First Shift 🏒
The Stars have worked hard all year, but they still have some preparation left to handle before the playoffs begin.
It’s almost certain Dallas will play Colorado in the First Round, and that best-of-seven series will start at American Airlines Center next weekend. But with three regular season games remaining against Utah, Detroit and Nashville, the Stars need to find the right balance in their preparation.
Coach Pete DeBoer said Friday before an optional practice in Frisco that the mindset has changed a little after a loss to Winnipeg on Thursday. Dallas had been hoping to hunt down the Jets and possibly take the top seed in the division, but the odds of that happening now are almost zero.
“It’s different, because we know who we’re playing,” DeBoer said. “This is the first day of the past six or seven months where we can dial in on one team. We know who we’re playing, and we can start on that process. That’s a luxury you don’t usually get and hopefully we can take advantage of that.”
Dallas is 50-23-6, good for 106 points, the third best record in the NHL. Colorado is in sixth place at 48-28-4 (100 points). The Stars beat the Avalanche in the Second Round of the playoffs last season in six games, so there will be a lot of familiarity in this series. However, Colorado has seen the return of forward Valeri Nichushkin and also the addition of forwards Martin Necas, Brock Nelson and Charlie Coyle, as well as two new goalies in Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood.
In the meantime, the Stars have acquired former Colorado forward Rantanen, so that also changes the scouting reports significantly.
“We know that team well,” DeBoer said. “We beat them in the playoffs, but that was a totally different team last year. Nichuskin wasn’t in the lineup, neither were the other forwards they added at the deadline. It’s the same defense, essentially, better goalies, it’s a different team than we played last year, a harder opponent than we played last year.”
The Stars spent a lot of time working with their own goalies on Friday. Four skaters helped Jake Oettinger and Casey DeSmith go through a series of goalie drills, a rare opportunity as the team gets ready for the postseason.
“It’s always good for us to have time to do at least a couple of drills that we think will make us batter,” DeSmith said. “They might be more game-realistic drills, making reads, just some different looks that we don’t normally get in practice.”
DeSmith and Oettinger have alternated starts for the past eight games – a reward to DeSmith for a great season and also a chance to get Oettinger rested and ready for a hopefully long playoff run. Asked if that trend might continue, DeBoer said: “The most important thing is we’re rested and we take advantage of the fact that we can’t move up or down, so let’s take advantage of this and make sure the guys who we’ve relieved on heavily are rested and energized, and that would include Jake.”
DeSmith said he’s looking forward to doing anything he can to help the team. While the Stars are in a bit of a holding pattern until Game 1 of the playoffs, they are also getting a lot of things in place.
“It’s the most exciting time of the year,” DeSmith said. “It’s why we spent the past five or six months doing what we have done to try to make it here. This is what really matters. It doesn’t matter if you’re a first seed or an eighth seed, once you get in it’s a fresh slate and you want to focus on the details of our game.”
While the Stars are in a season-long four-game slump (0-2-2), DeBoer said he likes signs in recent games where the team has looked more like itself.
“I think we’ve started to flip that switch,” he said. “It’s been a small build and that’s how it works. Winning streaks end because your play gets sloppier and sloppier and sloppier. And winning streaks don’t start automatically, it starts slow and you start rebuilding those building blocks. We’re in that process right now.”
