At 27.5%, the Dallas Stars’ power play is good enough to disguise a few offensive problems. It is not good enough to answer all of them. Tuesday’s practice in Frisco put the real assignment in plain view: Dallas has to create more at 5-on-5, where a strong special-teams percentage cannot rescue every quiet shift or uneventful stretch.
The Stars have scored 48 goals through 17 games, a respectable total that says little by itself about how they are producing. The team’s overall scoring rate includes power-play opportunities, while the club’s current concern sits in the less glamorous minutes when both teams have five skaters.
Coach Glen Gulutzan used Tuesday to emphasize freeing the players offensively, after earlier changes to the forecheck, breakout and neutral-zone play had helped the defense without yet lifting the attack to the same standard.
That is a sensible correction, not a rejection of the power play. Dallas has too much talent there to treat it as an inconvenience. Jason Robertson has three power-play goals, Mikko Rantanen and Roope Hintz have two each, and Tyler Seguin, Thomas Harley, Wyatt Johnston and Justin Hryckowian have one apiece.
Those contributions are part of why the Stars sit at 10-5-2 with 22 points. They are also why the power play can become a comforting explanation for production that must eventually come from more places.
The scoring distribution makes the point without accusing the team of being a one-trick operation. Robertson and Rantanen have nine goals apiece, accounting for 18 of Dallas’ 48. That is first-line production, not a problem.
But the club needs its structure to create more chances for the rest of the lineup when the referee’s arm stays down. Seguin has three goals in 17 games, while Johnston has three in 15. Johnston has added 13 assists, and Seguin has 36 shots, so neither player is absent from the attack.
Their numbers instead describe a team that needs its even-strength work to turn possession and involvement into more goals.
The shot totals reinforce the scale of the assignment. Dallas is taking 26.1 shots per game, a number that is neither barren nor overwhelming. It is enough volume to suggest the offense is reaching the net, but not enough to let the team assume that more of the same will solve 5-on-5 scoring.
The figures do not identify shot quality, and they cannot prove that every missed opportunity came from a tactical flaw. They do show why a power play cannot be the only place where the Stars expect clean offense to appear.
