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(Note: This series will cover all 30 NHL teams in 30 days, from worst to first, as according to VUKOTA. This is the same material that would have been available in a 2009-10 Puck Prospectus Annual had we published one.)
Offense:
2008-09 Goals For: 230 (20th on Offense)
2009-2010 Goals For: 238 (T-16th on Offense)*
Defense:
2008-09 Goals Against: 257 (T-25th on Defense)
2009-10 Goals Against: 242 (11th on Defense)*
Points:
2008-09 Point Total: 83 (T-22th in Points)
2009-10 Point Total: 90 (T-16th in Points)*
Team GVT:
2008-09 Team GVT: - 27 (T-24th Overall)
2009-10 Team GVT: - 3 (17th Overall)*
Bayesian Ratings:
2009-10 Offense: 2.91 (19th on Offense)*
2009-10 Defense: 2.95 (T-14th on Defense)*
2009-10 Total: -0.04 (T-17th Overall)*
Team Contention Status:
Western Conference Playoff Contenders (1st Round +)*: 52.6 %
Western Conference Noisemakers (2nd Round +)*: 24.2 %
Western Conference Contenders: (3rd Round +)*: 10.6 %
Stanley Cup Contenders (Stanley Cup Finals)*: 4.4 %
Stanley Cup Champions*: 1.8 %
*2009-2010 VUKOTA Projections (Bayesian Ratings derived from VUKOTA)
If I only went by memory, it was Sean Avery who destroyed Dallas’ 2008-09 season. The Stars signed him to a 4-year, $15.5 million deal before the season, and ate up the contract after only 23 games. The players revolted against his clubhouse cancer and poor play, and the rest was history. Except that the Stars were a .500 team with a +1 goal differential on February 19, long after Avery left the building. With 25 games to go, continued .500 play would have made them the 7th or 8th seed in the West and might have given them a chance to be the team that upset the Sharks in the first round of the playoffs. Unfortunately, the Stars would win only four games in regulation the rest of the season, owing to a -28 goal differential, and finished eight points out of a playoff spot and just two points ahead of the Leafs, who were never in the hunt.
So what happened? Well, the Stars had some combination of bad luck and poor offensive play, which resulted in an 11% power-play efficiency and a .925 opponent save percentage over that 25 game stretch, but it's also important to note that shooting percentages vary and tend to bounce back with time.
No, the real problem was goaltending – Marty Turco was the second-highest paid player on the team, and by far the worst player on the ice. No matter how you slice it, it was bad: Turco had an .898 save percentage overall, 2nd-last in the league among goalies who played 50 games. His save percentage was .898 at 5-on-5, too, which on its own cost the Stars at least two of the four wins they needed to squeak into the playoffs. In those 25 games down the stretch, his save percentage was a subpar .895. It’s no wonder they were outscored 64-41 when he started.
There is simply no way that a team with a league-average offense like the Stars can hope to make the playoffs with an AHL performer in goal. Turco’s $5.7 million salary is as much a sunk cost as Avery’s, and if he can’t play, he shouldn’t. Are the Stars cognizant of this? They re-tooled only minimally in the offseason, bringing in Alex Auld – who’s a better goalie than Turco – with the intention of playing him in only 25 games. Expect Dallas to bounce back, but not enough to make the playoffs.
Legend:
TOI: Time On Ice
SF/60: Shots For per 60 Minutes
SA/60: Shots Against per 60 Minutes
RK: Ranking
Statistical Summary
TOI RK SF/60 RK SA/60 RK
5v5 45.4 16 27.7 25 27.9 23
5v4 6.7 6 47.4 23 7.6 22
4v5 6.2 18 8.4 12 45.8 27
4v4 2 9 36 4 31.7 16
At the risk of being repetitive, this was a .500 team that should have made the playoffs last year, but Turco killed them. Dallas retains the makings of a .500 team, so better goaltending is crucial for their success this year.
Even-Strength Defense:
The biggest question last season for the Stars was when Trevor Daley and Stephane Robidas would come off the ice. Signing Karlis Skrastins to a 2-year contract to replace Darryl Sydor was a step in the right direction because it gives them three defensemen who can keep the other team’s top lines off the board (Sydor could not.) Our VUKOTA projection system tends to undervalue guys like Skrastins, but I’m convinced this signing makes them a win better than if they had kept Sydor.
Even-Strength Offense:
Dallas has eight usable forwards – Richards, Lehtinen, Eriksson, Modano, Ott, Neal, Ribeiro and Morrow – and then a few guys who needed their ice time limited. Eight forwards would be enough if everyone could stay healthy, but only Neal, Ribeiro, Modano and Eriksson were available for the entire season, which pressed 3rd and 4th liners into roles that were over their heads – like Fabian Brunnstrom, who justified none of the pre-season buzz around him. VUKOTA projects this group of eight to play just an additional 25 games this year as a group. The netimpact is that a group of good forwards are scratched 20% of the time at various points throughout the season, which leaves you with a league average offense overall.
Goaltending:
Back for more? Marty Turco was the proximate cause of the Stars missing the playoffs last season. Backup Alex Auld is better than him, but even in the last year of his contract, Turco will get a million second chances to prove that his .904 save percentage since the lockout is not an indication of his true talent.
Power-Play:
You’ve certainly heard of the guys who play on Dallas’ first line of the power-play: Ribeiro, Richards and Modano, for instance, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually any good as a unit. While they didn’t lack power-play opportunities, they were among the least efficient teams in the league. This is no surprise – Dallas was near the bottom in the league in shots on goal on the power-play, with the Ribeiro-led top units below the league average. The power-play looks worse because of a late-season swoon – 10% efficiency over Turco’s last 20 games – but don’t count on it to regress to anything better than league-average.
Penalty-Kill:
Dallas played relatively well on the penalty kill, limiting opponents to under 46 shots per 60 minutes. Unfortunately, their overworked penalty kill units (Eriksson, Modano, Lehtinen and Richards had tons of even strength and power-play time on ice) and ridiculously bad goaltending put them in the bottom 10 in the league overall at goal prevention. Marty Turco had just an .842 save percentage at 4-on-5 – compare that to Nicklas Backstrom (.929), who’s paid just a few percentages more than the Stars’ sieve. Skrastins will improve the penalty kill and we can again expect some regression to the mean by Turco, but being league-average is about the best the Stars can hope for.
Roster:
Forwards
Legend:
OGVT: Offensive GVT
DGVT: Defensive GVT
SGVT: Shootout GVT
GVT: Total GVT
2009-2010 VUKOTA Projections
Name P Age GP G A Pts OGVT DGVT SGVT GVT
Mike Ribeiro F 29 77.4 22.6 47.8 70.4 9.3 3.2 0.2 12.6
Loui Eriksson F 24 81.5 29.7 29.7 59.5 8.4 3.9 -0.1 12.2
Brad Richards F 29 65.5 18.1 32.9 51.0 5.7 2.5 0.0 8.3
Steve Ott F 27 66.7 16.5 22.5 39.0 4.0 2.7 0.0 6.7
Brenden Morrow F 30 49.8 15.0 21.3 36.3 4.5 1.9 0.0 6.5
James Neal F 22 71.2 21.1 17.8 39.0 4.0 1.6 0.2 5.8
Fabian Brunnstrom F 24 57.4 17.0 16.0 33.0 4.1 1.3 -0.1 5.3
Mike Modano F 39 68.2 13.3 25.1 38.4 3.0 1.9 0.0 4.9
Jere Lehtinen F 36 53.9 10.1 17.0 27.1 2.1 1.8 0.0 3.9
Tom Wandell F 22 34.0 5.5 7.4 12.9 0.8 0.7 0.0 1.4
Raymond Sawada F 24 29.4 5.6 6.2 11.8 0.8 0.6 0.0 1.3
Brian Sutherby F 27 53.2 6.6 7.2 13.8 0.1 1.2 0.0 1.3
Toby Petersen F 31 51.7 4.8 7.3 12.1 -0.5 1.3 0.0 0.8
Warren Peters F 27 34.9 4.4 4.8 9.2 -0.1 0.7 0.0 0.6
Krys Barch F 29 55.2 3.6 4.5 8.0 -1.2 1.0 0.0 -0.2
Defensemen
Legend:
OGVT: Offensive GVT
DGVT: Defensive GVT
SGVT: Shootout GVT
GVT: Total GVT
2009-2010 VUKOTA Projections
Name P Age GP G A Pts OGVT DGVT SGVT GVT
Matt Niskanen D 23 73.4 7.2 24.9 32.2 4.0 4.4 0.0 8.4
Stephane Robidas D 32 70.8 5.0 21.0 26.0 1.9 5.1 0.0 7.0
Trevor Daley D 26 70.0 5.6 17.8 23.4 2.4 4.3 0.0 6.7
Jeff Woywitka D 26 60.9 3.3 13.3 16.6 1.0 3.6 0.0 4.6
Karlis Skrastins D 35 60.2 2.5 9.7 12.2 0.4 2.5 0.0 2.8
Niklas Grossman D 24 67.5 2.0 8.5 10.5 -0.5 2.7 0.0 2.2
Ivan Vishnevskiy D 21 29.6 2.2 7.2 9.4 0.8 1.3 0.0 2.1
Garrett Stafford D 29 27.5 1.6 5.9 7.5 0.6 1.1 0.0 1.7
Mark Fistric D 23 46.3 1.2 5.8 7.0 -0.6 2.1 0.0 1.5
Dan Jancevski D 28 27.9 1.4 5.0 6.4 0.3 1.0 0.0 1.3
Andrew Hutchinson D 29 43.2 1.9 5.5 7.4 0.0 1.1 0.0 1.1
Goaltending
Legend:
GGVT: Goaltending GVT
SGVT: Shootout GVT
GVT: Total GVT
2009-2010 VUKOTA Projections
Name P Age GP GGVT SGVT GVT
Alex Auld G 28 37.0 5.0 -0.1 4.9
Marty Turco G 34 47.0 1.6 -0.4 1.2
Outlook:
Dallas underperformed last year, primarily due to Marty Turco’s poor goaltending. Stars management, at the moment, appears to be betting on his comeback in 2009-10. They shored up their defense and penalty-killing somewhat by signing Karlis Skrastins, and they’ve hedged against a complete Turco disaster by signing Alex Auld. All told, they should be just as good in 2009-10 as they should have been in 2008-09. That is, they should be a playoff bubble team, and nothing more.
Gabriel Desjardins is an author of Puck Prospectus and runs the statistical hockey site behindthenet.ca. You can contact him at info at behindthenet.ca. | 
