Dallas Stars Season Retrospective, Part 2

4/13/23 Blues 3, Stars 2 (SO)

Despite already being of playoff contention going into the last game of the season, this may be the team’s most embarrassing loss. Going into the game, the St Louis Blues had lost over 40 consecutive games (someone please comment with the exact number) on their way to securing the worst regular season finish in the RHL. And somehow, the Dallas Stars managed to give them their first win in months by losing 3-2 in a shootout.

The final score was not deceptive either; St Louis earned their victory by outshooting Dallas 39-27. The Blues led for most of the game off of early goals from Andrew Mangiapane and Morgan Reilly. The Stars pushed to tie the game in the third period thanks to the hustle of their third line, getting goals from Kyle Okposo and Brandon Tanev (Jeff Skinner assisted on both).

After a scoreless overtime, Kirill Kaprizov, Jesper Bratt and Joe Pavelski were all stopped by Mike Smith in the shootout. Lars Eller of all players put the winning goal past Craig Anderson, who was otherwise excellent in his potential Stars swan song stopping 37 of 39 shots (94.9%) over 65 minutes. Coach Gerard Gallant ripped the team’s effort after while acknowledging it was a fitting end to a brutal season. He promised the team will bring a much better effort night in and night out next year, otherwise there will be major changes.

3/13/23 Kraken 3, Stars 2

3/21/23 Kraken 4, Stars 2

A big reason the Dallas Stars lacked a chance at making the playoffs in the final weeks were due to two losses to the Seattle Kraken within the span of 8 days. While the Kraken weren’t awful, they finished with the 7th fewest points in the RHL with 82 and should have provided the Stars an opportunity at collecting 4 points. Instead, the team walked away with 0 and shot down the standings at a crucial point in the season.

In the first game, the Stars got goals from superstars Nikita Kucherov and Kirill Kaprizov but not much else. The Kraken led the game for 55 minutes off of two goals from Gabriel Vilardi and another from Robby Fabri. Meanwhile, Kyle Okposo cost the team with 2 second period penalties (one for interference and one for tripping), one of which led to a Vilardi power play goal.

The Stars started off with a better effort in the second game, holding the bout scoreless for the first half of the game. However, the wheels came off for goalie Ilya Sorokin and the team when they hemorrhaged 4 consecutive goals in the span of 17 minutes. The Stars mustered 2 goals to make it respectable but ultimately had no shot at winning this game and likely squandered their season with this loss.

1/21/23 Coyotes 4, Stars 1

3/1/23 Coyotes 4, Stars 0

Despite being new to the Central Division this season, the desert dogs are considered big rivals of the Dallas Stars. This mainly stemmed from GM ODeezy’s personal feud with (now former) Arizona Coyotes GM You Know Who. Unfortunately for Stars fans, it was YKW who got the most laughs out of this season’s rivalry with 2 major ass kickings.

In January, Johnny Gaudreau potted 2 goals in 14 seconds in the second period and Arizona never looked back after that. The Stars took themselves out of the game in the third period, being charged with 4 consecutive penalties (including two straight from Henri Jokiharju) and giving up 2 more goals. To make matters worse, they lost to former Stars goaltender Kevin Lankinen who stopped 18 of 19 shots that night. Then in March, it was Ville Husso who stopped Dallas’s star studded scorers with a 24 save shutout. Ilya Sorokin failed to match him as he gave up 4 goals on the same 24 shots.