Dallas Stars

What the Quant Says

277 goals, and 4th in the league in creating chances at even strength at 2.78 expected goals per 60. The attack is genuinely good and it is the half of this club that survives inspection.

Mikko Rantanen arrived in March and put up 88 points across three clubs; Jason Robertson scored 35 for the fourth straight season; Matt Duchene had 82 points at 34 on 152 shots, which is a 19.7 per cent conversion rate and the single least repeatable number in this edition. Wyatt Johnston scored 33 at 22 from a median of 19 feet, and Roope Hintz 28 in 76 games.

The club finished 6.9 goals above expectation at five-on-five, 12th — not extreme, but the five-on-five goals came in 176-145 against an expected 169-165. That 20-goal gap between what the defence allowed and what it conceded is not the attack's doing.

What the Scout Says

Rantanen and Robertson are the two who can be given a puck and left alone. Robertson has the best release in the organisation and changes the angle on it late, which is what beats a goaltender who has already read the play, and the playmaking is genuinely undersold — he holds pucks on the half-wall and makes the seam pass a shooter is not expected to make. What he does not do is win a puck by force, and the skating is a stride behind the fastest wingers in the league.

Wyatt Johnston finds the soft ice inside the dots without the puck and arrives as it does, and gets the shot away before the goaltender has finished moving. Roope Hintz is the one who creates room for other people: a defenceman backing off at his speed is how his wingers get their space. Matt Duchene has become a distributor rather than a scorer, which at 34 is the correct migration, and he changes pace rather than out-racing anybody now.

Below that it thins quickly. Jamie Benn plays a slow, heavy possession game below the goal line where his lack of pace does not cost him, and the release that used to beat goaltenders from distance does not any more. Mavrik Bourque has real hands and real vision and holds the puck a half-second longer than the league allows. Oskar Bäck only shoots from the paint and is genuinely hard to move below the goal line.

What the Quant Says

224 goals against, and 27th in the league in even-strength expected goals against at 2.72 per 60. The two numbers do not belong to the same team, and the difference between them is the goaltender.

Miro Heiskanen played 50 games. He posted 54.9 per cent at five-on-five, the 90th percentile and the best figure on the blue line, and the club's chance-suppression rate never recovered from losing him in January. Thomas Harley took 23:23 a night in his place at 24 and did it well — 53 per cent, plus-32 — without being the defensive player Heiskanen is. Esa Lindell took the hardest minutes and came out at 49.5 per cent, which is the honest price of that job.

Underneath, the arrangement stops making sense. Ilya Lyubushkin played 1,121 minutes on a top pair with 1 goal and a 50.6 per cent share, and his pairing's results ran roughly 10 goals ahead of the chances. Nils Lundkvist had 39 games and no goals. Lian Bichsel is 21 and 6-7 and two years away.

What the Scout Says

Heiskanen is the whole structure. He ends plays by arriving early, the first pass is close to error-free, and he has never had a shooter's instinct — 108 shots in 50 games and 5 goals is a defenceman who runs a breakout rather than a power play. He is 6-2 and 197 and does not play a physical game at all, so when he does not arrive early he is beaten.

Thomas Harley carries the puck out rather than passing it out, which is the specific skill that makes a defence corps look fast, and the long easy stride lets him leave a forecheck without hurrying. He does not use his 214 pounds and can be moved off the front of his own net. Esa Lindell kills plays before they start more often than he defends them after, boxes out properly in front, and takes 14 penalty minutes a season doing the hardest job on the roster.

Then the weight. Ilya Lyubushkin hits, clears the crease and is willing to run at anybody, and there is essentially no puck game — 81 per cent of his attempts come from beyond 40 feet and he scored once. Nils Lundkvist skates well and has never brought the offence he was drafted for, and his 20 penalty minutes in 39 games are the tell of a man reaching after being beaten. Lian Bichsel at 6-7 removes men from the front of the net and cannot yet recover when NHL speed goes wide of him.

What the Quant Says

Jake Oettinger went 36-18-4 with a .9088 across 58 games, and Casey DeSmith stopped .9146 in 27. Neither number looks like much. Both are.

Together they came in 19.7 goals better than the chances they faced, 3rd in the league. In front of the 27th-best chance suppression in hockey, a .9088 is a considerably harder achievement than a .920 behind a club that concedes nothing — and it is the entire reason a team outchanced all season finished with 106 points.

DeSmith at 34 gave the club the best backup season on any contender, on a cheap deal. There is no third option worth naming.

What the Scout Says

The best thing about this club and the reason its record is what it is.

Jake Oettinger plays 6-6 properly: deep enough in the crease to take away the top of the net without surrendering the angles, square to the puck more consistently than almost anyone at that height, with rebound control that genuinely matters on a team conceding this many second chances. He is quick enough laterally for the frame without being an athlete first, and nothing in the technique looks strained. What separates him is temperament — he has started for a contender since he was 23, played three conference finals, and never had the visible collapse most young goaltenders have somewhere. He absorbs a bad goal without it becoming a bad period, which on a club that was outchanced all season is the mechanism rather than a compliment.

Casey DeSmith is 6 feet, which is small now, and the game is built to compensate: compact, technical, square, reading the play early rather than covering the net by standing in it. The puck-handling is a real asset and is used — he cuts off forechecks behind the net and makes the outlet, which is worth minutes on a club that concedes as many entries as this one. A scramble is more dangerous against him than against Oettinger. Undrafted, ten years of being told he was too small, and no sign that a long layoff between starts bothers him.

What the Quant Says

4th in the league at 8.10 expected goals per 60, over 5:08 a night. The best special-teams unit on the roster and one of the best in hockey.

Johnston led it with 11 power-play goals, Rantanen 11 across his three clubs, Robertson 9, Duchene 8, Hintz 7. The personnel is the reason: three genuine shooting threats, a distributor in Duchene who has become more dangerous as a passer than a scorer, and Heiskanen or Harley at the line. It is the one phase where this club is straightforwardly better than its opposition rather than luckier.

What the Scout Says

Four men who have to be respected and a fifth who makes them work together, which is why this unit is 4th in the league while the club is 18th in shot-attempt share.

Mikko Rantanen on the wall is the whole problem for a killing unit: he will hold it as long as he likes, he cannot be knocked off it, and the shot and the pass are equally likely. Jason Robertson's release from the far circle punishes any box that slides to Rantanen. Wyatt Johnston lives in the soft ice at the top of the crease and scored 11 there. Matt Duchene runs it from the middle and is now a better passer than a shooter, which is precisely the man that arrangement needs.

Heiskanen or Harley at the line supply mobility rather than a bomb; neither has the release to punish a killer who ignores him, and against an aggressive kill that presses the point this unit has to make its entries cleanly. It usually does.

What the Quant Says

17th at 7.11 expected goals against per 60, over 4:52 a game — the 7th-heaviest workload in the league. Middling at the job and asked to do a great deal of it, which is the worst combination available.

Lindell and Lyubushkin take the bulk of it, with Hintz, Radek Faksa and Colin Blackwell up front and Blackwell's 2 shorthanded goals the only ornament. Jamie Benn's 70 penalty minutes are part of why the unit is so busy. This is the phase where the defensive problems that the goaltending hides at five-on-five show up in plain sight.

What the Scout Says

The place where the defensive problems come out from behind the goaltender.

Esa Lindell is the one genuinely good killer here — he takes away the middle, boxes out in front, and does not chase. Ilya Lyubushkin clears bodies. Up front Radek Faksa is one of the more reliable men in the league at a defensive-zone draw, which is a narrow and durable skill and the reason he is on the roster; Roope Hintz has the pace to make a careless breakout expensive; Colin Blackwell is 5-8 and blocks shots from men 40 pounds heavier, and scored twice shorthanded doing it.

What the unit lacks is anybody who can end a possession by force in front of the net besides Lyubushkin, and it is asked to do the job more often than almost any club in the league — the 7th-heaviest shorthanded workload, with Jamie Benn's 70 penalty minutes a meaningful part of the reason. 17th is what that combination produces.