There might not be an NHL team that knows its weakness better than the Dallas Stars. And yet, by next fall, Kari Lehtonen and Antti Niemi may still man the blue ice in Texas.
While the Stars were eliminated in Game 7 of the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs after finishing first in the West — no small feat — the goaltending display by the two Finns showed this is a team in need of an upgrade. Lehtonen started Game 7 for the Stars and gave up several questionable goals before Niemi replaced him. The damage, though, had been done.
So what are their options? A trade? A buyout? Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News has some ideas.
What if you return both Lehtonen and Niemi to start next season, and then keep your eyes open for a goaltending move? The three reasons this could be the way they go are: 1.) The NHL is expecting an expansion draft in the summer of 2017; 2.) the contracts for Lehtonen and Niemi get more tradeable as they get closer to expiration, and 3.) the goalie share program worked in the regular season to the tune of a 50-23-9 record.
Well, when you put it that way.
There are several goaltending situations around the league that might be conducive to a late-season deal with the Stars. The Pittsburgh Penguins potentially face losing Matt Murray if an expansion draft takes place, Ottawa boasts Andrew Hammond and Craig Anderson, while Anaheim has to decide eventually between Frederik Andersen and John Gibson.
Ben Bishop and Andrei Vasilevskiy, Petr Mrazek and Jimmy Howard, Ryan Miller and Jacob Markstrom…the list goes on and on. If any of those clubs face missing the playoffs next season while looking at a potential expansion draft, a deal could be struck to take one of Dallas’s struggling netminders so as to not lose a player for nothing.
The Stars of course downplayed the significance of their struggles in goal but did give exit interviews last week that revealed some detail about their state of mind so soon after a frustrating defeat.
“A lot of changes,” Lehtonen said about his season. “I started working with a new goalie coach and that brought a lot of new stuff to my game which I’m excited about. That road is just beginning.
“As a team, we took a big step forward. It was a learning experience but a huge disappointment not getting to go to the next round. That [performance] was bad and was something that will frustrate everyone for a long time.”
Niemi was brought in last off-season to bolster what Dallas already had but also as insurance for an injury-prone Lehtonen.
“It took time to get used to it; probably the first half of the year we were both learning what we need to do and how to live with that,” Lehtonen said of sharing the crease with his partner. “After that, we figured out our own ways and it was great. I think it really benefited both of us; we both got some extra practice time. There comes time when you want the net all the time but in this system it doesn’t work that way. I think it worked and it wasn’t a problem at all. I don’t think it felt different from the regular season. When you get your opportunity, you have to keep it and that’s hard but that’s the work we’re in.”
Head coach Lindy Ruff didn’t put all the blame on the goalies. He acknowledged that the Stars had plenty of room to improve on the blue line.
“I think there’s another notch defensively [we can reach],” he said. “We had about a two month window where our defensive play slipped, we regained it in the last six or seven weeks and it’s the backbone of any team.
“We finished second overall. We had two goalies who won us 25 games. We had two goalies who I think were the backbone of where we got to. You want some [of those goals] back but every time you lose a game you want something back. I think these two guys did a real good job for us. I think the [two goalie system] worked. We changed a lot of things in Kari’s game. There was a big adjustment period over the year that I had to be patient with. Right now, Kari and Antti are our goalies. We wouldn’t have gotten to Game 7 were it not for the play of [Lehtonen] in Game 6.”
As Ruff and Heika point out, these two goalies and the system worked to the tune of 50 wins during the regular season. The issue became magnified in the playoffs when the margin for error is a lot slimmer. That’s why next season’s trade deadline is a significant target for Dallas to potentially make the necessary changes.
“The last game is not a reflection of our team; we’re flushing that down the drain,” said Stars GM Jim Nill, who is a finalist for the general manager of the year award. “I believe we have one of the top cores in the NHL.”
That’s probably true. But goaltending is a huge part of any team’s core, especially in the post-season.
