The Dallas Stars are in free fall. On Saturday, the club lost its seventh contest in a row, falling 5-3 to the San Jose Sharks. A 4-1-2 start has been buried by a long string of defeats to the point that entering action on Thursday the Stars are dead-last in the NHL’s Western Conference.
What has happened to the team over the last couple of weeks? A glance at the club’s goal differential over that span is revealing:
The big problems in terms of goals for and against aren’t really happening in five-on-five play, where the team is pretty close to even (it probably deserves a better fate than that, which we’ll get to shortly). Instead, special teams have been a disaster, and the team has been utterly unprepared in (relatively rare) four-on-four situations.
Still, at least one expert sees five-on-five play as the Stars’ big problem. An unnamed coach with a Western Conference team told ESPN.com's Pierre LeBrun that Dallas still had to find the balance between scoring and defensive play.
“The focus every year for every team starts out on creating offense but the ...
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
What’s Causing the Dallas Stars’ Unexpected Losing Streak?
November 10th, 2014 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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