First Shift 🏒
The Stars have taken a run through the Eastern Conference in recent weeks and fared pretty well. Now, they will start a run of games that includes some of the best in the West. Dallas will play at Colorado on Saturday afternoon, then face off with Vegas twice and St. Louis once over the next two weeks. That’s important for a team that’s jockeying for position in the Central Division.
“It doesn’t get any easier,” said Stars coach Pete DeBoer. “There’s no rest in this league, you’ve got to be ready for the next one.”
Especially in the Central Division. There are four Central teams among the top 11 in terms of points percentage. Winnipeg is second at 31-12-3 (.707), Dallas is sixth at 28-15-1 (.648), Minnesota is seventh at 27-14-4 (.644) and Colorado is 11th at 27-18-1 (.598). The positioning can definitely change in the second half of the season, and that means every point is huge. If you finish first in the Central, you face a wild card team. If you finish second, you have home ice against one of the other teams. If you finish third, you go on the road.
That’s a big difference.
DeBoer said that he understands the push to be as good as possible, but added that he didn’t want the team to put everything into the regular season and then not have anything left for the playoffs.
“The Presidents’ Trophy last year was the Rangers and we were second, and neither of us got to the Stanley Cup Final,” DeBoer said. “So you don’t want to empty the tank chasing that. Having said that, you want the easiest path in the playoffs, having a Game 7 at home, as opposed to on the road. We had Game 7 in the first round against Vegas at home and I thought that was the difference in the series.”
Dallas won that Game 7 and then moved on to play Colorado. The Stars had home ice and won in Game 6 at Colorado. Those memories will come up on Saturday, as it’s the first time the Stars will be back at Ball Arena since Duchene won the game in double overtime. The Stars have beat Colorado twice in the playoffs in the past five seasons, so there is history.
“We haven’t seen them for a while and it’s always a good matchup, so we’re looking forward to it,” defenseman Esa Lindell said. “I always like when the crowd is going, even though it’s on the road.”
Goalie Jake Oettinger has a history of playing the spoiler on the road, and said he loves playing against the Avalanche.
“It’s awesome,” Oettinger said. “It’s always a great building to play in. They’re a great team. A team we’re going to be battling with and hopefully see in the playoffs. It’s fun to play those guys. I’m sure they want to beat us and we want to beat them. It’s just two good teams who have seen a lot of each other the last two years.”
And while it is just January, there still will be extra emotion in the game. The key for Dallas is managing that emotion.
“It’s just not beating yourself,” DeBoer said when asked for the key to a recent run. “We’re in the middle of nine games in 17 nights, so a lot of it is not turning pucks over, staying out of the penalty box, defending well. The biggest thing is not beating yourself, hanging around games. We’ve won a lot of games by hanging around until the third period and finding a way to win.”