Stars have 'a lot of work to do' entering important stretch

Coaches love to look for good teaching moments in a season, and the Stars could be in the middle of one of those.
Typically, these rare opportunities can come when your team is not playing its best, but also not really paying the price. Players can see that they should be better, but they also are not so mired in despair that they have any mental walls up.

The Stars just finished a three-game road swing through New York at 2-0-1. That's five of six standings points, and has to count as a pretty important accomplishment in anyone's book. But Dallas didn't always play its best, surrendered the first goal for the eighth straight time, and can look back at a number of mistakes that need to be corrected.
So as this team heads to a practice day Thursday with Central Division games against Minnesota (Friday) and St. Louis (Saturday), it should be pretty alert. Yes, it is 30-18-5 and eight points up on the current playoff cut line in the Western Conference, but there still is a lot to work on.
Once the top goals against team in the NHL, Dallas has allowed 27 goals in its past seven games (3.85 per game) while going 3-3-1. It has gone 3-for-21 on the power play (14.3 percent) and 15-for-22 (68.2 percent) on the penalty kill. It also has been badly outshot in its past two games, including two very slow starts.
"I don't think we played up to our standards, so we've got a lot of work to do," said defenseman John Klingberg.

In Tuesday's overtime loss, for example, the Stars took five penalties. Maybe the most egregious was a holding call on Roope Hintz with 5:49 left in the third period and Dallas clinging to a 3-2 lead. That's the kind of play that the coaching staff hammers on when it preaches details.
"Bad decisions," said Stars interim coach Rick Bowness. "It was kind of self-inflicted, and that's disappointing."
Bowness would have liked his team to be a little more cautious on their third game in four nights. He would have liked them to "manage" the game better. That's going to be important going forward as they squeeze 12 games into 23 days to end the month. But he'd also like them to be a little smarter, and a little more consistent -- just because, really.
As much as Bowness and Todd Nelson have been here for two seasons, the departure of coach Jim Montgomery on Dec. 10 caused the coaching staff to shuffle. Bowness went from running the defense to running the forwards, John Stevens went from general assignment to deploying the defensemen. Derek Laxdal came up from the AHL and has offered a different voice. That's a lot to deal with.
Mix in the fact that both Corey Perry and Joe Pavelski are transitioning to a new team for the first time in their respective careers, and that Hintz and Denis Gurianov are still learning, and it's a work in progress.
And that's why teaching moments can be good.

As Bowness tries to find more minutes for Gurianov and Hintz, we have seen both players exert themselves defensively. Hintz went a little overboard on Tuesday with the late penalty, and will certainly hear about that in film sessions. Gurianov has looked more engaged, and you can see the coaching staff trusting him more in third periods and overtimes. That's encouraging.
Pavelski has three goals and an assist in the past three games and looks to be establishing some power-play chemistry with Klingberg. Pavelski played 13 seasons in San Jose and developed a great bond with his defensemen there. Pavelski would patrol the slot on power plays and the defensemen would find him for tips and redirects. It's one of the reasons he had 38 goals last season.
This year, he's been seeking that same connection with Stars defensemen, and it seems that maybe he and Klingberg are finally getting on the same page.
"I think it really comes down to me feeling comfortable getting the pucks through as well, and that's something that I talked to the coaches about," Klingberg said. "They want to see me shoot more, and obviously that's a strength of my game to move on the blue line there and get the pucks to the net. Pavs knows that it's going to come there. We've been talking a bit about it and as you can see now, it's starting to come a little bit."
Pavelski has 11 goals on the season, so he's behind his normal pace, but he said he too feels something is developing.
"It's nice to see it go in a couple of times," Pavelski said. "It definitely helps, every little confidence here and there."

And as simple as it sounds, executing a game plan is encouraging. Perry scored Monday against the Rangers, breaking a career-worst 24-game goal drought and then made a pretty no-look pass Tuesday to set up Gurianov's power-play goal.
"That's why we watch video before the game," Perry said when asked how he knew that pass might be open. "You see tendencies, and we knew their D-man would ride high on the guy coming down. I've made that pass a few times."
Still, he hasn't made it with the Stars, and that's why this stretch is important. If Dallas wants to be even better, then it needs players to get closer to the potential they have shown in previous seasons.
"It's something that I know I can I do," said Perry, who scored 372 goals in 14 seasons with the Ducks. "It's confidence, confidence with the puck, having the puck, just being strong with it."
And maybe that's the best part of this whole "teaching moment" thing is the fact a lot of the lessons can be self-taught. The players know when the team plays its best, and they know when it doesn't. They also know that if they'd like to make this an impactful season, then they have to get better.
"We've got to get it through our heads that if we want to make the playoffs and want to make run here, it's going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of mental toughness to do it," said forward Blake Comeau.

Stars (30-18-5) vs. Wild (24-22-6)

Friday, 7:30 p.m. CT
Where:American Airlines Center
TV:FOX Sports Southwest PLUS; NHL Network
Radio:The Ticket 1310-AM, 96.7-FM
Don't miss your chance to see the Stars take on the Minnesota Wild when they return home to American Airlines Center on Friday at 7:30 p.m. Get your tickets now!
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heikais a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika, and listen to his podcast.