First Shift \ud83c\udfd2<\/p>\n
When the Stars could not change their playoff seeding near the end of last season, they went 0-5-2 and played some of their worst hockey of the year heading into the post-season.<\/p>\n
The hope is they will learn from that stretch, and that a tighter playoff race might aid in finding a different level of competition. Dallas and Minnesota are still battling for home ice in their expected first-round matchup. The Stars currently are 45-20-12 for 102 points and second place in the Central Division. The Wild is 44-21-12 for 100 points. Both have played 77 games.\u00a0The two will play each other in Dallas on Thursday, so there is quite a lot on the line right now.<\/p>\n
Should the Stars finish second in the Central, they will host Games 1 and 2 and also have Game 7 at home. Should they finish third, they would start on the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the beauty right now is we\u2019re getting pushed from behind by Minnesota, so that\u2019s going to heighten the focus and I don\u2019t have to say anything,\u201d Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said about motivation. \u201cEveryone knows the importance of the games coming down.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, a little reminder of last season doesn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to go through that ending again,\u201d said defenseman\u00a0Lindell.<\/p>\n
It was a scary time, and it might have helped a few players tighten their focus. On one hand, the team did bounce back and beat Colorado in the first round in seven games. On the other, they had a tougher path than they could have.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it definitely gives you a little more juice,\u201d Stars forward Wyatt Johnston<\/a> said of the key games coming up. \u201cWe were locked into our spot last year, and now we have to fight for a spot.\u201d<\/p>\n That means even games against the Flames and the Rangers, who are out of the playoffs, can be important.<\/p>\n \u201cYou also just want to play your game so you\u2019re not turning it on when the playoffs start,\u201d Johnston said. \u201cYou have to raise your game.\u201d<\/p>\n Forward Oskar B\u00e4ck<\/a>\u00a0added: \u201cYou want to get the habits in. And also, the points do matter.\u201d<\/p>\n The Stars have been battling injuries of late \u2013 missing forward Roope Hintz<\/a>, Radek Faksa<\/a>, Bunting, Sam Steel<\/a> and Nathan\u00a0Bastian<\/a>. That has created a situation when the coaching staff has chosen to go with 11 forwards and seven defensemen in the past two games, and that\u2019s not exactly getting the team in playoff mode.<\/p>\n But, there is time.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re getting there,\u201d said Lindell. \u201cLast couple have been better. They felt like playoff games.\u201d<\/p>\n And that should be a pleasant change this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First Shift \ud83c\udfd2 When the Stars could not change their playoff seeding near the end of last season,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5117],"tags":[196,147,5278,5,4,197],"class_list":{"0":"post-544949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-stars","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-stars","10":"tag-dallasstars","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-stars"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116361705948192187","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544949","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=544949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}