First Shift 🏒
Special teams have been a big part of the success in the Pete DeBoer era, and the Stars are efforting to make that the case again this season.
The Stars penalty kill has gone 13-for-14 in the first four games and was exceptional Tuesday, killing 1:34 of a 5-on-3 while not allowing a shot on goal. The power play is just 1-for-13 so far, but the belief is it is moving in the right direction.
“The power play is harder to get ready for the start of the season when Robertson doesn’t play and Wyatt Johnston doesn’t play,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said of two notable absences in training camp. “Give us 10 games and we’ll talk about the power play.”
In addition to those two missing bodies in preseason, Mavrik Bourque (the 2023-24 AHL MVP) was also out and Joe Pavelski’s absence is being felt after his retirement. That means there has been shuffling on both units, and the team has had to find new chemistry. The top unit is typically Miro Heiskanen with Robertson, Hintz, Benn and Johnston. The second unit has Thomas Harley at the point with Duchene, Logan Stankoven and Marchment. Seguin typically is on that unit, but he is currently out with a lower body injury.
Duchene has been a lightning rod on the power play, and said he’s not worried about the results just yet.
“Power plays are very fickle things. When they come, they come and when they don’t, they don’t. We’ve just got to stick with it,” he said after a 3-2 shootout win over San Jose in which the man advantage went 0-for-4. “Tonight, we could have had a couple. I thought we did some good things. The biggest trap in this sport is to get hung up on the results and not on the process. I thought our process was a lot better tonight.”
Since DeBoer came in with assistant coach Steve Spott (power play) and Alain Nasreddine (penalty kill), Dallas is fourth on the kill (83.0 percent) and seventh on the power play (24.2 percent). Both coaches and players say patience is key.
“We’ve just got to stick with it,” Duchene said. “You can’t be panicked or too desperate, but you have to be confident and assertive and bear down when you can.”
The penalty kill is already humming, and that’s despite several changes. Dallas lost Chris Tanev, Radek Faksa and Ty Dellandrea over the summer, and has had to replace with new faces like Colin Blackwell, Matt Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin. Dumba is out with an injury, so that makes for a bigger challenge, but Esa Lindell continues to lead the way and is getting great support. Lyubushkin and Brendan Smith were among the minute leaders on Tuesday, while Blackwell is playing a strong role next to Sam Steel. Those two are building chemistry on the fourth line and on the penalty kill.
“Our fourth line has been good two or three games in a row,” DeBoer said of Steel and Blackwell with rookie Oskar Bäck. “I didn’t like them in game one, but I think every game they’ve built on that. They’ve done some excellent penalty killing, all three of those guys. Blacky has been good and I think [Sam] Steel has been excellent too.”
The Stars have been pushing for an aggressive strategy on the kill, and Lindell said he likes how that is working.
“We were able to pressure quite a lot today, so that was good,” Lindell said on Tuesday. “I really like the penalty kill right now.”
