{"id":414910,"date":"2026-01-18T21:54:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T21:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/414910\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T21:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T21:54:15","slug":"dallas-stars-face-pivotal-question-after-offensive-attack-falls-flat-in-loss-to-lightning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/414910\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Stars face pivotal question after offensive attack falls flat in loss to Lightning"},"content":{"rendered":"

An 82-game NHL season takes patience. When losses start to build up, it takes restraint from front offices to see if a coach and his players can work through a skid on their own.<\/p>\n

Stars GM Jim Nill<\/a> has given first-year Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan<\/a> and his roster that opportunity over the last month of the season. But after dropping their 10th game since Dec. 23 on Sunday against the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-1, it begs the question of whether the Stars can afford to wait any longer to pull the trigger on making a big change.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Stars have lost three in a row and 10 of their last 12 games. Their latest came to a Lightning team now on a 13-game points streak. The Stars haven\u2019t scored more than one goal in any of their last three.<\/p>\n

When you step back and take a look at the big picture, the Stars are in a fine position. Dallas has a .643 points percentage, which is better than the .633 that it held at the same time last year. It was after this point last year that the Stars traded for Mikko Rantanen,<\/a> Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci and that Thomas Harley began his breakout campaign after an injury to Miro Heiskanen.<\/p>\n

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This season, they\u2019ve dropped slightly to fourth in the league standings but remain tied for second in the West and the Central Division with the Minnesota Wild at 63 points. The Colorado Avalanche are running away with the league at 74 points, but it\u2019s been clear for weeks that Dallas is in a battle for second and home-ice advantage in the first round.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the problem lies. The Stars are in an arms race with the Wild, and Minnesota is gaining ground. On Dec. 23 when the skid began, the Stars had a six-point advantage over the Wild. Now, the two teams are tied in the standings.<\/p>\n

Upon returning from the road trip, Gulutzan offered his assessment about where the team needs to go from here \u2014 and it likely didn\u2019t offer much reassurance for his team\u2019s fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about adjustments right now,\u201d Gulutzan said. \u201cIt\u2019s about us starting to stack good days, good games and good plays back-to-back-to-back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Stars have had the opportunity to prove they can \u201cstack good days\u201d with the current roster. They\u2019ve had the chance to stack wins at home before the break, to capitalize on a change of scenery on the road trip and to bounce back with a win at home Sunday.<\/p>\n

But the same issues persist. The Stars aren\u2019t generating enough offensively on the power play or 5-on-5. Defensive or goaltending mistakes are proving costly. And they\u2019re not getting enough from players they need to deliver. <\/p>\n

They\u2019re also getting outscored 15-6 in second periods since Dec. 23, which crushed them again Sunday. After an energetic first sparked by an early goal from Oskar Back, the Lightning outscored the Stars 2-0 in the second, outshooting them 15-9 in the process.<\/p>\n

Jake Oettinger<\/a> took the bait from Nikita Kucherov, leaving Brandon Hagel open on the first. Then, Jake Guentzel scored off a rebound in transition on the second when the Stars\u2019 goalie didn\u2019t get the help he needed. <\/p>\n

After scoring four minutes into the game, Dallas never scored again. The Stars had just two shots on goal in the third period, even after pulling Oettinger with four minutes remaining.<\/p>\n

Nill has said he wants to wait until after the Olympics<\/a> to make a trade, but with the way his team is playing, they may not be able to afford eight more games without a drastic change.<\/p>\n

Because if the current streak issues continue, Minnesota could start to run away with second place in the division before anyone even boards a plane to Milan.<\/p>\n

Find more Stars coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An 82-game NHL season takes patience. When losses start to build up, it takes restraint from front offices…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[2322,147,5,189,4,197,540,92,5168,5167],"class_list":{"0":"post-414910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-american-airlines-center","9":"tag-dallas-stars","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-lightning","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-stars","14":"tag-tampa-bay","15":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","16":"tag-tampabay","17":"tag-tampabaylightning"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115918331199213631","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}