Stars 'not even close' to reaching ceiling, coach says

Jim Montgomery looks at the standings, sees his Dallas Stars in third place in the Central Division with 50 points, three points above the current line for a Stanley Cup Playoff position in the Western Conference, and knows it's not good enough.

"I believe every team always has a ceiling you can reach, and I don't think the Dallas Stars are there, not even close," Montgomery, the first-year coach, said Monday, one day before the Stars play the League-leading Tampa Bay Lightning at American Airlines Center (8:30 p.m. ET; FS-SW, SUN, NHL.TV).
"If there's any message I'm trying to send, it's we've got to get working toward our ceiling."
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Montgomery, who insists he's not a big believer in sending messages, lobbed a big one in his team's direction after a 3-1 loss against the St. Louis Blues on Saturday, the Stars second straight regulation loss and third in four games last week.
He talked about being frustrated, unable to change what he called the Stars' "culture of mediocrity." He criticized his team's effort without the puck and its purpose with the puck after a game in which his team gave up too many easy opportunities.
On the first goal 34 seconds into the first period, Dallas turned the puck over in the neutral zone. Tyler Seguin didn't knock Jaden Schwartz off the puck at the blue line, allowing him pass it across his body to Vladimir Tarasenko, who had open space to get off a shot in the right circle because Jamie Benn was a step behind on a backcheck and rookie defenseman Miro Heiskanen was caught in between.

The forwards were slow in recovering later in the period leading to St. Louis taking a 2-0 lead at 9:54. They allowed Oskar Sundqvist to skate the puck uncontested into the Stars zone before he found
Pat Maroon
cutting to the net with inside position on defenseman Esa Lindell for a redirection past Ben Bishop.
"It's about things under your control," Montgomery said.
The culture of mediocrity comment added to the highly critical rhetoric which came out of Dallas late last month, when CEO Jim Lites went on a profanity-laced tirade, criticizing the play of Benn and Seguin in particular.
"I think it's just honesty and we're all trying to push each other out of our comfort zone," Montgomery said. "I'm a pretty honest person and you're going to get feedback positive and negative when you're doing things well and when you need to do things better. That's just the way I was raised. I'm not smart enough to have hidden agendas."
Montgomery said the point of his statement was that the Stars need to raise their level of expectations and it starts with their work ethic, accountability and consistency in effort and execution.

"You know, raising our standards," he said. "I didn't mean for [the comment] to have the buzz that it got. It was obviously frustration, but you're trying to maximize what you can be."
He's optimistic the Stars can.
"I think we have the right people in every facet of our organization to affect change," Montgomery said, "and we're going to."
The Stars altered their lineup Monday, acquiring 31-year-old forward Andrew Cogliano, a veteran of 912 NHL games, from the Anaheim Ducks for 24-year-old forward Devin Shore.

Stars general manager Jim Nill and Montgomery each want the team to play faster with more pace. Cogliano is known as one of the fastest skaters in the NHL.
"We've got some great leadership," Nill said. "It's there. We've just got to put it in the right place and it has to respond at the right time."
Nill used Hall of Famer Steve Yzerman as an example of a star player who used to be knocked for his leadership until he helped the Detroit Red Wings win in the mid-1990s. He cited Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin as the latest example.
"A lot of the best leaders in the NHL, in sports, in life, in the world were all probably knocked for their non-leadership and in the end they become some of the best leaders in the world," Nill said. "When you're going through tough times it's easy to knock your leadership and then when you go through the good times everybody says how good they are. I think you see examples of that throughout the world. That's where we're at right now."
It's not the worst place to be, especially since the Stars are in a playoff position.
"Sometimes I look at it and say, 'What are other organizations going through?'" Montgomery said.
Montgomery, Nill and Lites all believe the Stars could and should be in an even better place than third in the Central Division, three points above the playoff line with 36 games to play.It doesn't appear that they'll rest, or the rhetoric will cease, until they're in with a cushion.
"Let's keep pushing the envelope," Montgomery said.
"That's what we have to do, we have to keep pushing the envelope until we get to an area when you lose a game you're not worried about why you lose, if it's because of effort or execution. You lost because sometimes teams make more plays."