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STARS MAILBAG: Retiring numbers, giving thanks, and Honka

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It’s kind of an odd feeling, but this is my final mailbag at Wrong Side of the Red Line.

The mailbag will be back next week, but that will be the first offering at The Upset.

For those who missed the news, The Upset is a new DFW-based sports subscription site that will cover the four major sports. All of the coverage at Wrong Side of the Red Line will be moving to The Upset, and the coverage will take another step forward with a couple projects planned for The Upset.

I’ll have more on The Upset later this week in next week’s mailbag at it’s new home, but for now I wanted to say thank you for reading Wrong Side of the Red Line, it’s been a fun ride that’s going to continue.

Let’s get started…

https://twitter.com/creeprcult/status/933531909564633088

Let’s start here with the Stars retiring Jere Lehtinen’s No. 26 last night before the game against the Calgary Flames.

Right now there is a virtual lock on the roster to get his number retired in Jamie Benn, while a couple other players could potentially move into that realm.

By the end of his career in Dallas, even it only lasts through his current eight-year contract, Benn will be amongst the franchise leaders in almost every statistical category. He’ll also likely be the longest-serving captain in franchise history.

There are a couple others that could move into that conversation (Tyler Seguin and John Klingberg) if the Stars win a Stanley Cup in the not-too-distant future and they stay in Dallas long-term.

But overall I feel like it’s a pretty safe bet that the next two numbers retired will be No. 56 and No. 14.

I’d say it’s a lock that Benn will be the captain until his career comes to an end in Dallas.

The Stars do have a history of unseating their captain for another, Brenden Morrow for Mike Modano. So never say never, but I have hard time believing Benn will ever be on the Stars and not be captain of the team.

Julius Honka is struggling this season and you can point fingers in two directions.

On one hand it’s on the player to take on an adverse situation and make the most of it. On the other side of the coin the team knows what they have in Honka, he’s in his fourth pro season with the organization, and they should be better handling an asset they should be well-versed in by now.

Turkey: Jamie Benn, The centerpiece of everything. Without the turkey you don’t have Thanksgiving, since 2009 you can’t imagine the Dallas Stars without Jamie Benn.

Stuffing: Tyler Seguin, turkey is good, but stuffing is that additional flair that makes a better meal and adds some excitement to the meal.

Mashed potatoes: John Klingberg, mashed potatoes are a seemingly simple dish, but they are often misunderstood and take their lumps while being made into perfection.

Cranberry sauce: Marc Methot, if it’s missing from the table you don’t realize it’s gone. But when it’s back at the table you realize how important it really is.

Pumpkin pie: Ben Bishop, pies — like goaltending — is a fickle position. A good pie can really be the final piece to a complete meal.

Not enough to ban her, but certainly put her on probation.

It’s hurt his confidence this season, hopefully it doesn’t have a long-term impact.

The good news heading into Friday was that Honka believes he’s playing well and he’s just been unlucky with points.

My hope is that Honka is back in the lineup on Tuesday against the Vegas Golden Knights. He had a bit of a rough outing against the Calgary Flames on Friday, and I fear there might be an overreaction (if Stephen Johns is healthy) to bench Honka for Jamie Oleksiak.

The coaching staff needs to remember that Honka was playing his first NHL game in more than two months, so there should be a slight grace period to get his feet under him — especially when he was limited and buried even further by an injury to his defensive partner against Calgary.

While there might be different variations on the ideology, overall there is agreement between the coaches and management about Julius Honka.

If management wanted to force the issue they could have made other moves in the offseason or parted ways with other defenders earlier. Essentially they left it up to the coaching staff, meaning they are backing those decisions.

Ken Hitchcock has always been a line juggler, so it’s not a desperate move.

Hitchcock line juggles in a slightly different way than Lindy Ruff did. Ruff was more reactionary in his lineup alterations, if the Stars won — even if it was a poor performance — he wouldn’t make a change. If they lost a change was likely coming.

Hitchcock’s line juggling is more reactionary to the actual play of the team compared to the win-loss results. He’s always been that way, and it just seems like he’s doing it more than another coach because of his tendency to make grand statements that are easily contradicted by future actions.

Hitchcock has addressed this multiple times, he had to split up Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin to get more offense into the rest of the lineup. Seguin hasn’t done anything wrong to play on the so-called second line, it’s simply a solution to a bigger problem with the lack of depth scoring.

And Seguin has still been playing No. 1 center minutes with close to 20 minutes per game. He’s also a key cog now on both the power play and penalty kill. So the biggest issue isn’t the official line or the minutes, it’s the quality of teammates Seguin has had throughout this process.

I don’t think Martin Hanzal can play fast enough to be on the top-line, if anything I’d like to see Radek Faksa play between Jamie Benn and Alexaner Radulov before Hanzal.

I think everyone can see it, even on television, the Stars don’t look like a determined hockey team on the road.

Whether it’s a slow start, an unwillingness to answer adversity, or simply disappearing in the third period, the Stars don’t check off any of the boxes that make up a winning team.

It’s a frustrating thing because you don’t know what caused it initially, but as time goes on it snowballs. As long as the Stars continue to struggle on the road there is a “here we go again” feel when the other team scores early or a bad goal goes in, essentially past losses are coming back to haunt them.

The Stars are playing Hitch hockey right now, he likes how they’re playing.

They look at the home results of evidence of that and believe the team is just a mental adjustment or two away from getting similar results on the road.

The Stars have a roster right now that can make the playoffs, so Jim Nill doesn’t have to make a move this season.

For a long time I agreed with you on Vegas, but I think their early start plus the home-ice advantage — which really has nothing to do with the ice — at T-Mobile Arena could keep them near the top of the Pacific Division.

I’d argue that Tyler Seguin can still stickhandle through traffic, Jamie Benn also is more than efficient at protecting the puck when trying to maneuver past a defender.

Missing another elite stickhandler at forward isn’t the issue. Missing one on the back end, who can help with controlled breakouts when he’s not watching from the press box is.

It’s hard to narrow it down to one particular moment or story, but I think the fact the site grew from an AHL blog to a legitimate NHL news source is one of the things I’m most proud of.

This is going to continue over at The Upset, but I always look forward to the annual trip to Traverse City and the growth of this site helped make that annual trip possible.

In my view there are two things Dickinson needs to do to succeed at the NHL level:

1. He needs to skate better, for whatever reason he seems upright in his skating when playing in the NHL and he’s not getting the most out of his stride. It’s a minor adjustment, but one that costs speed and valuable seconds in the NHL. It’s something he can get away with in the AHL, which is sometimes why it’s hard to apply that change in the minors.

2. He needs to be higher in the lineup. Dickinson has top-end skill and a fairly decent shot, if given the opportunity he could capitalize on chances playing with wither better-skilled teammates and less of an energy line.

There is a very real chance the Stars could finish last in the Central Division.

There is also a good chance they finish as the first wild card. After the first three teams in the Central Division it’s a wide-open race.

Overall? Nill.

Not a good answer, but it comes down to overall inconsistency.

Four teams.

Yes.

Jason Spezza.

They don’t hate you. Take solace in that this Holiday Season.

Little bit of both, but more dark meat.

You know it.

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Comments

  1. No Modano at Jere’s ceremony. Incredible no show that was noticed by everyone.
    Don’t even consider Modano a Star now……nor do so many other fans.

    PATHETIC ACT by a selfish individual ! Beyond comprehension.

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