It’s a new day, but it’s the same story for the Dallas Stars.
After playing four tight-checking games to start their first-round series, there was no reason to expect anything different in Game 5 between the Stars and Calgary Flames. As anticipated, a total of only four goals were tallied in the fifth installment of the series.
The bad news for the Stars is that they only mustered one of those four goals. The inability to consistently produce offense has become the narrative for Dallas, and defense has long kept them relevant in spite of that.
Against the Flames, however, the Stars have met their match. Calgary is an even better defensive team than Dallas, and with the ability to score goals at a more reliable rate, the team from Alberta is clearly more dangerous than their Texas counterparts.
It’s the same story for the Stars in their Game 5 defeat.
For Dallas, the team offense has really only been effective on one occasion in the last few years, and that was en route to the 2020 Stanley Cup Final.
Truly, if you look beyond a handful of series in that postseason, you’ll find no evidence that the Stars can consistently score, despite the fact that there is offensive talent on the roster.
The defense in Big D was good enough to counteract that for years, and while it’s still solid, it can no longer shoulder the weight that the offense refuses to help carry. I give goaltender Jake Oettinger all the credit in the world for the way he has played in these playoffs, but it likely won’t be enough to save his team.
Through five games, the Stars have scored eight goals, with four of those coming in Game 3. To put things in perspective, the Flames’ third-period goals on Wednesday were the first ones scored on home ice since period one of Game 1, and yet Dallas still has a losing record in Calgary.
As much as I have tried to be patient with Dallas, the reality is that the offense isn’t productive, and in this series, its defense isn’t even the best defense on the ice.
Assuming that the Flames don’t completely become incapable of scoring goals in the next game or two, I expect the Stars’ shortcomings to lead to an early exit from the postseason.