Dallas Stars Draft Preview

The Dallas Stars are an interesting team to look at. If it wasn’t for their God awful goaltending at the beginning of their season that lead to their God awful start, they probably would have been much more competitive and in the mix for one of the last playoff spots. Their 83 points last season made them look like the Coyotes, but the quality of their play on the ice was more like the Minnesota Wild. So they’re better than their record makes them look.

Today brings us the Dallas Stars preview from Art Middleton. Better known as @StarsScene around the internet, Art writes about the Stars on both his website (Stars Scene), as well as being the newest writer for Defending Big D. He does a great job breaking down the Dallas Stars of last season, as well as where they could go next season. Here’s what Art had to say:

1. What was the biggest strength of last season?
You know the saying: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Well, believe it or not all the injuries the Stars had to endure in the 08-09 season may turn out to be a positive! We knew going in Loui Eriksson had the potential to be a solid third line scorer, but he ended up stunning all of us this season being a 35+ goal scorer playing 1st line minutes a lot of nights. We knew Steve Ott was a good role player, but we found out he is a tremendous leader than can not only grind on teams with his chippy play but can also score in bunches. We’ve seen Stephan Robidas step up his level of play over the last few seasons, but the job he did as default anchor of the defensive unit was at times awe-inspiring! Without the injuries we may not have seen what we saw from James Neal or Fabian Brunnstrum who himself fought off a string of injuries to have a good rookie season.

Injuries helped force guys like James Neal into the lineup. See, not all injuries are necessarily a BAD thing!

2. What was the biggest weakness of last season?
Stats wise, the Stars were in the middle of the pack when it came to goals for – that wasn’t a surprise to anyone. What was a huge surprise was that they were near the bottom of the league in goals against which before this past season would have been unthinkable for a Dallas Stars club! A lot of it had to do with the fact that Marty Turco had his worst season as a pro ever, but some blame could also be laid at the feet of the young defensive group that would have led the league in most two-on-one chances allowed if that was actually a stat being tracked by the NHL. On top of all that it seemed like the Stars were trying to change from a defensively minded team to a offense-first club, but didn’t have the talent or coaching ability to quite make the full transition and thus most nights look like a bunch of lost boys that were lucky to keep an opposing team to under five goals scored.

3. What is the biggest strength of the pipeline/young players?
The Stars lineup of prospects I feel is quite underrated and some of the prospects that come up over the next season or two could catch the league by surprise. Jamie Benn obviously leads that list and has Stars fans salivating at the thought of him in a Stars uniform with his play in the WHL and Memorial Cup playoffs, though he most likely will only be an AHL Texas Star this season and follow the same route James Neal did before him. Raymond Sawada will be given a long look at camp come fall and be provided a chance to make the team as will Tom Wandell – both players saw time with the Stars last season (thanks to all the injuries) and did allright for themselves. Defensevly, Ivan Vishnevskiy is the Stars top prospect in the mold of a Sergei Zubov and just needs to adjust to the physical play of the NHL and actually started doing so last season. Trevor Ludwig has the potential to be just as solid a defender as his dear ‘ol dad Craig, and comes with a booming shot. Richard Bachman was considered the hier to the Stars goaltending throne down the road, but the play of Matt Climie in the last few games of the Stars season and his one game in the AHL playoffs may have opened a few eyes and shown he’s further along in his progress than anyone thought.

4. What are the biggest holes in the pipeline/young players?
Once you get past the first five or so top prospects the Stars have, the cupboard is pretty bare and lacks any kind of depth scoring wise. Offensive ability at all positions seems to be the biggest gap with no one at forward seemingly having any kind of potential to be even a 20+ goal scorer. As for defenseman, once you get past Vishnevsky there is no one else that can even be thought of as a good puck moving defenseman let alone offensive defenseman or future power play QB. The Stars also don’t have the kind of prospect depth we’ve been used to at the goaltending position over the last ten years.

5. Who do you think your GM will pick?
Defenseman Dmitry Kulikov isn’t an offensive specialist like say Ryan Ellis or Oliver Ekman-Larrson, nor is he a shut-down defender like Simon Despres or John Moore, but he can do a little bit of everything pretty well and I think that would make him attractive to the Stars. He’s not so small that there is a risk of him wilting under physical pressure, he skates well and while he won’t set the world on fire with dramatic offensive skill, he sees the ice well and can make smart passes out of his own end. He’s defenitly a project type pick that still needs seasoning in the minors – something that Stars brass has already shown they are willing to do with all their prospects. He doesn’t have the potential upside that a lot of other picks have, but he’d be the safest pick at defense and that too is something the Stars have been known to go for in the first few few rounds of a draft.

6. Who do you think your team SHOULD pick?
I love Scott Glennie’s ability and even if I was the Islanders at #1 I’d still consider taking Glennie over Tavares or Hedman! (Ok well not really, but that is how high I am on him) He’s got NHL calibur speed already, isn’t afraid to play in the corners and has a tremendous shot. He’s also right handed – a huge need for the Stars – and can play all three forward positions well just like he did in Brandon. I just got finished explaining how the Stars don’t have a potential sniper in their system and yet there is Scott to fit that bill perfectly! Watch the Red Wings Darren Helm and see all the chaos his speed creates for the opposing team… The Stars could have that in Glennie with the added bonus of better finishing ability than Helm has.

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36 goals? Best 3rd liner EVER!

You have to love the enthusiasm Art has for the future of the Stars. To be honest, I actually agree with his enthusiasm. You’d think that a team that was just in the Western Conference Finals, then followed it up with an 83 point season was on the fast-track to Lightningville. But he’s right—there were a lot of positives that came out of their down year. Lead by Loui Eriksson and James Neal, they definitely have the talent to compete for a playoff spot.

But talent alone doesn’t tell the entire story here. Incoming GM Joe Nieuwendyk quickly put his stamp on the team by replacing the highly-respected Dave Tippett with former CBC broadcaster Marc Crawford.  Hopefully Crawford will have a better season as the coach of the Stars than he did as an announcer. If he doesn’t do a better job with the talent that is assembled in Dallas than he did in Los Angeles, not all the ability in the world is going to make a bit of difference. We’ll probably have a good idea of the Stars fate sometime by Christmas. Will they be competing for the 8th seed or will Art be preparing a 2010 Draft Preview a little earlier?

A huge thanks to Art for doing such a great job on this preview. As was mentioned before, Art is currently doing his thing at Stars Scene and Defending Big D. Head over there, say hi, and let him know that you agree that Buffalo fans need to get over the whole NO GOAL thing.

Tomorrow’s preview brings us to the Ottawa Senators and their 9th overall pick. Do you think it would be poor asset management if they drafted a new head coach in the 1st round?

As always, you can check here for the previous previews as well as upcoming schedule of previews by guest bloggers throughout the rest of the week.