Stars Stack Mailbag: Dallas clinches the West, first round matchups, maximizing depth, and plenty more

It's official: Dallas is #1 in the West. What's not official is their playoff opponent.

It wasn’t the most exciting way to clinch the West, but St. Louis hasn’t been an easy out for Dallas all year. Nonetheless, Dallas’ 2-1 shootout win over the Blues makes them the ‘top dog.’ And so now they wait.

The game itself might have been boring to some, but I thought it was pretty decent. Dallas had plenty of looks; Binnington just happened to be on point. However, if you’re a Stars fan looking for promising signs, then last night was the best sign of all, as Jake Oettinger was in full-on superhero mode.

Oettinger can’t erase the bulk of the season in which he was well below average. Even with his late-season heroics, it only pushed his save percentage to .905. It’ll be the lowest number of his career, and by a significant margin; only his rookie year came “close” with a .911 save percentage. However, nobody will care about his regular season numbers if he can find a way to discover his previous form in the postseason.

There wasn’t much beyond that, except the time-honored tradition of Tyler Seguin missing games versus St Louis. Evgenii Dadonov looked pretty good in Seguin’s place, Wyatt Johnston and Logan Stankoven continued to threaten, and yes — Esa Lindell’s trend of being more aggressive was evident yet again.

So now what? Now we continue to wait. The way it breaks down is this: If Vegas loses to Chicago, and LA beats Anaheim tonight, then Vegas it is. If they both lose, or if only LA loses, then LA it is. Of course, I’ll have a preview for tomorrow morning when it’s determined.

For now, we have a mailbag to get through!

Do you think playing the Kings or VGK will be better for the Stars to play? I know we match up better with LA but I feel if we beat VGK it gives the team that confidence boost to last the playoffs.

-Luke Pendley

This is a really good point.

But let me start with a quick counterpoint. Morale cuts both ways. Just as Dallas might be inspired by getting their revenge out the gate, how do you think Vegas feels? We’re talking about the defending Cup champs. They’re officially the underdog versus Dallas. They have an intimate familiarity with the Stars. If you’re the Knights, how are you not equally motivated by the insult of being counted out? Vegas has just as much to prove as Dallas here.

There is a right answer to which matchup is better, but Luke’s question is actually quite tricky. What’s better for Dallas? The answer is LA. Why? Because even if Dallas sweeps Vegas, but say, needs six games to beat LA ,which series do you think was harder? Absolutely Vegas.

I’m a big believer in comparing hockey to prizefighting, not because I think hockey could use more bloodthirsty fans or because it’s a convenient analogy given my history, but because playoff hockey is genuinely brutal. Just as fighters can win a round, but still lose a piece of themselves — i.e. a body shot that affects their breathing in later rounds, a cut above their eye to impar their vision, etc — a similar principle holds true in hockey.

Dallas is much more likely to lose a piece of themselves versus Vegas than they are to LA, regardless of the outcome.

Who would you rather face round one?

-Gearowns

LA. Even more than Nashville.

The thing about the Kings is that they’re not dangerous. Nashville, for all of their faults, is definitely that. Vegas is dangerous and elite despite having many faults. The Kings are neither, owing to a trade that crippled them (Dubois, now featured on their fourth line), and a system that keeps things too tight for a team that can’t score.

However, LA doesn’t have many faults either. In fact, their foundation is incredibly strong. Their blueline’s top four is one of the best in the business, with Drew Doughty still rating as one of the game’s top shutdown defenders. They don’t have a Connor McDavid or a Nathan MacKinnon, but Quinton Byfield is a genuine difference-maker. In terms of strict possession, they rate even better than Dallas, 54 percent shot attempt share as a team to Dallas’ 53 percent. As we talked about the other day with Winnipeg, checking lines might be out of style, but as long as it’s something you can leverage without sacrificing depth, it’s an asset worth exploiting, and LA has that with Phillip Danault and Anze Kopitar.

The Danault line is particularly relevant because they finally got its best offensive counterpuncher on that line in Viktor Arvidsson, who more or less missed the entire season. The Kings may not be dangerours, or elite, but that doesn’t make them ineffective. This is a very good team, and one I personally remain high on as a potential powerhouse in the Pacific with the right moves (really it just stops and starts with getting rid of Dubois’ contract — although getting Brandt Clarke into the lineup would help too.)

In your observation, what is the rank of least friction to most friction of our potential opponent?

-Matt Wambsgans

Ranking our three in terms of most friction to least, I’ll go:

• Vegas

• Nashville

• LA

For whatever reason, Nashville tends to play Dallas with a bug up their ass. However, every team gets indignant come playoff team. And you better believe at least one Star is gonna get obliterated by a motivated Doughty.

Remember what he did to Alex Goligoski? Just saying.

what do you think is the stars' most favorable path to the cup? I feel like the current most likely path is about as good as they could hope for

-Aaron K

(Sticktap: Aaron has his own Substack that’s a great follow if you favor analysis.)

LA. Winnipeg. Vancouver.

That’s the path that comfortably gets Dallas there. LA and Winnipeg are both good, stylistic matchups for Dallas. Vancouver might have their number, but I can’t help but chalk that up to statistical sorcery rather than something meaningful. That doesn’t mean it’ll be an easy out. It just means I don’t usually take seriously a contender that wasn’t expected to contend before the season started. Edmonton and Vegas, conversely, have been good for a really long time. Their rosters are filled with players who hate to lose. And just to answer the question you didn’t ask.

Vegas. Colorado. Edmonton. That to me, would be the hardest path.

What GAA and Save % does Otter need to help us win the cup?

-Connor Campbell

As Darcy Kuemper (.908) and Jordan Binnington (also .908) showed, you don’t always have to win with elite goaltending. Since 2014, the average save percentage of a Cup-winning goaltender in the playoffs is a .915 save percentage. Right now, Jake Oettinger’s save percentage is .904, and his career SV% is .913. Fans might be reassured to know that his playoff SV% is .917. (Granted, this is buffered by the Calgary series, but still.) As I’ve said before. Oettinger doesn’t need to be great. He just needs to be better.

Does a healthy Evgenii Dadonov make the Stars a better team? Is he higher than F13 in your eyes?

-Andrew Johnston

Let’s do the quick and dirty version with some isolated shot impacts. This year, Smith grades out as a massive upgrade over Dadonov.

However, if we compare their previous respective years, it’s much more even.

My in-the-wild reaction here is that no, he’s not an upgrade. He never gets talked about, but Smith giving the team 20 points in nothing minutes is huge, and a big part of why Dallas has a fourth line that can crush its minutes.

However, I do think Dadonov is a more interesting player in certain matchups, especially if you factor in injuries. Smith is a shooter who excels in single lanes, powering south to north. Dadonov is the opposite. So against a team like Colorado, I might prefer Dadonov in a top six role (assuming injuries) whereas I’d prefer Smith versus Vegas in a top six role (assuming injuries). There’s also probably a fourth line that has potential, like Steel-Bourque-Dadonov that I think would be fire.

Are you excited about any of their recent signings of undrafted players? And in the event of injury, does Bourque slot in top 9 as scoring option, as opposed to Smith or Dellandrea pushing Dadonov up the lineup (assuming Dadonov plays on 4th line with Steel and Faksa)?

-Chris Bernard

Ben Kraws and Arttu Hyry seem like the most interesting, with Kraws already proving his worth with a .910 save percentage through three games. I don’t know much about Hyry other than a few clips and what the guys over at EPRinkside said. Speaking of, here’s a snippet:

It’s not hard to notice why Hyry has been so effective in his role. He’s a strong physical presence who works hard to win body positioning, seal loose pucks, and has a good mental map defensively. He's also really strong in the faceoff dot. While Hyry’s skating stride is short and choppy at times, he makes up for it with his explosiveness and work rate.

If you’re a draft nerd, EPRinkside is worth the price of admission. Their work is the best in the draft business, and I’ll be stealing liberally from it when the offseason rolls around. The draft is one of my favorite aspects of hockey, so you better believe I’ll be writing nonstop — Dallas’ top pick, sleepers, draft philosophy, etc — about it.

As for the second part, I don’t expect Bourque to get a look. I think the Dallas organization likes having their AHL team in the playoffs (set to face Winnipeg’s farm team, the Manitoba Moose), and Bourque’s presence will determine how far they go. They believe in their depth too. As is, Dadonov and Dellandrea will be riding pine: whatever their faults, those are two solid depth players.

While I am hesitant to mess with the Benn-Johnston-Stankoven line, I can’t help but wonder if Johnston on the 1st line would produce any better results. What say you?

-Mark Melton

I agree. I’ve gotten some smoke from fans who think I don’t give Benn enough credit, which is actually a pretty fair description. I really don’t believe Benn is as essential to that line in proportion to what Johnston and Stankoven generate. But I also think Pavelski on that line would absolutely kill Johnston’s consistency. Hintz and Robertson keep Pavelski insulated. Pavelski and Benn would bring out the worst in each other. I do think this is a worthwhile question long term, and I think there’s a philosophical debate about whether Dallas should create two dominant lines instead of three really good ones, or if depth is gonna be their ticket but for now — it’s working; enough to make them the best team in a first rate division like the Central.

Would it at all be possible to just not have a third defensive pair? Just make sure Suter and nils/jani never actually play together?

-Ryan Suter Fan

Given Lundkivst’s minutes lately, I would say that’s exactly what they’ve been doing.