Former owner Tom Hicks was good for the franchise until he ran into financial problems and ran both the Rangers and Stars into the ground. The '08 WCF against Detroit was the recent high water mark for Dallas. While they've struggled to get into the playoffs in recent years, it's not like they've been terrible. They've been more on the can't get over the hump range for a number of reasons.
I know few follow hockey, and particularly the Stars, closer than I do. But since the ownership change to Vancouver native Tom Gagliardi (who doesn't mind cutting a few corners to get ahead), changes have been made in the right direction. First big piece was the hiring of GM Jim Nill who was part of the Red Wings brain trust for 20+ years and was a massive coup in hiring. With Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin, they have arguably one of the top duos in the league. They've been in the process of developing a very young defense corps that had growing pains last year during the first half but was much better the second half. Over the last few years, one of their biggest problems has been that they've gotten nothing out of their backup goalie ... which is a problem when out of the 35-40 possible points that they can get you during the course of the year over 20 starts they end up getting you less than 10. Kind of a problem when you routinely are missing the playoffs by 2-8 points each year.
Take as many screenshots as you want, I expect that they will be a significant factor in the West over the next 3-5 years.
NOC, but I'm sure you'll be wrong and type out a tl,dr post on why the Stars didn't become a significant factor.
Comments
espn.go.com/chicago/nhl/story/_/id/13387040/patrick-kane-chicago-blackhawks-subject-police-investigation-new-york