First Shift 🏒
The Stars – and the entire NHL – are in the midst of a very complicated part of the season.
With the 4 Nations Face-Off coming up in mid-February, the frequency of games is picking up, and the challenge of schedule placement is getting tougher.
Dallas will play the second half of a back-to-back for the sixth time this season on Saturday. It’s also the third time in the past three weeks.
“Everybody is dealing with it,” said Stars coach Pete DeBoer. “Whenever you have 4 Nations or next year it will be the Olympics, it affects the schedule.”
The Stars have been a team that has handled the second half of a back-to-back fairly well, going 3-2-0 so far. A big part of that has been the fact that they have adjusted their game and played to their strengths. With one day rest this season, Dallas is 20-12-0 while scoring 3.13 goals per game and allowing 2.41. With zero days rest, the Stars are averaging 2.40 goals per game and allowing 1.80.
“There’s a lot involved – goalies, fresh legs, you have to make adjustments,” DeBoer said. “It really tests your depth. I think your mindset is you have to accept that you’ll be a little tired and you have to be a smarter team and manage the puck. And stay out of the penalty box.”
DeBoer on Friday made several lineup changes, bringing in Lian Bichsel from the AHL on defense and sitting Nils Lundkvist. He also moved defenseman Brendan Smith to forward to add size, and scratched Matěj Blümel. That was probably intended to match better against a big Vegas lineup.
Now, against the Blues, could Lundkvist and Blümel come back in? The guess is Casey DeSmith will get the start in goal. That could be key to winning a Central Division game against a solid St. Louis team.
DeBoer said he liked Smith’s game at forward. He played 10:15, had four shot attempts and two hits.
"He's played some forward before,” DeBoer said. “I think he's probably played 60 or 70 games in his career up front, so he has that ability to go up and back."
That is important, as the organization seems to want to give 20-year-old Bichsel the chance to stick in the NHL. Bichsel has been up and down this year, and said he has learned a lot. He played 13:11 on Friday, including some key minutes late. He had four hits and could be the kind of big defenseman the team needs in the playoffs. DeBoer said GM Jim Nill definitely would like to get a read on Bichsel right now.
“When he went back down, Jim and I and our group all talked and said this guy's really close, and the next opportunity we get, we want to keep him experiencing this to see how quickly he can develop, and maybe help us sooner than later," DeBoer said.
That’s all part of the January-February section of the schedule. Teams are making trades, players are coming back from injuries, there’s a lot going on. And that’s why teams have to be flexible and ready to adjust, especially when you’re getting back-to-back games quite a bit more often.
DeBoer was talking about players like Blümel and Bichsel and how the team is getting to know more about them, but it seems the sentiment stretches to a lot of different players.
“From a big-picture development perspective, that’s exciting for the organization,” DeBoer said. “They get looks at the NHL level. They get experience. You get to reward guys. What has been shown is the depth of the organization. The stress that the NHL puts on teams, it’s very rarely you can get through it without getting those guys in.”