Kids - Too Much of a Good Thing is Bad, MMMK?
Like it or not, the team that currently takes the ice for Stars
games is no longer the same team that went all the way to the
conference finals last year. Too many things have changed.
The main thing that has changed is the delicate team chemistry.
While some may say that Dallas came out ahead during all of the
player transactions during the last two seasons, it seems more like
too many of the players that are here now never paid the dues
during the lean years of the Dallas Stars franchise.
To put that in simple English: Dallas has too many hired guns. There
was just a little too much tinkering with the lineup. The list is
impressive: Brett Hull, Ed Belfour, Mike Keane, Brian Skrudland,
Brent Severyn, and others. You might think that having those guys
play on your team is a good thing, but that is only true when there
is some sort of chemistry there.
Now instead of getting a balanced, 60-minute effort from most
players on any given game, the Stars are all over the map when it
comes to amount of effort put into games, and amount of consistency
during those games.
That all could be dismissed away as growing pains. As a team gets
better, and adds some "better" players, there are going to be
natural periods of adjustment. But, on a more indefinable level the
whole 'feel' of the team is much different this time around.
Before, the Stars seemed to be a hard working group of guys who
played well together and were pleasantly surprised when they
evolved from a bottom-feeder into a true championship-caliber team.
They were humble, and knew it took sweat and pain to win.
Now, the Stars seem to be a championship-caliber team that is
underachieving and has entirely too much confidence in its ability
to 'turn it on' when it counts to win any game. They can now be
found in the locker room saying 'we should have worked a little
harder tonight, I think we should have prepared better' or words to
that effect.
To put it simply, although the Stars are a great team, they
currently have some serious chemistry problems. Coach Ken Hitchcock
has been quoted as saying that he is genuinely concerned over the
lack of fire and consistency he has been seeing from his players.
But, you have to take the entire report so far with a grain of salt.
If you ask Hitch about some of these problems, he'll tell you that
most of this was to plan - that he was trying to evaluate the new
players first, give them a chance at the lineup, while re-evaluating
all the returning players to make sure they still fit in their spot
in the lineup.
And to that end, Hitchcock has been literally changing every single
line combination. Some of it was due to finding the right spot for
Brett Hull. Some of it was due to looking at those young players.
But now that the team has a few injuries (Brett Hull and Jere
Lehtinen) and is having problems maintaining a consistent effort,
Hitchcock has opted instead to find winning combinations and
sticking with them.
Now, the only problem with all that is the team is so upended
because of all the continuous changes. And to be honest, they have
a hell of a great record (second in the West) to show for it
despite the challenges.
Hull Takes a Back Seat
Brett Hull was quoted recently concerning ice time. He says he was
misquoted and begs everyone to give him a chance to drop the whiny,
big-mouth stigma that has been attached to him since leaving the
Blues. He said he was misquoted, and has no problems with his ice
time. And coach Hitchcock was recently quoted as saying he has no
problems at all with Hull, and was actually pleased with him so
far.
Since then, Hull has laid low and missed the spectacle of returning
to St. Louis as a Star with a bruised kidney. It may have been the
best thing to happen to this team since they acquired Hull. Now
there will be a chance for the dust to settle, for Hitchcock to
rethink his strategies, and for the players to question why they
are here at this point to begin with.
There is a chance that Hull may become a disruptive cancer to the
Stars and ruin their season. There is also the chance that he may
be enough of a disruptive influence to force the team into
rethinking their mission, and come back out rejuvenated and ready
to dominate the league as they should. It could go either way.
Right now there is still too much up in the air.
It would be a shame if this team tanked all the hard work of the
previous two seasons - to go back from a contender to a pretender
again. Something tells me these storm clouds will soon pass - but
you have to be very careful - because there are deadly storms
waiting in those clouds that could cause the death and destruction
of a great championship season. It's now up to the Stars to decide
if they want to maneuver around these storm clouds by getting back
to being the team they should have been all along.
