Bichsel's buzzer beater and the new faces of preseason

One of the traditional clichés of training camp is that you have to start from the beginning, that last season doesn’t really matter.

Like most clichés, it’s pretty much true.

As much as we might want to dismiss the coach-speak, it actually makes a lot of sense. This is a new team, and so it must be built from the base up. Sure, there are tenets that you can count on, there is a foundation that will provide some familiarity, but the 2024-25 Stars are a new creation.

Joe Pavelski is gone. Chris Tanev is gone. They have shuffled in three new defensemen (and maybe more). The forward lines are different. The backup goalie is different. That’s a lot of adjusting that has to be done.

All of that seems clear in exhibition play, as many new faces look intriguing.

Dallas won its first game Saturday, 2-1 over St. Louis. On Monday, the Stars traveled to Colorado and beat the Avalanche 3-2 on a last-second goal from Lian Bichsel.

Starting at the top, Wyatt Johnston scored a goal and looked like he picked up right from where he ended the playoffs. That said, he will likely do that in a different way and with different linemates this year. He’s the best forward on the team right now at age 21 and might be battling for role of best player. The smart, scrappy forward centered a line with Jamie Benn last season, and really helped the veteran find fresh legs. This year, with Pavelski retiring, there’s a good chance that Johnston will play right wing on a line with Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson. That will be difficult to establish in the preseason, with Robertson rehabbing after foot surgery, but you can bet the coaches are going to take a look at what Johnston can do on the wing.

Now, that didn’t happen on Monday, as Johnston played mostly center, but you can bet the coaches will be talking about it.

On Saturday, Mavrik Bourque moved into Johnston’s center spot and played beside Logan Stankoven. That combination gets fans buzzing because the two young forwards were linemates in the AHL last season and might have been the two best forwards in the American League. Stankoven got called up and Bourque won MVP, so both seem ready to go.

That’s a huge part of the “training camp” journey, and something that both fans and coaches will want to watch all season. It’s also a big reason this year is different than last year. For the Stars to really click again, they need three solid scoring lines and Benn-Bourque-Stankoven could be a huge challenge if it gets the matchups that could be available if the top two lines are heating up.

Behind Robertson-Hintz-Johnston is the veteran line of Matt Duchene flanked by Mason Marchment and Tyler Seguin. That trio was consistent last season and should be able to build on the chemistry this year. Duchene will be in his second season in Dallas and won’t have to deal with the fact he was bought out in Nashville last season. Marchment will have two years under his belt after signing a life-changing four-tear free agent deal. And Seguin seems to really be embracing the two-way role that he has adapted after battling through countless injuries. Each one really has a chance to be just a little bit better this year, and that combined improvement should be noticeable.

The fourth line is a bit of a shuffle, as Dallas let go of Radek Faksa, Ty Dellandrea and Craig Smith. Now, it looks like Evgenii Dadonov, Sam Steel and Colin Blackwell will form the fourth line.

Blackwell was great in his first game, scoring the game-winner and winning 9-of-10 draws. Is he a center or a winger? He and Steel will battle to find that out.

Behind that trio is a pack of players fighting to earn maybe the last roster spot. Matěj Blümel had 31 goals with Texas last season and seems a leading candidate to be the 13^th forward, but he has plenty of competition. Kole Lind, 25, had 65 points in 69 games in the AHL last season. Arttu Hyry, 23, scored well in Finland last season and had a goal against Colorado on Monday. Also in the mix are Oskar Bäck, Antonio Stranges and Chase Wheatcroft.

And that’s when you start to realize just how different this season might be. Dallas for the past two seasons has been balancing on the salary cap, which helped limit the chances for young players to come up and get at least a sniff of the NHL. This year they have more than $1 million in wiggle room because they want to be prepared in case injuries pile up.

On defense, they have added a veterans Brendan Smith and Kyle Capobianco to go with youngster Bichsel. While a first-round pick and a big kid, Bichsel looks like someone who could spend much of the season in the AHL, but that’s something we all have to watch and see.

Casey DeSmith has jumped in as the NHL backup goalie, and players such as Magnus Hellberg, Remi Poirier and Ben Kraws have looked good in the first two exhibition games, and that could be huge as the year wears on, both for the NHL team and the AHL.

The Stars have a home exhibition game on Wednesday against Minnesota. Maybe we’ll see some of the big names like Benn, Seguin and Jake Oettinger. Maybe we’ll see some of the new line combinations or proposed defensive pairings. It’s worth watching, because even these decisions are part of the story of this season.

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.