Storyboarding the 2024-2025 Dallas Stars Regular Season

They're serious contenders. But they also have a lot of serious questions.

I was reading Chris Johnston's 25 Must-Watch people in the NHL for the 2024-2025 season. It had the usual cast: Connor McDavid, Alex Ovechkin, Jessica Campbell, Steven Stamkos, Eric Tulsky, Sidney Crosby, etc. These are all good stories: veterans chasing milestones never reached, the first female in an NHL coaching position, and whether a true outsider (Tulsky) can figure out the formula for a hockey championship. But… 

Not. A. Single. Dallas. Star. This is a team that has twice now been in the NHL's final four.

I don't bring this up to complain about the NHL not paying attention to little old "us." If you’re a fan and you feel that way, you're not wrong for feeling like the hockey world ignores your favorite team, because they absolutely do. But you also can't be the person who criticizes national coverage in one breath, and then in the next won't support the local coverage of your team. Even the biggest media outlets need your support. If you're not willing to support either, then what exactly do you think they're entitled to? That’s not to say your voice doesn’t matter just because it’s potentially coming from a place of hypocrisy; only that coverage is nourished by writer and reader alike.

If more people didn’t pay for my coverage, I suspect I’d stop doing this altogether, or at least slow it down considerably. That’s not to say money is what drives my desire to write; the writer’s the last person that gets to live this particular dream. But knowing that people have literally invested in my writing inspires me to invest back; to make sure you’re reading the stories you want to read, or better — to read the stories you didn’t know you needed. Dedicated readers help create dedicated writers. So there it is: there’s my sales pitch for people to subscribe (paid or not), or to spread the word, whether on Reddit, Facebook, or those grimy hfboards. Thanks to Victory+, I’ll be doing more video analysis, and thanks to you, a really cool and special announcement…soon.

Side note: Oh yea! As I am now officially credentialed, so is the Stars Stack (or does it not work like that?). Obviously I can’t bother anyone with dumb questions while still in San Antonio, but I’m working on that.

My long-winded point here is that I bring up Dallas' absence on Johnston's big board not because I think it illustrates a lack of respect, but because I think it illustrates a lack of radar. Joe Pavelski and Chris Tanev were big names. They are proven names. Without them, Dallas becomes a little less proven; less big of a deal. It’s the reason why Steven Dangle and friends liked Dallas in their season preview, but didn’t love them.¹  

And to that I say: good. Something strange is happening. Dallas will no longer be looked at as the top dog. They’ll be seen as a big mudskipper in a small bog. However, have you seen a mudskipper?² They’re highly agile. They’re fast, slick looking if you can ignore the way their eyes are goofily positioned, and they can bite. Hard. Like mudskippers, they’re gonna be underdiscussed, and teams like Edmonton, Vancouver, and Colorado will continue to hijack headlines. The Stars will be seen as a darkhorse despite their successful history continually fueled by an evolving future.

And in many ways, that's totally valid. The Stars are not the same team they were in the playoffs. The blueline has real potential to take more than a step back, and as confident as I am in Dallas' ability to replace Pavelski's production, it is by no means a given.

So what's it gonna be? Who's gonna do it? And how will it all end? Well, let’s storyboard it all and find out.   

The Young Core Takes Over

• Cast: Wyatt Johnston, Logan Stankoven, Thomas Harley, and Mavrik Bourque

• V.O. "Dallas obviously has a lot of good players, and quality veterans, but this team is being driven by an elite core of young stars in the making."

Johnston and Stankoven are locks to come out the gate swinging. Both are playing for and toward contracts that will pay them out for the rest of their lives. Whether Johnston is on the top line or not, and whether Stankoven loses his main pivot is more or less irrelevant. Both are intensely skilled playdrivers, and I'd expect them to have a hot start.

Harley will start out quiet in terms of production, but he'll soon be respected for his maturity too. His defensive performance in the playoffs gets slept on -- and I don't mean as something underdiscussed. I mean his defensive performance was a legit asset, and downright elite within that window. Sure, Miro Heiskanen is one of the game's best defenders, and maybe Dallas’ best fully fleshed out three-zone defender, and the sentence should stop there without any conjunctions. BUT...great performances can be shared, and still be great. Harley will continue to prove essential to Dallas having another defender to threaten from the point. As for Bourque…like I said.

Blueline Blues

• Cast: Matt Dumba, Ilya Lyubushkin, Brendan Smith, Nils Lundkvist

• V.O. "If there's anything holding this team back, it's their blueline. It's not bad, but it's become clear how sorely Chris Tanev is missed, and how much they still need to find a replacement."

No, I am not walking back what I wrote in D Magazine. To recap, my argument isn't that Dallas' blueline will be an asset; it's that it won't hold them back. A flaw, or a weakness alone are not enough to expose a contender. Florida had a poor blueline on paper. Colorado was too one-dimensional. Vegas didn't have enough firepower. Jose Aldo had poor proactive instincts. Jon Jones had bad footwork. Et cetera. I mention that because it's not gonna stop the blueline from being a talking point. Sure, the first couple of games, people will settle in and love Dumba and Lyubushkin's physicality. But a few turnovers in a few losses will highlight their weaknesses, for which they have plenty.

To make matters worse, Smith is not a difference maker. When he's playing, it'll be leveraged as a cheap talking point for why Nill didn't do more. As for Lundkvist, there will be blood. I'm rooting for Lundkvist, and while I don't think a great defender lurks within, there is at least a useful defender in him. However, the standard from DeBoer is not usefulness, but impact. Lundkvist won't achieve that level, and the discussion will get heated as a result. This is not a talking point that’ll come from the media, so much as an internal one for the same reasons as last year. Jani Hakanpaa wasn’t a great defender, but he wasn’t terrible. He was just overly leveraged, and I don’t see much difference between him and the others.  

Central Jenga

• Cast: Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Wild, Nashville Predators

• V.O. "It's no longer just Dallas and Colorado at the top of the Central. Minnesota and Nashville are right there with them!"

This is, of course, a bunch of BS. The UFC was always terrible with this, and with parity in the NHL at an all time high, you're starting to see it creep into hockey: the narrative that "anyone can win" and how Elite Team A vs. Mediocre Team B is must-see TV because of it. The MDK division is no longer what it once was. Dallas and Colorado are the top teams, and there will be one good team in that third spot (Minnesota), and one pretender in that spot (Nashville).

I love you Stars fans, but I don't share your hatred for Minnesota.³ That's not how I watch sports, and it doesn't help me understand hockey better (call it a coping mechanism if you will). The Wild were one of the best defensive teams in hockey last year — literally the only team better than Dallas in expected goals against per hour at even strength (yes, number one in the NHL)— but got absolutely smoked by their own goaltenders. Could it happen again? Yes. But could it happen again as well as all their injuries? Probably not. Their top three defenders are better than Dallas' top three as a group, and Marco Rossi is a proper top six center in training (unlike Ryan Hartman). Assuming their young forwards like Liam Ohgren and Murat Khusnutdinov can chip in, they have all the makings of a sustainable competitor.

However, expect them to have a choppy start. They'll stabilize eventually, but it'll be tough early. Conversely, a team like Nashville is made to be a front runner. They're gonna look good, and they may even fool the public into believing they're contenders, but the age of the team warrants criticism. The Central competition won’t be competitive, but it will be close. (As in, it’ll be clear who the best teams are but the standings won’t always reflect that.)     

The Thanksgiving Cutoff

• Cast: Everyone.

• V.O. "77 percent of the teams on pace to make the playoffs by Thanksgiving make the cut. Dallas is well on track."  

Dallas should have a solid start, and it's one of the reasons why I think their young players will have such success. If you look at their October schedule, it's a shooting gallery. Only Edmonton and Boston are truly certified. That's not to say the Stars will win all the others, but they'll have the chance to gain some early momentum, and with it, a common marker for what we already know: Dallas is a playoff team. 

Will the real Jake Oettinger please stand up? Or has he already?

Cast: Jake Oettinger

V.O. “Oettinger is one of the best goalies in the league. But we’re waiting to see him rise to the level of a Shesterkin, Sorokin, or Hellebyuck.”

The voiceover will obviously leave out the nuances of Oettinger’s bounceback: namely an improvement at even strength, sprinkled in with some shorthanded volatility. That was the prediction in our end-of-season report card.

I recommend reading that Oettinger report card in full, because it really tracks what we can expect. Sifting through the data, Oettinger’s problem was your typical Worst Parts of the Bible stuff. 2023-2024 was by far his worst year at even strength, so much so that looking at his other seasons side by side makes it clear that we can expect a dramatic bounceback. But here’s the thing: Oettinger can’t just bounce back. He has to level up. In fact, Evolving-Hockey’s data makes clear that the team in front of him gave him an ‘easy’ workload; he simply wasn’t playing to the level of the defense in front of him — a phenomenon that’s been true of his every year except his rookie season.

There’s a larger question about where Oettinger fits into the game’s elite. I’m skeptical. He’s only had one great year, one good one, one decent one, and one bad one. The regular season won’t necessarily answer that larger question, but it’s gonna prop Oettinger up because it would be hard for him to be any worse than he was last year, creating an anchoring effect.

A quiet trade deadline looms

Cast: TBD.

V.O. “Dallas could use a heavy, right-shot defender.”

I mean, we know this will be a talking point, right? Talking point point or not, I don’t think Nill pulls the trigger here. There’s a good chance that Lian Bichsel will prove to be more interesting than Brendan Smith and Nils Lundkvist. When that happens, Bichsel will be seen as a “trade deadline” equivalent.⁴ .

The loyal opposition emerges

Cast: Edmonton Oilers.

V.O. “Nobody is stopping this Edmonton team.”

Graphic from The Athletic. Way-too-early predictions for the NHL 2024-25 season: Stanley Cup winner, dark horse, playoff field, awards, more.

So maybe The Athletic is not that biased against Dallas, huh?

Still, Edmonton’s is everyone’s favorite, and it makes sense. They are on the Florida path, having been to one Final, and itching to make good on their follow-up Final appearance. Let’s go back to our deep dive before the two teams threw down.

I still feel like an idiot for not trusting data that made clear as day “this team is no joke, and in point of fact, have the edge in the Dallas offense vs. Edmonton defense matchup, and the edge in the Edmonton offense vs. Dallas defense matchup.”

Should that still hold true? Depends. On paper, Edmonton got better while Dallas got worse; at least as a heads up matchup. However, two critical things that I’d expect to happen that could change the matchup:

• Dallas being a poor passing team means they couldn’t take advantage of a team that was only average at defending the pass. This is the part where I recommend you becoming a paid subscriber because I’m not gonna recap all the numbers. But Edmonton ranked 14th in rush defense, and 12th in forechecking defense. Unfortunately Dallas ranked lower in rush and forechecking offense. Stankoven and Bourque have potential to change that narrative.

• Edmonton’s power play beating Dallas’ penalty kill was predictable, but Dallas was ranked 5th on the PP to Edmonton’s rank of 15th on the PK. That should change just by virtue of puck luck.

I’ll have a full analytics preview next week for paid subscribers, and I’ll expand on this matchup a bit because the talking heads are right: Dallas vs. Edmonton is the matchup in the West.

Dallas, The Darkhorse

Cast: Dallas Stars

V.O. “Don’t sleep on Dallas."

It’s weird that this could ever be said about a team that has twice been on the WC Finals, but it will be said about Dallas for reasons I outlined in the intro. It’s part of what makes Dallas such a fascinating team; they’re filled with stories, both large and small. But these stories are largely internal ones; the development of a new youth core projected to be better, and the potential chemistries of the less heralded players, like Dumba and Marchment (who both looked good in the preseason).

Celebrini and Michkov outpace Stankoven

Cast: Logan Stankoven, Mavrik Bourque.

V.O. “Logan Stankoven trails…”

The more I watch Stankoven, who just quietly generated at a point per game pace in the preseason, the more I’m convinced he has a shot. But the more I watch Celebrini and Michkov, the more I’m convinced it won’t be enough. There’s hardly any shame. These are two players that teams had to tank for just to get. Stankoven could have been had by literally anyone. Same, more or less, for Bourque.

“He’s expected to be out two months…”

Cast: TBD

V.O. “That’s a tough loss.”

Something about this feels in poor taste, and kind of morbid, so I mean no disrespect here. But it’s something Jim Nill has repeatedly stressed: “we’ve been fortunate to be so healthy.” And it’s true. That’s two years in a row now that Dallas has been ‘top’ five in per game cap charge via injury/illness (or CHIP) per NHL Injury Viz. While I believe credit where credit is due — Dallas’ medical staff is widely respected as an elite group — there’s just no accounting for the randomness of serious injury given the nature of the sport. I suspect that luck will run out. In the same way said luck wasn’t there when it seemed like the injury gods were out for Tyler Seguin’s blood. They owed Dallas. It’s not a topic I like talking about, but it is something to be prepared for.

Miro Heiskanen, Norris Winner

Let’s end with a happy thought. Miro Heiskanen: 2025 Norris winner.

I said my peace on this last week on where I believe Heiskanen fits into the spectrum of great defensemen. As of now, I would say there are four horsemen in the NHL: Adam Fox, Cale Makar, Charlie McAvoy, and then the victory green defender from Espoo, Finland. (I think Quinn Hughes is elite, but his status in that realm is shortlived, thus far.)

Keep in mind, I never said Heiskanen was the best defensemen; only that he belonged in The Athletic’s top tier. I go back and forth on this. One of the reasons why I sometimes favor Makar is that offense and defense is a three-zone process. Makar forcing opponents to defend is really a best-case scenario for defense, as it eliminates the need for it entirely. That’s a big deal, and the reason why he already has a Cup, even if it feels like Colorado’s window is potentially closing. Heiskanen doesn’t have that ability, and while we lament his weakside handicap, how else can we judge him at this point? As long as that doesn’t change, we can’t change our analysis of him because of it. McAvoy is like the brawler version of Heiskanen, while Fox is maybe hockey’s best blueline playmaker.

These Norris trophies are rarely won on pure merit, so Heiskanen winning the Norris is what my gut is telling me. Maybe it will be won on merit. It’s hard to project a defenseman’s production. But I expect this is the year where voters ignore the production gap, and give Heiskanen a well-earned trophy anchoring one of hockey’s best teams.

1. Please don’t be a jerk about this. Yes, we can nitpick things the SDPN show gets wrong, but they’re one of the few Canadian shows that covers the Stars, and nobody on a national level (Dangle may have started out “small time” but he’s not; not anymore) does hockey coverage with more heart. Plus Steve picked Dallas to win the Cup last year.

2. I’m obsessed with this Instagram account.

3. The only team I ever felt true hatred for growing up was Detroit. There’s just something simultaneously too inoffensive and too gross about perfection, and they were perfect.

4. Am I being pedantic to point out that this doesn’t make sense, since trades are intentional, whereas prospects making the jump is contingent? Probably.