Dallas Stars: Fixing road woes is crucial for success

The Dallas Stars need to figure out how to play better on the road.

The Dallas Stars have been a Jekkyl and Hyde team this season in many ways. Their identity seems to change depending on which venue they’re playing at. If the Stars are playing at home, they’re a borderline elite team with an 11-4-1 record, picking up over 70 percent of the possible points.

On the road, however, they’ve been horrendous; and that’s putting it mildly. The Stars have a 6-11-2 record away from the American Airlines Center. That puts them in the bottom 10 in the league and in the same category as the New Jersey Devils, Ottawa Senators, Chicago Blackhawks, Florida Panthers, Los Angeles Kings, St. Louis Blues, and New York Rangers.

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Here’s the issue – all of those teams sans the Rangers are either cellar-dwelling teams or within two points of being in last place. It’s not surprising that they’re bad on the road because, well, they’re bad everywhere. The Stars, though, are undeniably a playoff team at home and a lottery team on the road.

Jekkyl And Hyde

Sometimes, struggles on the road aren’t as bad as they seem. It might just come down to puck luck – scoring goals and preventing them. However, the Stars are a drastically different team when they don’t play at home. And not in a good way, either.

On the road, the Stars are a bottom five team in many underlying stats at five-on-five, including CorsiFor percentage, scoring chances for percentage, and goals for percentage. To win in the postseason, you have to be able to win on the road or you have a microscopic margin of error.

The players have been seeing a drop in production on the road as well. Young center Devin Shore is a terrific example of this. He has 10 points in 15 games at home, but just six points in 16 games on the road. Jason Dickson has eight points at home and just three on the road. 70 percent of Mattias Janmark‘s points this season have come at American Airlines Center.

Additionally, the Stars convert on more of their chances and save more shots against at home. Their away five-on-five PDO (shooting percentage plus save percentage) is the seventh-worst in the NHL. But it’s the seventh best at home. The Stars have gotten good goaltending on both ends. However, their shooting percentage is noticeably better at home (9.55 at home versus 6.20 on the road).

Losing star defenseman John Klingberg is likely a big reason for this. He’s a great player and anyone who loses a player of his caliber is going to be worse off. However, every team faces injuries. The best ones find a way to win no matter where they’re playing even if they don’t have their best players.

The Stars’ road woes make it hard to fully evaluate the team. But one thing’s for sure – they need to play a lot better on the road if they hope to make a return to the postseason. For an extended playoff run, the Stars will have to find a way to channel that home magic and bring it on the road.

All stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.