Well this should go over well in The Big D.
Brett Hull -- the Hockey Hall of Famer that scored the goal to win Dallas’ first and only Stanley Cup -- told NHL.com that his former club lacks star power and is a “very generic” team.
“Jamie Benn has a chance to be a really good player, but he’s still a baby and he hasn’t figured it all out yet,” Hull said. “Kari Lehtonen is a very good goalie, but other than that it’s just a very generic, workmanlike, blue-collar team.”
It’s an honest (albeit rather blunt) assessment of a team Hull has many ties to. Though he no longer has an official title -- formerly, he was Dallas’ Executive Vice President -- the 700-goal scorer is still around the team quite often.
Thing is, Hull’s take is pretty accurate. The Stars are fiscally responsible (their most expensive player, Mike Ribeiro, makes $5 million annually) but generally speaking, fiscal responsibility and superstar players don’t mix. Dallas also recently lost an elite player in Brad Richards, who led the team in scoring for two straight seasons, only to sign a $60 million deal with the New York Rangers in free agency. The Stars have also seen a slow trickle of face-of-the-franchise types leave the organization: Mike Modano, Marty Turco, Sergei Zubov and Jere Lehtinen, to name a few.
Things like that generally don’t go over well in Texas, known for its big-name players and big-spending ways.
“You feel bad for the team because you’ve got a two-time World Series team [Texas Rangers], you’ve got the World Champion Dallas Mavericks, and the perennial it doesn’t matter if they go 0-16 Cowboys selling out a 100,000 seat building,” Hull said. “There is only so much sport dollar to go around, but the only way to get ‘em back is to win.
“But, to win you have to have a superstar-type player. There just isn’t that right now.”