If you could name the biggest weakness on the Dallas Stars roster, it probably wouldn’t take you too long to point the finger at Antti Niemi and Kari Lehtonen.
With the Stars sitting three points out of a wild card spot and 11th in the Western Conference, the team has tumbled from its place atop the tough Central Division last season. In 33 games, Lehtonen has a .902 save percentage and Niemi is at .900 in 27 games played — neither of which are even in the top 40 among goalies who have played in at least 10 games.
But GM Jim Nill, who surprised many by not moving on from at least one of these goalies last summer, isn’t just blaming the ‘tenders. The Stars have got a lot of bad luck this season, too.
“At the start of the season we were decimated with injuries,” Nill said on Hockey Central at Noon. “We lost two guys actually for the year… (Mattias) Janmark and (Ales) Hemsky, first two days of traning camp, Hemsky at the World Cup. And then we lost six of our top nine coming out of training camp, the Sharps, Spezzas, Eakins, Hudlers and all these guys… it was all forwards who got hurt.”
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Nill acknowledged that the team has been kept afloat by the performances from the younger players such as Radek Faska (22 points in 48 games), Devin Shore (20 points in 50 games), and Esa Lindell (seven points in 41 games). Special teams have also taken a hit as the Stars have gone from the fourth-best power play last season to 20th-ranked this season and a top-10 penalty-killing unit last season to worst in the league this season.
Certainly if Dallas had a top-tier goalie he would help offset some of the injury losses and the unlucky cloud that has hung over them all season, but Nill came short of saying he would aggressively try and upgrade in the crease by the trade deadline. While he agrees his goalies have struggled this season, the team disappointment isn’t pinned on them.
“To be fair to our goalies this year it hasn’t been them. When we’ve won games they’ve been the stars of the game,” Nill said. “It’s been a lot of the loose play from our team overall. They’ve actually done the job when called upon. Their numbers aren’t great, but that’s more of a reflection of the way we’ve played at times.
Since the Stars were so successful last season, teams have the book on them now and have adapted the way they play against the high-tempo team.
“We’ve had to change our game a little bit,” Nill said. “And sometimes the star players they’re a little bit stubborn and don’t want to change. But I think they’re starting to realize that.”
Dallas is 4-4-2 in its past 10 games and are starting to get players, such as Sharp, back from injury so if an uptick is coming and a push for the playoffs is achievable, they’ll start making that move now.
Still, the goalie question looms large over this team. It was an issue last season as well when neither goalie posted a save percentage above .906 and with cap hits of $5.9 million (Lehtonen) and $4.5 million (Niemi) for this season and next, they won’t even be that easy to trade. And with other, better goalies potentially available in the summer, the Vegas Golden Knights may not even be drawn to one of them in the expansion draft.
But Nill has made some big-splash trade in the past, so we can’t be surprised if he’s able to figure out the goalie mess by March 1.
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