Dallas Stars Season Comes To An End

So it's been 3 days now since the Dallas Stars' season came to an end at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks. It's been something that's been hard to stomach, but after a few days of processing exactly how they lost and allow my brain to process the fact that their season is over I'm finally able to write my thoughts on the season as a whole.

I'm very proud of the Stars. This season started with a lot of optimism but still a lot of uncertainty. First off, the team got a new General Manager in Jim Nill from the Detroit Red Wings. Nill was the Assistant GM with Detroit for 15 years. His first job as the new GM was to hire a coach and he brought in former Buffalo Sabres coach Lindy Ruff. Ruff was known for being able to communicate with young players and that's exactly what the Stars needed considering the average age on the team is 28 years old and 12 of the 25 players are 26 years old or younger. This team had the talent, but needed a coach to guide that talent and to help them to mature as players. Coach Ruff was perfect for the job. He got the best of the best out of this team this year, helping to snap a 5 year playoff drought. This team all season never gave up. Several times this year we saw the Stars come back from multi-goal deficits to win or at least force overtime to get a point. Case in point...Game 4 against the Ducks. They trailed 2-0 after the 1st period, but fought their way back to win 4-2. The grit and "never say die" attitude by this squad this year was amazing and fun to watch.

Sunday night's game was such a heartbreaker. It looked like the Stars were going to force Game 7 as they had a 4-2 lead with 2:10 left in the game. But a goal by Nick Bonine cut the lead to 4-3. Then with :23 left in regulation Devante Smith-Pelly put the puck in the back of the net after a massive flurry thanks to a 6 on 5 advantage with the goalie pulled for his 2nd goal of the game. The crowd that had been so loud throughout the entire game was all of a sudden eerily quiet. Dallas still had a chance in overtime to win, but at 2:57 into overtime by Nick Bonine not only broke the hearts of all Dallas Stars fans and players alike, but it also ended the season for the Stars and sent the team into the offseason much sooner than they were hoping.

As hard as Sunday night's game was to swallow, we have some awesome positives we can take from this playoff series and from this season. In a post game interview, Stars play-by-play broadcaster Ralph Strangis said "As much as this hurts, it feels good to hurt again." And he's exactly right. The reason this hurts is because we saw just what this team is capable of. And over the next couple of years, this team is capable of being very VERY good. I predicted earlier this year that you'd see this team in the playoffs at the end of the season and I was right. Now I'm predicting that you'll see this team in the Stanley Cup Finals sometime over the next 3-4 years. For the first time in a long time the Stars are going into the offseason with a core group of guys that they are building around. Guys like Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, Kari Lehtonen, Ryan Garbutt, Valeri Nichuskin, and Alex Chiasson. These are guys that will be around for a long time and that the team can build around. That's an awesome feeling.

You can also take pride in knowing that the Stars were the better team in their series against the Anaheim Ducks. There were 18 periods played in this series and the Stars dominated every aspect of 13 of those periods. They made some mistakes that young guys are going to make are what costs this team the series. However, they will mature and will get better. The next time the Stars are in the playoffs, I don't expect this team to make those same mistakes again.

We, as Dallas Stars fans, should be very proud of our guys. They came a long way from the beginning of the season. They made hockey relevant again in Dallas. They got people talking about Dallas Stars hockey again. It was a fun ride this season and I'm very excited to what the future holds for this club. So send out tweets to the players on the team. Let them know that we are proud of them and that we are here to support them for a very long time. Good job this season and for the last time until October...LET'S GO STARS!!!