Heika: With positives to build on, Stars have chance to come full circle

I spent the week at a family gathering in Michigan where we had a memorial service for my mom and a graduation party for my niece and nephew, so there were a lot of "circle of life" moments.
At one point, we were watching a slide show where there were wedding pictures of my mom and sister side by side, and someone said words to the effect of: To think, so much of this sprang from those four people. And when you looked around the room at all of the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it was a pretty neat moment.

Things build over time, and the process creates some very positive things. That's tough to see when you're living day to day, but when you look back, it seems so clear.
Which, of course, brings me to the Stars.
It's been an eventful couple of months, and you do wonder what it all means. If you want to look forward through positive eyes, there's a chance this is all leading to something pretty special.
We hyped up last season pretty hard, so I'm reticent to say the Stars have everything solved. Truth is, I think they're a little reticent, too. Experience also teaches you to be cautious.

But what if, and stick with me here, last season was part of "the process" as well.
Ken Hitchcock and Rick Wilson did a good job of teaching some very important defensive principles, and there is a chance those lessons pay off this season. Tyler Seguin and John Klingberg -- to name just two -- became much more complete players last season. The organization as a whole got a strong reset on what two-way hockey is supposed to look like.
Can Jim Montgomery and his new coaching staff build off of that? The college coach who has to adapt to the NHL has a ton of challenges, and it's very easy to imagine he could struggle, especially with a division that has some of the league's best teams. But Montgomery's aggressive style could be helped a great deal by what happened last season. He could be walking into the perfect environment to make that transition.
I think it's one of the reasons he chose the Stars when there were other offers out there.
Likewise, management could be in a different place than last season. Jim Nill needs to be a different GM this year than he was with Hitchcock or Lindy Ruff. They were veterans who needed space to do things their way. Montgomery is a rookie who needs Nill's help. It will set up a different dynamic throughout the organization, and the hope is a better dynamic.
Nill has good thoughts on how the game should be played, and those thoughts will likely play out on the ice more in the coming season.

Of course, his most important work is still to come this summer. Dallas has to make decisions on its own UFAs and on what UFAs might be out there. There also could be trade options that tweak the team in just the right way. The decision on who they bring in as backup goalie will be huge, and it sure looks like they need another veteran scorer to play in the top nine (and that's even with Val Nichushkin expected to come back from the KHL).
The path of Nichushkin also is "circle of life" stuff. The 10th overall pick in 2013 went straight to the NHL at age 18, moved back to the KHL after three seasons, and should be in a different place after two seasons in Russia. Is he more mature at age 23? Has he learned about the game? Will he be helped by the addition of veteran Alexander Radulov? It's easy to say yesto all three questions, but it has to play out next season.
Nichushkin has several contemporaries in the organization, and they could be helped by the Texas Stars' run to the Calder Cup Finals. Texas lost to Toronto in Game 7 Thursday, but the education of 22 AHL playoff games has to be good for Roope Hintz, Jason Dickinson, Gavin Bayreuther and Dillon Heatherington. Denis Gurianov was scratched six times, so his performance was disappointing, but it also could be a stepping stone to improvement.
Bottom line is you'd rather have the experience of these past months than a first-round exit, so the organization has something to build on.
That was part of the message I felt this week -- experience matters and you have to put the work in every day. My relatives probably didn't think about where the family would end up, but they had a plan and stuck to it, and it worked out pretty good for everyone.
It's been a rough run for Stars fans over the past decade, but maybe the process has come "full circle." You can definitely talk yourself into the thought of progress if you take some time to look at the big picture.
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.
Read more: Jim Montgomery, Jim Nill, Dallas Stars