FRISCO — Spirits are usually high on the first day of training camp for all 32 teams across the NHL.
“Everything’s positive right now,” new Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan said Wednesday ahead of camp beginning. “We haven’t lost yet.”
But for a team like the Stars, which lost in the Western Conference finals the last three seasons, tensions build each camp the team arrives at headquarters in Frisco without the Stanley Cup.
Gulutzan, who spent the last seven years in Edmonton, understands that phenomenon. While he hasn’t been a part of the Stars’ defeats the last few years — and even played a role in causing them — his Oilers came similarly close to the ultimate prize without achieving it.
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“It drives you,” Gulutzan said. “As you grow older in this league, you become fixated on just wanting to win.”
For teams that have gotten so close, starting over can be tough. The first day of camp is a reminder of how far they have to go just to reach the point where they can take another shot at finally getting over the hump. With 82 games and a handful of playoff games, it’s exhausting just to think about.
But the Stars enter 2025 training camp with a renewed sense of hope and are hoping to capitalize on a fresh start for their organization.
“I think it’s a real opportunity,” Gulutzan said. “It’s not often you get a job as a head coach in this league where you get a team that’s been in the final four the last three years.”
While the Stars return almost their entire core from last season’s roster, they have a new coaching staff calling the shots. The Stars hired Gulutzan in July to return to Dallas, where he served as head coach from 2011-13. But with a decade of experience in between, they’re confident he’s ready for the job and can be the difference this year.
“I just see the energy in the room now,” Stars GM Jim Nill said. “It’s a new voice. Players are excited. They’re going to bring in some different ideas, maybe open up some different things.”
Gulutzan also has two new assistants on his staff — former Texas Stars head coach Neil Graham and David Pelletier, whom he brought over from Edmonton. He said the first two days of camp are going to be challenging for the players, as the staff strives to make expectations clear.
There’s uncertainty around what the new staff can accomplish, especially with such high aspirations in the organization, but the Stars enter training camp in the best possible spot.
Nill announced Wednesday that the NHL roster is completely healthy entering camp. The Stars haven’t been completely healthy in years, frankly, as last season was plagued by injuries and they even entered 2024 camp with their leading goal scorer Jason Robertson still recovering from foot surgery.
Nill has a tough job as the GM of a contender that seemingly has all the pieces to win but hasn’t managed to do so. The questions this offseason were what buttons needed to be pushed, and if firing Pete DeBoer was too drastic of a move?
“He’s got a pretty good team here,” Nill said of Gulutzan. “He’s not going to come in here and all of a sudden change everything that’s going on. He knows he’s got a good team, but he’s got to put his stamp on it.”
As Gulutzan said, they haven’t lost yet, and it’s still too early to know if it was the right call.
Dallas is just hoping that a reset was the answer all along.
“There’s no quit in these guys,” Nill said. “They know how close they are. We’ve done a lot of winning over the last five or six years. They’ll go through it, and you don’t stop because of adversity.”
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