2016 Team Preview: The Dallas Stars

 

2015-2016 Stats
50 – 23 – 9 (109 Points)
GF/G: 3.23 (1st)
GA/G: 2.78 (19th)
PP: 22.1% (4th)
PK: 82.3% (10th)
5v5 Score-adjusted CF%: 52.71% (5th)
5v5 Score-adjusted CF60: 62.69 (2nd)
5v5 Score-adjusted CA60: 56.25 (17th)
5v5 SV%: 91.68 (27th)

An extremely fun run-and-gun team was able to make game seven of the second round of the playoff but was undone by their goaltending. I wonder if they fixed that in the offseason?

Reasons for Optimism

The Forward Group: I think it says something about a team that can lose a guy like Val Nichushkin and everyone just kind of shrugs. Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, Patrick Sharp, Jason Spezza. Solid contributors like Ales Hemsky, Cody Eakin, Antoine Roussel. Throw Jiri Hudler into the mix…yeah there was a reason why Lindy Ruff’s squad was 1st in goals last year.

John Klingberg: Only 24, Klingberg has established himself as one of the best defensemen in the NHL. This smooth-skating, offensive-minded Swede is exactly the kind of high-end player you need on the back-end to win in the NHL. If this Stars team continues punish opposing goaltenders, and the Stars have another great season, John Klingberg will be a dark-horse for the Norris trophy this year.

Reasons For Pessimism

Goaltending: Uh, so this team finished 27th in even-strength SV%, and they’re bringing back the same two netminders? That seems…sub-optimal. To be fair, both Kari Lehtonen and Antti Niemi have proven to be competent in the past. Hell, Niemi even won a cup, though the 2010 Blackhawks this Stars team is not. There is also the benefit of goaltending being somewhat random year-to-year – even Ondrej Pavalec and Mike Condon have had prolonged stretches of excellence (both of whom just got put on waivers.) Inexplicably, both these guys cost $10.4 million against the cap. Considering their reputation around the league, this makes it extremely hard to get one of Ben Bishop or Marc-Andre Fleury without swallowing some of that cap hit, a difficulty for a team already near the ceiling who will be looking to add other pieces at the deadline.

Defense sans Klingberg: This top-4 has the potential to be good, but also very mediocre. Dan Hamhuis did rock a 50.2 CF% on a trash Vancouver team, albeit with fairly easy zone starts and QoC. He’s also going to be 34 when playoffs roll around. Johnny Oduya had a 53 CF% in 830 minutes with Jason Demers and a 47.2% in 540 minutes without him. Demers is now in the sunshine state, while Oduya will be 35 this season. Jyrki Jokipakka looks like a fun piece as long as he is confined to facing only the other team’s bottom six. Stephen Johns looks like he might be ok? Jordie Benn sucks. Oleksiak is the definition of “a guy”. Granted the Pens just won a cup with Letang and a whole lot of “meh”, but the Stars might have to win a lot of 5-4 games to get there – no guarantee with this goaltending.

Outlook

The Stars will continue to run lesser teams out of the building. You can’t really hide goaltending in the playoffs though, not when you have to win four separate rounds. If it’s Crawford/Allen/Rinne vs. Niemi/Lehtonen who are you taking? Exactly. It would behoove the Stars to get that #1 seed and face an also-ran like the Minnesota Wild or a surprise playoff team like the Calgary Flames.

wayne's world blackhawks

2016 Team Preview: The Chicago Blackhawks

 

2015-2016 Stats
47 – 26 – 9 (103 Points)
GF/G: 2.85 (6th)
GA/G: 2.52(11th)
PP: 22.6% (2nd)
PK: 80.3% (22nd)
5v5 Score-adjusted CF%: 51.31% (12th)
5v5 Score-adjusted CF60: 57.17 (12th)
5v5 Score-adjusted CA60: 54.24 (13th)
5v5 SV%: 92.86 (12th)

Were it not for Patrick Kane’s ridiculous 106 point performance and Corey Crawford’s sterling .924 SV% last year, the Blackhawks might have had an even more disappointing finish to the season. Those two and a lethal power play were able to mask what was a pretty middling team last year by most advanced metrics. With the addition of old friend Brian Campbell and some new faces at the bottom of the roster, Chicago hopes to enter rarified company this season and win a 4th Stanley cup during their recent run of excellence.

Reasons for Optimism

High-End Players: The Blackhawks have top-line talent few teams in the NHL can match: an Art Ross winner, one of the best captains and two-way centers in the NHL, a two-time Norris winner. Not to mention important complementary pieces like Niklas Hjalmarsson and Marcus Kruger.

Defensive Depth: Getting Brian Campbell at only $1.5 million is going to help this team immensely. One of the team’s biggest problems last year was the lack of a puck-mover on the back-end beyond Duncan Keith. Having 4 very solid defensemen will make this group one of the best in the West. Michal Kempny (unproven), Michal Rozsival (old), Erik gustafsson (meh), Trevor van Riemsdyk (bad) won’t make up an amazing bottom pair, but seeing as they’ll only be tasked with playing the other team’s bottom six, they should be up to the task.

Reasons For Pessimism

Forward Depth: Good lord have you seen the bottom six of this roster? Vincent Hinostroza, Dennis Rasmussen, Brandon Mashinter are all names that will figure into this roster, at least in the early going. Jordin Tootoo is on this team for fuck’s sake. The hope is that one of the kids (Nick Schmaltz, Ryan Hartman) proves they can hack it on an NHL roster, but more than likely they’ll end up starting the season in Rockford. With the recent jettisoning of picks and prospects in years past, Stan Bowman will have his hands full trying to improve this team midseaon.

Father Time: Marian Hossa is going to be 38 when this season ends. Brent Seabrook is 31 has looked a step slow for a couple seasons now. Duncan Keith is 33 and coming off knee surgery. If Marian Hossa really is done as a first liner (and he is), that leaves a hole on Toews’s wing that won’t be filled by Richard Panik (assuming the Panarin-Anisimov-Kane line sticks together). If Duncan Keith can no longer be the lynchpin of this team, that raises serious questions about how far they can realistically go.

Outlook

Despite any concerns this team may have, the addition of Brian Campbell may low-key turn out to be the best free agent signing of the offseason. He was an absolutely stud in Florida and will immediately fix most of the problems this team had the previous season. It took a while, but people last year finally realized Corey Crawford is actually a really good goalie. If one of the kids turns out he can play or this team makes a move to bolster a forward group already featuring world class talent like Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, they immediately become the division favorites.

colorado avalanche snowman

2016 Team Preview: The Colorado Avalanche

 

2015-2016 Stats
39 – 39 – 4 (82 Points)
GF/G: 2.59 (20th)
GA/G: 2.93 (24th)
PP: 18.0% (19th)
PK: 80.2% (23rd)
5v5 Score-adjusted CF%: 44.1% (30th)
5v5 Score-adjusted CF60: 50.04 (27th)
5v5 Score-adjusted CA60: 63.42 (30th)
5v5 SV%: 92.76 (13th)

After PDO’ing their way to a division title in 2014, the Colorado Avalanche have followed up with two straight seasons of mediocre hockey. Looking at the roster, there’s really no reason this team should consistently be at or near the bottom in possession stats. There are signs that Joe Sakic might be figuring out what it takes to win in the modern NHL, but will that be enough to make the playoffs in a competitive Central?

Reasons for Optimism

Patrick Roy is gone: Seriously, was there anyone left who thought he knew what he was doing? I’m not sure anyone who follows the NHL could actually explain what his system was supposed to look like other than “Gee, I sure hope Varly gets a shutout tonight.” Over his entire tenure, the Avs were 29th in CF%, only ahead of Buffalo, who literally tried to be the worst team ever two years ago. I can’t tell you anything about Jared Bednar other than that there’s no way he’s worse than Roy.

Speed: Nate MacKinnon, Matt Duchene, Gabe Landeskog, Carl Soderberg, Tyson Barrie…yeah, there’s some wheels on this team. If the Avs have finally landed a coach who can properly unleash these guys, they will be annoying for the rest of the division.

Improving organizational accumen?: Smart one-year deal for stats-darling Patrick Wiercioch? Jiri Tlusty on a PTO? Turning Reto Berra into the possible middle-six piece that is Rocco Grimaldi? Signing MacKinnon to a deal with an AAV of only $6.3 million?  These all sounds like very reasonable, smart bets for an organization that not 6 months ago you could say was one of the worst-run in the league pretty confidently.

Reasons For Pessimism

Depth: Tyson Barrie is a wonderful, smooth-skating defenseman and while Erik Johnson will never live down the fact that he went #1 overall in a draft with Jonathan Toews in it, he’s actually a really solid piece on the back end. However, there’s no true #1 defenseman on this team. And when you look back at recent cup champs you see names like Keith, Doughty, Letang, and Chara for a reason. And while I love the acquisition of Wierchoch you also have a 36-year-old Francois Beauchemin, Fedor Tyutin (Pee-yew am I right?), and Eric Gelinas. That’s, uh, not gonna get is done against the deeper teams in the division.

It’s a similar story with the forwards. Guys like Cody McLeod, John Mitchell, Joe Colbourne, and Blake Comeau are…fine. But not one of those guys put up more than 36 points last year. If Iginla drops off (and the dude is 39 years old for fuck’s sake), it’s fair to ask where the secondary scoring is going to come from. Save us, Mikko Rantanen, you’re our only hope.

Outlook

There’s a lot of encouraging signs to expect a level of competency that we haven’t seen from the Avs in a while, but competency ain’t gonna get it done in this division. It’s easy to imagine McKinnon ascending to be a top-20 player in the NHL this year. Duchene is in the middle of his prime scoring years. Landeskog might finally take that next step to becoming the next Marian Hossa. Semyon Varlamov has Vezina-winning capabilities, but there’s a reason his career SV% is only a slightly above-average .917. Combine that with a very ‘meh’ bottom of the roster and you have a recipe for a place just outside the wild-card spots.