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Stars go deeper than rock bottom in Ruff’s ‘worst game’ with team

Dallas Stars v Florida Panthers

SUNRISE, FL - MARCH 4: Head coach Lindy Ruff of the Dallas Stars directs the players during a time out against the Florida Panthers in the third period at the BB&T Center on March 4, 2017 in Sunrise, Florida. The Stars defeated the Panthers 2-1. (Photo by Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)

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At this point the 2016-17 season can not end fast enough for the Dallas Stars as they keep finding new lows in what has been an already disappointing season.

Things continued to get worse on Tuesday night when they were thumped by the Edmonton Oilers, 7-1, to run their current losing streak to three games, all of which have seen the team surrender more than five goals.

Reactions after the game were, to say the least, not pleasant, with the harshest criticism coming from coach Lindy Ruff when he said, via Mark Stepneski of NHL.com, that it was probably the worst game he has ever coached with the Stars, and that the the team “needs a lot more from the leaders of the team.”

Said Tyler Seguin, again via NHL.com, “I thought we hit rock bottom last game, but we got deeper tonight. We are going to have to find some pride here. We left our goalies hanging out to dry. It’s frustrating.”

It’s been a season long problem, and it only seems to be getting worse in recent weeks.

Some numbers to ponder about just how bad this team has been defensively:


  • Tuesday’s game was the third consecutive game the Stars have given up at least five goals in a game
  • It is the eighth time they have given up five goals since Feb. 1.
  • Their 3.29 goals against per game on the season is the worst in the league and the fourth worst mark in the NHL over the past five seasons.
  • Their penalty kill, which gave up another goal on Tuesday, has been successful on just 73.9 percent of its attempts this season. That would be the third-worst mark the NHL has seen since the 1990-91 season. Only the 1993-94 Ottawa Senators and 1990-91 Quebec Nordiques (two truly awful teams in NHL history, both playing in a higher scoring era) were worse.

The Stars’ downfall is one of the more surprising developments of the NHL season, especially after making it to the second round of the playoffs just one year ago. Part of it has been out of their control (like the rash of injuries that at times devastated their forward depth this season), but part of it has been self inflicted from a management perspective.

Their inability to address the goaltending issue over the summer and trying to once again roll with the Antti Niemi and Kari Lehtonen duo, combined with a defense that lost solid veterans Alex Goligoski and Jason Demers over the summer, has been a devastating blow to their season and it is showing up in the performance.

This isn’t just a bad defensive team, it has been the worst goal prevention team in the NHL and one of the worst in recent memory.

Now they head into another offseason where their coach is without a contract, they still have both goalies signed for another year at a combined salary cap hit of nearly $10 million per season, and have several unrestricted free agents (Patrick Sharp, Ales Hemsky, Jiri Hudler) and restricted free agents (Brett Ritchie, Radek Faska, Mattias Janmark, Jamie Oleksiak, Patrik Nemeth, and Esa Lindell) to deal with.

For a team that entered the season as one of the most entertaining teams in the league and a potential Stanley Cup contender it is a pretty drastic turnaround, and at this point it seems like it is going to take quite a bit of work to fix it.