Stars Precap: Into the weeds with what can we expect from Dallas vs. Vancouver

But a lengthy message of appreciation to everyone new (and old).

First off, thank you — yes you, the reader — for being here. A lot of new subscribers rolled in here yesterday, and I couldn’t understand why. It’s not like anything has changed around here. I still mostly just rant, rave, and steal insights from the other analytics and tactics writers¹. And then I realized why. Robert Tiffin has joined the cool kids club. For those that are not following him, you should be. He’s not just covering the Stars. He’s bringing the beat back. Because he has first-rate sensibilities, he’s not just giving you daily coverage, but writing the stories you didn’t know you needed, like how the now-extinct song the Stars used to play whenever opponents scored…is, well, extinct.

As for this place, here’s my actual sales pitch: no stone is left unturned when it comes to analysis. You want to read about Dallas’ rush attack according to the numbers? I got you covered. You want to know how Stars prospects are doing, be it in the AHL, OHL, or college? I got you covered². Want to watch film? Covered. Want to see the fun, original artwork I had commissioned for this place? Boom. As a great Western philosopher once said, '“I live my life a quarter mile at a time.”³ Some of my work is behind a paywall⁴, but most of it’s not. And I have a Discord with 300 other Stars fans, which you’re always welcome to join. Either way, I hope you stick around to support the many different types of Stars coverage. If we’re gonna build the Stars community this hockey team deserves, it starts with you. So again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

For those that missed it, the news on Miro Heiskanen is complicated. Initially it was reported that Heiskanen was week-to-week. According to Pete DeBoer, his injury could require knee surgery, however, which would extend to months. How long is anyone’s guess. So while it certainly sounds like he’ll be back in time for the playoffs, the timeline is still brutal for Dallas.

Because of that, I wrote extensively at D Magazine about why Heiskanen’s injury will put the focus on the blueline, and the benefits that will come from it. The TL;DR version is this: Dallas has always needed to fix the blueline, even more than adding forward depth. Long term, this is a good thing IMO.

PDO Podcast

Dimitri Filipovic had me on his show, and we talked about:

• How unique Dallas is as a contender

• What they should be looking for at the deadline

• The power play failures

• Jason Robertson

• Wyatt Johnston

• Thomas Harley

Give it a listen!

Vancouver

It’s impossible to understate how bad it is in Vancouver. Yes, they’ve won three straight games. But their GM, Jim Rutherford, flat out said the Canucks won’t be contending this year. “It’s not going to happen.” Not “with this group” given the rift between Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller. There’s a lot to unpack here, and because this is a Stars site, I won’t dwell on it.

But I don’t think it’s merely on the players. We don’t know their relationship. And we don’t know why it’s threatening to tear apart the room. But we do know that you have coaches precisely to lead these players, which is why more people should be asking why Rick Tocchet skates blame here. And it’s also why management has to honestly assess their team even in times of success. Everyone and their dogs knew that signing an aging forward to a massive contract on a team that wasn’t playoff bound was a bad idea. But they did it anyway in 2022. And then promptly missed the playoffs. They only made it last year after was on the back of an even-strength shooting percentage (10.49 percent) that was the second best the NHL has seen in over a decade.

I get why teams do this. They think money and value are synonymous and so the concept of Win Now has a reptilian-brained appeal. Playoff revenue, more merchandise, fan hype, player buy-in, etc. I talked about why this doesn’t work, even from an economic perspective, in a piece no one read. And it makes me appreciate even more what Dallas has been able to do. Teams routinely luck into the playoffs. And the best team doesn’t always win. But what you can do is draft, develop, and nourish every roster’s future so that success happens naturally, and gradually. It’s called research and development. And it’s not always easy or cheap to quantify. It’s one of the reasons why I respect Nill’s unwillingness to trade picks and prospects. I don’t always agree. But I respect it, and it’s clearly led the team to this point.

Vancouver is only making the tough decision because the rift between their two top centers has forced their hand. Despite the team’s three-game winning streak, their shot quality control (or expected goal differential) has been well below average.

Oddly enough, they’ve also somehow been extremely unlucky (PDO is just save percentage and shooting percentage added up, to get a broad idea about how “lucky” a team is. For a fantastic refresher, check out Jack Fraser’s article)

In other words, Vancouver is due a loss, and many more to come.

Dallas

I don’t want to trample my own story in D Magazine. But the roster as is, should be able to beat a team like Vancouver. The Canucks have been a poor scoring team, an average goals-against team, an awful possession team, and a decent special teams group, hovering near the top 10 on the power play and the penalty kill.

First and foremost, with the blueline hampered, now’s the time for the offense to step up. I believe they’re capable. The newlook top line with Wyatt Johnston next to Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz looked fantastic, while Matt Duchene and Mavrik Bourque continue to be a duo I personally advocate for. Give me two playmakers working in sync over two shooters every day of the week and twice on domingo. It helps that Mason Marchment’s return is around the corner.

For those new year, I love my “analytics” and so we do a lot of chart hugging around here. You may find this obnoxious, but I hope you stick around long enough for me to change your mind. Heh. Nonetheless, I’ve promised to do my best with explaining what all of them mean in layman’s terms. Below I’m looking at each forward’s Goals Above Replacement (GAR) metric. For an explainer, click here.

The player you’d like to see more from is Logan Stankoven. There are certain things this chart doesn’t capture, and I’ll have more to say in a later post because Stankoven’s numbers are interesting insofar as some models like him a lot more than Evolving-Hockey’s. That’s important but not for our purposes today. For now, I find it interesting that he’s simply nowhere near the level he was in his brief appearance last year, not to mention the playoffs.

As always, it’s important to stress that analytics unfold over time. There are also a lot of reasons to explain Stankoven’s sluggish start. But I do feel like some of these black box models capture what I’m seeing as well. He’s been pushed around a lot more this season, he’s losing the puck a lot more to forecheckers, and just doesn’t have the ruthlessness that defined his initial stint. Stankoven will be fine long term. He’s still a rookie with 24 points, which is fourth in the league among his peers, just above Will Smith and Cutter Gauthier. Sure it’s well below the expectations we had before the season started, but development happens at different rates for different players, and for Stankoven, this just might the rare case of him getting the “sophomore slump” out the way early.

Defensively, it’s slim pickings. Pay attention to the blue (offensive value from shift to shift) and orange (defensive value from shift to shift).

There’s plenty of defensive value with what’s left of the blueline, but no offense. Again; it’s gonna be bad. But at least we’ll know for sure how good the depth truly is. Especially with Harley in a bigger role, and Bichsel playing more minutes.

I always hear about Bichsel playing on his right side, but this is just untrue. He has played his offside in corner cases, but he was not drafted as a right-side defender who happens to play left handed like Niklas Hjalmarsson or T.J. Brodie. He hasn’t been developed to do it (Neil Graham in Cedar Park didn’t do it), and he’s not doing it now. I don’t mean to be a pedantic jerk, but I am traumatized by Heiskanen’s career, so forgive me. However…if ever there were a time to give him reps playing opposite Harley or Esa Lindell on the right side then now’s the time. I do believe it would hurt his breakout passing, as I find it to be an excellent feature of his game, but I don’t think it was hurt is entry defense. But hey, we’ll see.

The Stars recalled Kyle Capobianco, which doesn’t mean much except that the Stars may want to “replace” Heiskanen’s offense. Capobianco is like the offensive version of Alex Petrovic: it won’t be anything special, but it won’t be anything limiting. He’s a smooth skater, and deft puck handler, and spent enough time in the NHL to know his role. With Nils Lundkvist on IR (well, sort of?), he may get a chance to pull a Taylor Fedun/Joel Hanley if Dallas wants, but we’ll see.

1. Hey, at least I interviewed one of them!

2. I stopped doing weekly reports for the World Juniors, but I’ll bring them back next week.

3. The Critique of Pure Reason, 1781.

4. Here’s a complete list.