano. Some of them hit, some don’t, but what they all have in common is that they’re safe bets. There’s no risk. That’s why the Marchment signing was so interesting; it bucked the trend. Yes, I recognize the irony. Marchment was seen as a fascinating, sexy gamble, and an analytics darling who then turned into...well I’m not sure we know yet. There’s a broader discussion within that, but I do think Dallas is leaving something to be desired here.

Granted, if we compare each team’s amateur scouts, the tables completely turn, but this is about ‘what Dallas can learn?’ right? Just saying.

Stop fearing data, you goons!

Dallas is a team on the relative cutting edge, so this isn’t a swipe at the Stars or their analytics team; which they have. Sean and Prashanth Iyer (who has an amazing Substack, by the way) interviewed him awhile back.

But this tweet was going around and even though I found it obviously cheap, it’s still loosely instructive. For those that don’t feel like clicking, Florida hired Sunny Mehta in 2020, who had previously worked in New Jersey: a former poker nerd with a Masters in Data Science. Like with the Eric Tulsky hiring by Carolina — recently made the official GM — it’s not the inclusion itself that stands out (although that’s still important) but where their inclusion presides.

Mehta and Tulsky aren’t just data miners with cramped desks near a loading dock who send data to a guy who knows a guy that knows the GM. They’re high up where their voices can’t be shot down by goons like Pierre McGuire still trotting out the same tired cliches — as Derek Jeter recently did — about how you “can’t measure heart.”

My thing with data is not that it should be accepted without question, but that you need to understand it. No different than professionals in other fields, you need professionals who can unpack the absurd level of data that even just one game of hockey can contain. You hear GMs say this all the time. “We use stats to figure out which ones are useful and which ones aren’t.” This misses the point entirely. You use stats to figure out the patterns as they unfold, and what they mean. How do you know what’s useful or not without having a discussion about what is meant by ‘value’ and ‘usefulness’? How do you know that what doesn’t have value today, won’t have value tomorrow? This is not to say every GM needs some data nerdonaut to be their assistant general manager. But there’s no excuse for any team in this day and age to do anything but run towards the trend rather than away.

(Before anyone mentions it, yes, Edmonton has a guy)

Why Dallas shouldn’t care how Florida won

Lastly, carve your own path. What works for one team won’t necessarily work for another.

Over the last four years, the Dallas Stars have three Western Conference Finals appearances, and one Cup appearance. They’re already doing something right. The biggest thing has been the injection of contributing youth, and how they’ve been developed into more than just being role players. Last year it was the addition of Wyatt Johnston and Thomas Harley in the playoffs. This year it was Stankoven. Next season, the Stars have the ability to leverage Mavrik Bourque and Lian Bichsel on an already-strong roster (one of the reasons why I’m quite optimistic about next season, even if Dallas did nothing else except bring back Tanev). Maybe they play Bourque next to Stankoven, bumping Johnston to the top line. It’s an established chemistry. Maybe they bring in Sean Walker, who can pair next to Bichsel when he’s ready.

Whether these are the right moves or not is not the point; rather, it’s about what they can maximize that continues giving them that edge over their playoff peers. No other team is better positioned to do this than the Stars, which is why should they win — there’s your boilerplate in advance. “How the West was Won: Great Drafting Allowed Dallas to Regenerate Rather than Rebuild” or whatever derivative AI copy you’d prefer.

That’s not to say Dallas can’t learn a few things from Florida; only that winning the Cup is hard, and everything has to line up perfectly to build a champion. Dallas already has a lot lined up for them. Now it’s time to capitalize, whether it’s in the Robertson window, or the Johnston window. They’re already two steps ahead of most teams. Can they take that final one?

We’ll find out soon enough, starting with the draft and next week when free agency opens.