In our dark sports landscape, Stars etch themselves as one of the NHL's worst
The current state of our sports landscape reads like the director's cut of a John Steinbeck novel.
We are fast approaching two years since any of the local teams won a playoff game of any kind.
The Dallas Cowboys' last postseason win was January of 2015 against the Detroit Lions; the Texas Rangers' defeat of the Toronto Blue Jays in the American Divisional Series was in October of '15. The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA's first round in April of 2016. And on May 9, 2016, the Dallas Stars defeated St. Louis Blues in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals.
Might want to find a poster of that one — it's going to have to last a while longer.
The Stars were supposed to be this area's best chance at postseason success, but the franchise remains a tease and is actually one of the worst in the NHL. Do not let anyone else try to convince you otherwise.
The NHL is entirely about the postseason, which the Stars continually miss and, as the franchise prepares to honor Mike Modano on Saturday night for the 873rd time in the season home finale, they are a sad facsimile of what they once were, or should be.
They are wasting forward Jamie Benn's best years, and are a collection of mistimed decisions, and overall misses. The arrival of coach Ken Hitchcock changed a few things, but not the overall results.
Owner Tom Gaglardi, general manager Jim Nill and the entire staff and roster have to own this one. This sort of failure is a collaborative effort. NHL teams are permitted to run through ruts, but there is no excuse for missing the playoffs this often.
This is all you need to know: Barring an act of God, the Stars will miss the playoffs for the eighth time in the past 10 years thanks to an award-winning gag job with the help of a poor goalie who will haunt this team for eternity.
The first-year Vegas Golden Knights will make the playoffs ahead of the Stars.
The only other franchises in the past decade to miss the playoffs as often, or more, than the Stars are the Florida Panthers, Edmonton Oilers, Buffalo Sabres and Carolina Hurricane (FYI - Colorado could be in this discussion, but at the moment the Avs still have a shot to make it).
The Stars are mathematically still in it, but they're done.
On Feb. 9, exactly no one saw this coming. They defeated the Chicago Blackhawks and Pittsburgh Penguins on consecutive nights, and were 33-19-4. The Stars were a playoff team.
Since then, they are 6-12-4, which includes an eight-game losing streak in March.
"No one could have predicted this," center Jason Spezza told me this week, "not the way we were playing."
How did this happen?
The "lower body" injury sustained to goalie Ben Bishop when teammate Dan Hamius rolled on to his legs in a game on March 6 is the easiest culprit.
His backup, Kari Lehtonen, has again demonstrated he's a good guy, and good enough to lose. The five-year, $29.5 million extension former GM Joe Nieuwendyk handed Kari in Sept. of 2012 haunts this franchise in a way few deals ever do. Kari will finally be a free agent this summer.
"You can't put a finger on it. It's not one thing. It's an accumulation of things," center Tyler Seguin told me.
Here is one thing: When the NHL's trade deadline arrived, GM Jim Nill did nothing when he knew his forwards are a collection of Not-Good-Enough after his top line of Benn-Seguin-Alexander Radulov.
Under Hitchcock, Seguin has thrived, and should score 40 goals this season. Benn is still a dynamic player, but he's asked to do a things a top winger should never do — like fight. On more than one occasion this season, Benn looks battered and spent.
Second-line center Spezza looks finished at 34, and his lack of production has put everything on Seguin. Spezza has one year remaining at $7.5 million.
Other than John Klingberg, the team still has major concerns defensively.
The arrival of Hitchcock was supposed to fix some of this, but the roster he inherited was not the ideal fit for his style. While the Stars are better defensively, they are worse offensively.
More than a few people within the organization have questioned whether Hitchcock was Nill's first choice, rather than that of owner Tom Gaglardi.
If anyone would appreciate Hitch, it would be Gaglardi. Gaglardi is a hockey nut from Western Canada who also owns the Kamlooops Blazers, who were coached by Hitch from 1984-90.
The only reason to question the hiring is that the roster constructed by Nill is not designed for Hitch.
Whatever the case, plan on Hitch being here as head coach for another season. Given his age (66), and his personality, his hiring was thought to be a three-year window.
The team expects Russian center Valeri Nichushkin to return to the club next season after his two year "sabbatical?" back home. There are always more prospects to sell, and hope to peddle to the masses who yearn for another Cup run.
We thought a playoff run would happen this year, but now our best chance at watching one of our local teams win a playoff game in 2018 rests entirely on the Texas Rangers.
Re-reading "The Grapes of Wrath" sounds more fun.
This story was originally published March 30, 2018 at 12:18 PM with the headline "In our dark sports landscape, Stars etch themselves as one of the NHL's worst."