Toronto, ON — On Wednesday afternoon, when Ken Hitchcock arrived in front of reporters at the Air Canada Centre, he didn’t mince his words. He talked of his team’s cracks.
After a Tuesday night loss to the Montreal Canadiens, the Stars’ fourth in their last five games, how could he not? At the 71-game mark, his team is clinging to a playoff spot and fluttering.
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“You can’t win with one line. We’ve either got to get more participants or we’ve got to split it and spread it which is always the danger zone,” Hitchcock said. “You are what you are right now. You can’t live in a dream world.”
It represented a clear call to his depth players, forwards four-through-12 and defensemen not named John Klingberg.
In many ways, this Stars team has relied on its AHL franchise in Cedar Park, Texas, more than other NHL teams have for that depth. On Wednesday, in their first game without Marc Methot, who they’ve lost to a cut hand, Julius Honka — who Hitchcock credited for “incredible progress” in establishing himself as a legitimate top-six defenseman — stepped back into the lineup to fill the void. Dillon Heatherington joined the team as a scratch, too. Rather than mine free agency or the trade deadline market for rentals, the Stars made a clear decision at the end of February when they decided to stick with their recent AHL grads.
That reliance on the AHL has proven to be a blessing and a curse during this playoff hunt. In crunch time, Hitchcock doesn’t fully trust all of his younger depth. For all a tight playoff offers in terms of experience, Hitchcock admitted on Wednesday that he’d rather be more comfortably set in the playoff picture so that he could experiment more with some of his Texas graduates.
“For a lot of our guys this is a new experience and it can be overwhelming,” he said. “Right now you’re fighting and scratching and overplaying guys to try and get as much as you can.”
It has meant that a player like Remi Elie hasn’t been able to get more than fringe minutes, despite promising results.
In 63 games and more than 600 minutes at even-strength this year, Elie has played to 51 CF%. With Elie on the ice at evens in his more than 100 career games, the Stars have outscored their opponents 33-23 for a 59 goals-for percentage. This, while playing just 10 minutes a night and taking 55% of his faceoffs in the defensive zone, the fourth-toughest usage among Stars forwards. And the vast majority of his points have been primary — Elie sits third on the Stars in primary assists per 60 minutes at 0.7.
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And yet, among the 10 Stars forwards who’ve played 60 or more games this season, Elie sits last in ice-time despite being fifth in CF%. Among the 15 forwards the Stars have dressed this season, Elie’s 3:16 spent on the power play (or three seconds per game) ranks last.
Esa Lindell is among a smaller group of AHL graduates who have been given more serious roles — and have thrived.
He credits Texas head coach Derek Laxdal for helping him make the transition.
“I think Texas is a big process and a huge step. When you play a lot of minutes that’s the biggest thing in improving your game and for me, that was huge spending a year in the A with those guys two years ago. The game in Europe is so much different and you don’t realize that until you actually come here. And another thing that’s a big change is the number of games. And you just think it’s like ‘Oh, it’s only 15 to 20 more games but that’s actually like one game more per week,’” Lindell said.
“Last year, we actually counted and we had like eight guys that played in the A my first year. It helped developing with them. The transition has been quite easy. Last year, at first I struggled to get into the lineup but now I think I’m not nervous anymore at all, I’m comfortable on the ice doing stuff with the puck too.”
He’s not alone, either.
Devin Shore points to Laxdal and his staff in Cedar Park as a unique advantage for the Stars.
“I don’t know what the numbers are but it’s a lot of the guys. I don’t think we’d be the players that we are. Laxdal and his staff were awesome in giving the young guys oppprtunity to grow and develop, and help our confidence, and show how the Dallas Stars play,” Shore said. “Like when I came in, the systems were matched up with the NHL team and that’s big. Austin’s a huge part of our development.”
If given the opportunity, Laxdal believes some of his recent graduates still have a lot more to give.
He credits Lindell as a quiet, mature, solid stay-at-home defenseman with “natural farm strength” who has even more to give offensively. And Lindell’s production is already strong.
Among the 65 NHL defensemen who’ve played more than 100 minutes on the powerplay this season, Lindell’s 4.3 points per 60 minutes ranks 33rd, putting him among the league’s upper echelon quarterbacks, ahead of the likes of Dougie Hamilton, Jake Gardiner, Zach Werenski, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Duncan Keith, Mark Giordano, and Alex Pietrangelo, despite playing behind Klingberg on the second unit.
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He has done this while making his largest impact at even-strength, where he sits second to Klingberg among regular Stars defensemen in terms of possession, playing to 53 CF%. With Lindell on the ice at even-strength this season, the Stars have scored a team-high 57.5 percent of the goals and have outscored opponents 65-48. He sits 13th among under-24 defensemen in scoring with 25 points.
“You could tell that he was going to be a special player,” Laxdal told The Athletic on a phone call this week. “He’s the type of player where his teammates absolutely love him. He’s got a quick release from the blueline, he gets pucks to the net, he’s just one of those players you can count on every night.”
But for every Lindell, there’s a Devin Shore, who has struggled of late. His 48 CF% ranks second-last among the team’s regular forwards this year to Martin Hanzal. Shore has just four points in his last 18 games. But he has also been a victim of some poor luck, with a team-worst 4.57 on-ice shooting percentage.
Laxdal goes as far as to say Shore, who’s on pace for 33 points (identical to last year), still has the ability to become a 50-60 point player. He points to his 26 points in 23 games in the AHL in 2015-2016 before he separated his shoulder and missed the back half of the season.
“The time that we had him he carried himself really well as a young gentleman, very confident, skates well, I think you’re going to see him get better and better. I think he’s a little snakebitten right now,” Laxdal said.
The same goes for Elie, a player who Laxdal calls “an absolute specimen” and believes will turn into a “big, strong power forward” who can kill penalties and play up and down the lineup.
On Wednesday night, after goaltending cost the Stars an early goal, it was Lindell who picked up an assist on their first goal of the night and Texas grad Radek Faksa who tied the game. When the Stars took a 4-2 lead late in the second period, it was Shore dashing laterally to find Elie for his sixth goal. The 5-4 goal? Brett Ritchie, he of three seasons in Cedar Park.
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In the end, Hitchcock split his lines up — and it worked, at least offensively.
Laxdal thinks there’s more to come from the Texas-bred Stars, who made up roughly half of Wednesday’s roster.
The results have, Wednesday aside, actually been stronger on the defensive end than the reverse. Laxdal and his staff have tried to turn gifted offensive players into responsible defensive options for Hitchcock, and the Stars have improved defensive results this year as a result. He points to Gemel Smith and Jason Dickinson as other success stories.
“We’re trying to win and we’re trying to develop Dallas Star hockey players as players who can play both ways. We’re going through that right now with young players like Roope Hintz and Denis Guryanov. They’re obviously gifted offensively but to play in the NHL if you can’t defend you can’t play unless you’re going in the top-five in the draft,” Laxdal said.
“It’s something that myself and my staff take a lot of pride in and every time a player gets called up we don’t see him. It’s part of the culture we’re trying to grow. Some players are going to go sooner than others but as long as they get the right message and they get to the final destination then we feel pretty good. It’s almost like watching your kids graduate from high school.”
The point — and the five goals — are a step in the right direction, even after another loss.
“We ran out of gas. It’s tough. I felt for the players. There’s a lot of positives. More participation, more guys involved. The way our lines looked, we looked more in sync, we looked like we had four lines that could play,” Hitchcock said.
“We’ve worked our way into this mix here, which is a long way from where we started.”
(Top photo: Jerome Miron/USA TODAY Sports)
