A few observations from an older school hockey guy…
First, we have to applaud Nill for the work he’s done to build this very good, entertaining, if sometimes unpredictable, team. Same tip of the cap for bringing in PDB, who has installed a team system that’s fun to watch vs his predecessor, Mr StegasourousBones.
But it is clear PDB coaches, and encourages a softer version of Pro Hockey. That some of my senior “no-contact” leagues had more contact, is both humorous and true. We can disagree with that as an overall strategy, but thinking bringing in a young beast (Tkachuck) will change things is unlikely, under this coach. My impression is the coaches already have defanged Bichsel to fit in. And if they valued his old school attributes, and attitude, he’d be playing up!
So we are what we are, right? But the fact remains without a threatening PP we have no way to make teams pay for taking liberties… and thinking what we have will suddenly become a top threat, is “hopium”! Thus go get Laine. Pay the cost. How many more wins do we have with 10 goals?
Using the PP as the team response to someone running “our” teammate, well that’s also assuming the refs make the proper calls… the first Bourque hit should have been 5 min plus a game misconduct, as should the second Bourque hit, was fined only, after the game. The hit on Miro also should have been 5 plus a game. Any of these could have been career threatening injuries.
Minimizing the potential injury cost to the Stars is what we all want to avoid, and brings to mind how much having a big man with big fists looking to rearrange our face, can change opposing players play. It does, fact.
Ask Cosby what his point total would be without that cheap intentional headshot at the outdoor game and what that cost him and his team… ask Kariya or Savard what headshots cost them… and continue to cost them to this day.
No PP response. No physical response. Means opponent’s are flying into our guys (our best guys we depend on) with a free pass. It also bring to question, do they have each others back? The current answer is, don’t appear to. That’s what’s discouraging to watch.
This is a really great point about a physical response not always being about blood. What's the incentive to take liberties if not being responsible for a goal against? Kind of hard for Dallas to do if their power play sucks.
If Dallas loses in the playoffs because of a struggling power play that still has Heiskanen and Benn on the top unit, I'm gonna lose my credentials with what I'll write.
He's totally very good, too bad Don Waddell wants to sign him to a nice contract. He's a core member. Sure would take a nice offer to pry him loose. Would be a shame if someone offered something he couldn't refuse! Or even soft tampered an even bigger contract than the Blue Jackets are willing to pay this summer!!!
any post where you can work in a fizzgig is a good article. I thought bringing in Dumba was supposed to raise our street cred on toughness, but boy has he been bad in most other areas...Bichsel will help. Lybushkin has been great. It seems like Bourque and especially Stankhoven have been getting roughed up a LOT....
Teams, especially in the playoffs, will be willing to take liberties against a smallish team that doesn't really fight back AND doesn't punish teams on the power play. Seriously, if you're an opponent what's the downside to going full goonsquad on the Stars?
Very true. Great call out on the power play. Upgrading there to make teams pay might solve the problem along with getting Marchment back and Bichsel up.
Benn's fighting skills have seriously deteriorated. There was a time when he was going toe to toe with legitimate scrappers like Nick Foligno and Josh Anderson. Josh Manson and Nikita Zadorov absolutely murked the dude; fights I don't think Benn gets handled in like that ten years ago.
That's kind of the problem. The Stars have no one who's really capable of delivering a message to opponents who take liberties with our guys. If you don't have a couple of those guys AND you can't score a lick on the PP what is preventing teams from aggressively taking advantage and physically beating your team up?
PDB is known for his bad PP. maybe it is because Scott has run it everywhere PDB has been. Look at Vegas their PP wasn’t near what it is now. If you don’t make teams pay for putting you on the PP they are going to keep knocking your ass off. I just can’t believe that the Dallas front office can’t see it and get something changed in house. I still say you only go as far as Otteniger takes you.
I'd throw a third thing into the size discussion, which is that for the most part every contender looks to add size at the deadline because that's what the conventional wisdom says to do. Yeah, Cup winning teams tend to be big, but that's partly because Hockey Men think you need to be big to win so they chase size.
Toughness is another thing though. I'm completely convinced it matters, but how much it matters is way harder to say. I'm pretty comfortable saying that weight =/= toughness, hits =/= toughness, getting hit definitely =/= toughness. If the Stars were to add more "toughness" in the style of Chris Tanev or last year's version of Stankoven, I'd be thrilled. No more Dumbas or Russells though, please.
Also, thinking about the definition of "toughness" I feel like this is a scenario where a combination of Corey's tracking data + EDGE speed data would leave the best clues towards a more tangible definition.
Mitch Brown may actually have the best stuff for this, as he has (which you may already know) boards to middle plays/60 (when a player takes the puck from the boards and into inside lanes under pressure), advantages created (defined as creating space for themselves and teammates, which granted, I've seen no actual definition of), and board battles won. I think that's the atom you're looking to split: trying to find a formula for the speed with which battles are won and/or the speed with which players create space for themselves. What defines fearlessness than a lack of hesitation?
I wasn't familiar with him, thanks for sharing! I'm sure NHL teams pay big money for that type of data, but I feel like in some areas prospect analysis is ahead of public facing NHL analysis.
Also, from a statistical perspective, Dom's analysis is a bit... undercooked, in my opinion. Without providing details on how exactly "Heavy Score" was calculated it makes it hard to replicate his analysis. He also doesn't provide variance/range for the change in GSVA for each percentile, so you can't say whether the bottom 5th percentile is really statistically significantly worse than the other 95% or not. Also focusing on win% for teams is kind of iffy analysis given it's been established how much of a role luck plays in individual games or series.
Good points. I'm not sold on it either, but I accept the self fulfilling prophecy: if the best teams add size and physicality at the trade deadline, then the best teams will end up having size and physicality. But all it takes is one: one team to reverse the trend.
Yeah, that analysis was weird. Yes, the bottom 5% was a clear outlier and the data seemed compelling. But the fact the 6%-10% group often had no discernible effect sort of undermined the entire enterprise IMO.
I guess if you're REALLY low on the size/toughness scale that's an issue but, as he noted a number of times, the sample size becomes microscopic when only one segment really follows the alleged trend.
They need grit and/or physicallity like we need water in the Sahara.
The impact of having one or two guys that lays out hits and/or stick for their teamates cannot be undervalued.
As for who is getting out of the lineup for an Olivier or a clone of his, take your pick between Back or Blackwell or the forward that would go the other way in atrade for that grit or for a legit Top 4 D.
The way I see this situation is purely logical: let's invest in what we don't have (physical play and/or grit) to provide a more balanced lineup.
If we would have any chance to grab a Brady Tkachuk or a Sam Bennett, Nill should jump on that like a dog on a bone. If not, then go fetch one in a more bottom six role.
Without that, this team have no chance for a deep playoff run.
Dallas was bottom of the pack in hits and penalties in the last two seasons. Those ended with pretty deep playoff runs. I think I took pretty great pains to give credit to what toughness actively means in terms of playoff success and team value. But it still begs the question: if Dallas' core isn't mean and nasty, then why would adding mean and nasty at the margins make a difference?
I'd take some power play goals over adding a 4th-line-caliber player who dishes out hits. Stars scored zero PP goals in the loss to Edmonton last year while they gave up a shortie and surrendered 4 PP goals. That's a 5 goal differential in a series where the overall goal differential was 3.
Fix the power play and a lot of these issues are diminished IMO.
Definitely frustrating they haven't made the change from Miro. But there's no guarantee that fixed it. It's just a change; not a guarantee.
I think you can go in any direction at the trade deadline, dependent upon what's available. What they shouldn't do, IMO, is decide "we need X" then do whatever it takes to get X when maybe Y was a better option and you have better candidates available.
If Stankoven-Bourque are going to be bottom pair running mates in this years playoffs, I wouldn't mind getting them Olivier too play a similar role as Polak did for Miro.
The "Mits off Miro" mantra of Roman Polak provided the physical presence needed to keep guys from freely taking runs on our developing young stud. Yes Miro has the talent to side step a hit, but when the game gets grimey and there's ample opportunity for a Rempe type too take liberties on defenseless opponents it's nice to have that guy on the margin that can force that type of player to think about the consequences of their actions and drag them off for 5 if need be.
This recent stretch of play from Stankoven too me is reminiscent of his playoff series with Kamloops against Seattle, in which a larger squad physically shut him down. If that's the issue that's going to hold back Stankoven from playoff success this post season, I think a turn from the norm too add a playoff body guard for him & Bourque in the bottom six is a smart rental move.
Would any of it matter in the end? You look at Robo and Hintz on the top line and you figure one of them would be able to lean on a guy. Throw in PDB and his style of play and it feels like giving armor to David before he faced Goliath. This team needs guys that fit the system, toughness is an additional positive, but shouldn’t be the prime driver.
I don't think they necessarily have to trade for a goon. Bichsel would be a good addition. Hopefully Dumba gets that bubble off and puts himself to good use being physical. I don't want the Stars to fly around hunting hits, but some retaliation a la Foligno on Kolesar would be nice to see now and then. Benn doesn't have the chin he used to though.
I agreed in the poll, but my caveat with being okay as puck monks is that we need to get speedier as a team.
I keep watching guys get burned by someone flying up the ice (and seeing our rushes get caught too often). And if the Stars are indeed a rush team, having more speedsters just plays to that core identity, right?
I'll take a Dumba to Risto upgrade, plus recall the Large Hadron Collider from the A. That would upgrade the size in a way that matters for 60 minutes a game, since Lyubushkin seems to have earned the coaches' trust if not mine.
I'd much rather see us upgrade our team speed than size. However, it would be nice if more guys at least scrummed it up a bit after a liberty was taken at the expense of one of their teammates. No need to resort to pugilistic justice, just some good old face washing and crosschecking in a group setting...
It would be nice, though, if the Stars could take some lessons from Floyd Mayweather in how to avoid getting hit in the first place.
Very good article, again!!!
A few observations from an older school hockey guy…
First, we have to applaud Nill for the work he’s done to build this very good, entertaining, if sometimes unpredictable, team. Same tip of the cap for bringing in PDB, who has installed a team system that’s fun to watch vs his predecessor, Mr StegasourousBones.
But it is clear PDB coaches, and encourages a softer version of Pro Hockey. That some of my senior “no-contact” leagues had more contact, is both humorous and true. We can disagree with that as an overall strategy, but thinking bringing in a young beast (Tkachuck) will change things is unlikely, under this coach. My impression is the coaches already have defanged Bichsel to fit in. And if they valued his old school attributes, and attitude, he’d be playing up!
So we are what we are, right? But the fact remains without a threatening PP we have no way to make teams pay for taking liberties… and thinking what we have will suddenly become a top threat, is “hopium”! Thus go get Laine. Pay the cost. How many more wins do we have with 10 goals?
Using the PP as the team response to someone running “our” teammate, well that’s also assuming the refs make the proper calls… the first Bourque hit should have been 5 min plus a game misconduct, as should the second Bourque hit, was fined only, after the game. The hit on Miro also should have been 5 plus a game. Any of these could have been career threatening injuries.
Minimizing the potential injury cost to the Stars is what we all want to avoid, and brings to mind how much having a big man with big fists looking to rearrange our face, can change opposing players play. It does, fact.
Ask Cosby what his point total would be without that cheap intentional headshot at the outdoor game and what that cost him and his team… ask Kariya or Savard what headshots cost them… and continue to cost them to this day.
No PP response. No physical response. Means opponent’s are flying into our guys (our best guys we depend on) with a free pass. It also bring to question, do they have each others back? The current answer is, don’t appear to. That’s what’s discouraging to watch.
This is a really great point about a physical response not always being about blood. What's the incentive to take liberties if not being responsible for a goal against? Kind of hard for Dallas to do if their power play sucks.
Missing Hintz for a series (again) is motivation enough!
Crosby, jeeesh!
lol
I would be more on board to bring Laine if the coaching staff would actually try to do something different with the PP.
It’s always the same combinations of players and tactics.
In other words, the solution could already be there. When you think about it, it’s purely insane that they are not trying new stuff.
If Dallas loses in the playoffs because of a struggling power play that still has Heiskanen and Benn on the top unit, I'm gonna lose my credentials with what I'll write.
I was with you until the Olivier slander!!! 😉
He's totally very good, too bad Don Waddell wants to sign him to a nice contract. He's a core member. Sure would take a nice offer to pry him loose. Would be a shame if someone offered something he couldn't refuse! Or even soft tampered an even bigger contract than the Blue Jackets are willing to pay this summer!!!
Boy that would suck.... 👉👈
Haha. Nice of you stop by Eric!
any post where you can work in a fizzgig is a good article. I thought bringing in Dumba was supposed to raise our street cred on toughness, but boy has he been bad in most other areas...Bichsel will help. Lybushkin has been great. It seems like Bourque and especially Stankhoven have been getting roughed up a LOT....
Add Miro to the getting roughed up group.
Teams, especially in the playoffs, will be willing to take liberties against a smallish team that doesn't really fight back AND doesn't punish teams on the power play. Seriously, if you're an opponent what's the downside to going full goonsquad on the Stars?
Very true. Great call out on the power play. Upgrading there to make teams pay might solve the problem along with getting Marchment back and Bichsel up.
Really was the solution that EDM went with. No one in their right mind want to to face a PP that was a coin flip on if it would score or not.
So true! Only downside is fighting Benn when he goes Beastmode!
Benn's fighting skills have seriously deteriorated. There was a time when he was going toe to toe with legitimate scrappers like Nick Foligno and Josh Anderson. Josh Manson and Nikita Zadorov absolutely murked the dude; fights I don't think Benn gets handled in like that ten years ago.
That's kind of the problem. The Stars have no one who's really capable of delivering a message to opponents who take liberties with our guys. If you don't have a couple of those guys AND you can't score a lick on the PP what is preventing teams from aggressively taking advantage and physically beating your team up?
Exactly. Gotta get the PP humming if that’s the strategy
That's the key, the Stars PP with miro running it scare no one. So teams will bully the Stars into submission.
A couple of years ago, Minnesota tried to bully the Stars but the Stars PP made em pay for it.
PDB is known for his bad PP. maybe it is because Scott has run it everywhere PDB has been. Look at Vegas their PP wasn’t near what it is now. If you don’t make teams pay for putting you on the PP they are going to keep knocking your ass off. I just can’t believe that the Dallas front office can’t see it and get something changed in house. I still say you only go as far as Otteniger takes you.
100% this, it’s a PDB thing and if we don’t address it we will not advance any further than we have the last 2 years
I'd throw a third thing into the size discussion, which is that for the most part every contender looks to add size at the deadline because that's what the conventional wisdom says to do. Yeah, Cup winning teams tend to be big, but that's partly because Hockey Men think you need to be big to win so they chase size.
Toughness is another thing though. I'm completely convinced it matters, but how much it matters is way harder to say. I'm pretty comfortable saying that weight =/= toughness, hits =/= toughness, getting hit definitely =/= toughness. If the Stars were to add more "toughness" in the style of Chris Tanev or last year's version of Stankoven, I'd be thrilled. No more Dumbas or Russells though, please.
Also, thinking about the definition of "toughness" I feel like this is a scenario where a combination of Corey's tracking data + EDGE speed data would leave the best clues towards a more tangible definition.
Oh yeah, that's a great idea. So much of "toughness" is context dependent.
Mitch Brown may actually have the best stuff for this, as he has (which you may already know) boards to middle plays/60 (when a player takes the puck from the boards and into inside lanes under pressure), advantages created (defined as creating space for themselves and teammates, which granted, I've seen no actual definition of), and board battles won. I think that's the atom you're looking to split: trying to find a formula for the speed with which battles are won and/or the speed with which players create space for themselves. What defines fearlessness than a lack of hesitation?
I wasn't familiar with him, thanks for sharing! I'm sure NHL teams pay big money for that type of data, but I feel like in some areas prospect analysis is ahead of public facing NHL analysis.
Also, from a statistical perspective, Dom's analysis is a bit... undercooked, in my opinion. Without providing details on how exactly "Heavy Score" was calculated it makes it hard to replicate his analysis. He also doesn't provide variance/range for the change in GSVA for each percentile, so you can't say whether the bottom 5th percentile is really statistically significantly worse than the other 95% or not. Also focusing on win% for teams is kind of iffy analysis given it's been established how much of a role luck plays in individual games or series.
Good points. I'm not sold on it either, but I accept the self fulfilling prophecy: if the best teams add size and physicality at the trade deadline, then the best teams will end up having size and physicality. But all it takes is one: one team to reverse the trend.
Yeah, that analysis was weird. Yes, the bottom 5% was a clear outlier and the data seemed compelling. But the fact the 6%-10% group often had no discernible effect sort of undermined the entire enterprise IMO.
I guess if you're REALLY low on the size/toughness scale that's an issue but, as he noted a number of times, the sample size becomes microscopic when only one segment really follows the alleged trend.
They need grit and/or physicallity like we need water in the Sahara.
The impact of having one or two guys that lays out hits and/or stick for their teamates cannot be undervalued.
As for who is getting out of the lineup for an Olivier or a clone of his, take your pick between Back or Blackwell or the forward that would go the other way in atrade for that grit or for a legit Top 4 D.
The way I see this situation is purely logical: let's invest in what we don't have (physical play and/or grit) to provide a more balanced lineup.
If we would have any chance to grab a Brady Tkachuk or a Sam Bennett, Nill should jump on that like a dog on a bone. If not, then go fetch one in a more bottom six role.
Without that, this team have no chance for a deep playoff run.
Dallas was bottom of the pack in hits and penalties in the last two seasons. Those ended with pretty deep playoff runs. I think I took pretty great pains to give credit to what toughness actively means in terms of playoff success and team value. But it still begs the question: if Dallas' core isn't mean and nasty, then why would adding mean and nasty at the margins make a difference?
We had Tanev last year.
Also, do we still want to win one or two series or progress and win the Cup? If so, we are lacking on some ingredient of the recipe.
I usually agree with you, but on that particular point I guess we are at the opposite of the spectrum.
I'd take some power play goals over adding a 4th-line-caliber player who dishes out hits. Stars scored zero PP goals in the loss to Edmonton last year while they gave up a shortie and surrendered 4 PP goals. That's a 5 goal differential in a series where the overall goal differential was 3.
Fix the power play and a lot of these issues are diminished IMO.
The PP issues could be delt inside if the coaching staff would take their heads out of the sand and try Harley and Duchene in place of Benn and Miro.
In other words, at least try something different in order to be certain of your needs before the TDL.
I don't think they should aim for a Top 6 forward. A Top 4 D is the top priority and a physical/grit bottom six forward is the other one.
Definitely frustrating they haven't made the change from Miro. But there's no guarantee that fixed it. It's just a change; not a guarantee.
I think you can go in any direction at the trade deadline, dependent upon what's available. What they shouldn't do, IMO, is decide "we need X" then do whatever it takes to get X when maybe Y was a better option and you have better candidates available.
If Stankoven-Bourque are going to be bottom pair running mates in this years playoffs, I wouldn't mind getting them Olivier too play a similar role as Polak did for Miro.
The "Mits off Miro" mantra of Roman Polak provided the physical presence needed to keep guys from freely taking runs on our developing young stud. Yes Miro has the talent to side step a hit, but when the game gets grimey and there's ample opportunity for a Rempe type too take liberties on defenseless opponents it's nice to have that guy on the margin that can force that type of player to think about the consequences of their actions and drag them off for 5 if need be.
This recent stretch of play from Stankoven too me is reminiscent of his playoff series with Kamloops against Seattle, in which a larger squad physically shut him down. If that's the issue that's going to hold back Stankoven from playoff success this post season, I think a turn from the norm too add a playoff body guard for him & Bourque in the bottom six is a smart rental move.
Would any of it matter in the end? You look at Robo and Hintz on the top line and you figure one of them would be able to lean on a guy. Throw in PDB and his style of play and it feels like giving armor to David before he faced Goliath. This team needs guys that fit the system, toughness is an additional positive, but shouldn’t be the prime driver.
I don't think they necessarily have to trade for a goon. Bichsel would be a good addition. Hopefully Dumba gets that bubble off and puts himself to good use being physical. I don't want the Stars to fly around hunting hits, but some retaliation a la Foligno on Kolesar would be nice to see now and then. Benn doesn't have the chin he used to though.
Extra credit for the Gareth Evans reference.
First season of Gangs of London was a banger.
I agreed in the poll, but my caveat with being okay as puck monks is that we need to get speedier as a team.
I keep watching guys get burned by someone flying up the ice (and seeing our rushes get caught too often). And if the Stars are indeed a rush team, having more speedsters just plays to that core identity, right?
I'll take a Dumba to Risto upgrade, plus recall the Large Hadron Collider from the A. That would upgrade the size in a way that matters for 60 minutes a game, since Lyubushkin seems to have earned the coaches' trust if not mine.
I'd much rather see us upgrade our team speed than size. However, it would be nice if more guys at least scrummed it up a bit after a liberty was taken at the expense of one of their teammates. No need to resort to pugilistic justice, just some good old face washing and crosschecking in a group setting...
It would be nice, though, if the Stars could take some lessons from Floyd Mayweather in how to avoid getting hit in the first place.