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ChumThe Stars crapped the bed 5-2 at home against the San Jose Sharks. A win puts them a step ahead of the Sharks for the final playoff spots. A loss marginally dooms them.
With the loss, the Stars are three points back of the Sharks for the No. 8 spot and four back of the Phoenix Coyotes, who pitched their third straight shutout last night against Columbus with former Star Mike Smith between the pipes. Bad to worse.
(By the way, let's not forget the point the Stars surrounded to Phoenix two weeks ago after coughing up a 3-1 lead in the third quarter.)
The Stars are now forced to win the next two games outright and hope the Coyotes can beat the Sharks two straight games. And I don't guess the Kings are out of the woods, four points up on the Stars in the Pacific Division lead.
Lots of little mistakes last night. Bad, meaty loose pucks on goal. Getting beat on the boards. The Stars looked overmatched. Even at home with 18,000+ in attendance.
When the 2011-12 season ends, we might be looking at one area especially: The Power Play. Yes, the thing that allowed those late-1990s Stars to cruise through many seasons and playoffs is killing the 2011-12 squad.
The Stars are dead last in the league converting 14 percent of man-advantages. Dead last. They are something like 1-21 recently in this stretch of losses. The Stars have scored 33 power-play goals this season. Only two early-1970s New York Islander teams have scored less.
Bob Sturm has an excellent read on the Stars' power-play woes. It stems from head coach Glen Gulutzan's steadfast (stubborn) ways by using Mike Ryder, Alex Goligoski, Stephane Robidas, Mike Ribeiro (two PP goals, 13 assists) and Loui Eriksson.
The giant omission: Jamie Benn, arguably the team's best player.
Sturm goes into detail in this and also mentioning Ribeiro's painfully long shifts and the absence of Sheldon Souray, the one defenseman with a big slapshot. Anyway, it's a mess and it's seems perfectly logical to change things and changes aren't happening. No reason why a talented offense team such as the Stars can't field five guys with a man advantage.
On to Nashville and St. Louis.
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