CONSISTENT (adjective):
1. constantly adhering to the same principles, course, form, etc.
2. The 2009 Dallas Stars
The term most associated with this season’s Dallas Stars by fans and media alike is “inconsistent;” you can’t read or hear any analysis of the team without this label popping up almost immediately.
I’d like to argue that the Stars are perhaps the most consistent team in the National Hockey League this year. Put it this way, if you’re a gambler who likes to wager on hockey games – I’ve heard that such people do actually exist - is there an easier team to bet on these days than the Dallas Stars? All you need to do before placing your bet is take a look at how the Stars fared in their last game; they’re virtually guaranteed to do the opposite in their next contest. They have not had a single winning streak longer than two games, and they’ve only done that twice in the first 27 games. Luckily, they’ve never experienced a losing streak of more than two games either; it’s win one, lose one, win one, lose one.
Now that is some serious consistency.
The Stars tease the fans with scintillating and convincing wins in San Jose and Detroit, and they look like they could start building momentum, only to cancel out their stellar efforts the following nights with deflating losses to Columbus and Phoenix respectively. Equally confounding to Head Coach Marc Crawford has to be the subpar play at the American Airlines Center so far this year where the Stars’ six home victories is tied for the second-worst in the entire Western Conference, a fact that repeatedly has led to fans shaking their heads in frustration while leaving the AAC.
As Bill Parcells used to say, “You are what your record says you are.” As November’s schedule concluded, the Stars find themselves with an unimpressive 12-8-7 record for the season after going 6-5-2 for the month. When I look at these numbers, a different word jumps out at me to describe the team: average. By constantly alternating wins and losses, the team is spinning its wheels and not separating itself from the pack while looking to be on its way to a somewhat forgettable 2009-10 campaign.
If you want to really see how definitively average the Stars are, take a look at some of these numbers:
-For the season, the team has scored 80 goals, while surrendering 81 - almost perfectly even.
-With their goal differential being so slim, there is not a single Dallas Star in the top 50 in the NHL in plus/minus.
-Marty Turco’s goals against average of 2.52 ranks him 15th in the league and his save percentage of .911 places him 18th in the league, both very pedestrian numbers. Ironically, his save percentage this season is only one one-thousandth of a percentage point higher than - you guessed it - his career average. When you combine Turco and backup Alex Auld’s GAA, the Stars are number 16 in a 30-team league.
-The Stars power play is only clicking at a 20.3% clip for the season, a figure that places them 15th.
With a resume like this, it shouldn’t come as any surprise at all that Dallas finds itself right in the middle of the pack in the Western Conference, tied for eighth and currently out of a playoff position. Their stunning level of consistently median play has placed them right where the stats suggest they should be.
ABOVE AVERAGE
While the team collectively continues to stumble through the season, two players in particular have shown themselves to be anything but mediocre: Stephane Robidas and Brad Richards.
The departure of longtime standout Sergei Zubov left the Stars with a gaping hole on the blue line, and thankfully for the team the 32-year-old Robidas has stepped up his game to a level that may find him on the Western Conference All-Star team this season, and potentially even earning him a spot on the 2010 Canadian Olympic team. He is currently leading NHL defensemen in power play goals with five, and is second amongst defensemen in total goals with seven after a red-hot November that saw him rack up the second-most points on the team – a feat quite uncommon for a back liner.
Richards has managed to avoid the nagging injuries that derailed his 2008-09 season and has resumed his position in the league as one of the top power play producers. As the quarterback on the top PP line, the Prince Edward Island native is currently tied for the top spot in the NHL in power play assists and seventh in the league in overall scoring; no other Star is even in the top 40.
2 comments:
Dallas is tied for 7th in the conference with Phoenix and Columbus (31 points in 27 games for all of 'em), so if you're going with the Parcellsian logic of "You are what your record says you are" (rather than the Greenian "They are who we thought they were") then those teams are pretty comparable to the Stars.
Yay! We're tied with Phoenix and Columbus!
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