By The Numbers

First off, I want to say that I have not written for just under 2 months. I am still around just busy with school.

Anyway with the Holidays here let’s look at some stats for the 07/08 season, which is turning out to be another great impressive regular season for the Stars.

• Record of 21-12-4 – Good for 3rd in NHL 2nd in Western Confrence
• Record of 16-6-4 in our last 24 games
• 5 PTS - How many points we are ahead of the San Jose Sharks.
• 3 - Number of games we have remaining against them
• 94 -How many points Mike Riberio’s is on pace for
• +10 – Mike Riberio’s+/-
• -9 – Mike Modano’s +/-
• 8 - PIM for Marty Turco
• 32% – Percentage of Games Mike Smith has played in
• .905 – Mike Smith’s Save %
• .918 - Dan Ellis’ Save %
• 17,642 – Avg. attendance at AAC
• 13,450 – Avg. Attendance for Chicago Blackhawks
• 109 – GF for the Stars T-4th Best in NHL
• 83 – GF for the New York Rangers
• $14 300 000 - Amount the Rangers payed for Chris Drury and Scott Gomez during the off-season

But hey who’s counting ?

07/08 Season Preview

“This is the year”! That is the quote from every NHL fan on their favorite hockey team. Hopefully for Stars fans, it is not just wishful thinking.

 The Dallas Stars are entering their 15th NHL season, with Star fans wanting victory more then ever before. Coming off a disapointing playoff run expect the players to also want victory. With a solid goaltender in Marty Turco there is no reason to doubt why this team can not only win 50 games once again, but actually fight for the Pacific divison championship. The defense is strong, afterall they did have the second lowest GA in 2006/07 and are led by veteran Zergei Zubov. However, the offense might be another story. I am hoping we will see a Star pencil in 30 goals this year, but it would even be better to see the Mike Modano of old, who we could count for 80 points in a year. Riberio and Morrow will hopefully be there for 20 goals, and atleast 65 points.

 Season Predictions 

• Stars finish with  record of 47-29-6
• Finish 3rd in Pacific
• Finish 7th in Western Confrence
• Anaheim Ducks win Pacific Title
• Senators, Rangers, Lightning, Red Wings and Avs all win thier divisons
• Crosby wins Art Ross with 139 points
• Sharks beat the New York Rangers in 6 games for the Stanley Cup

How they Will Finish

WEST

1. Detroit Red Wings
2. Colorado Avalanche
3. Anaheim Ducks
4. San Jose Sharks
5. Vancouver Canucks
6. Calgary Flames
7. Dallas Stars
8. St. Louis Blues

EAST

1. Ottawa Senators
2. New York Rangers
3. Tampa Bay Lightning
4. Pittsburgh Penguins
5. Carolina Hurricanes
6. New Jersey Devils
7. Buffalo Sabres
8. Boston Bruins

GO STARS GO!!!!

“Black is the New Green”

A grand total of 7 teams changed their teams new logo for the 2007/08 NHL season, and all 30 teams changed their teams jersey design in some way.

The Dallas Stars are one of those 30 teams and after a number of leaks they were official unveiled on September 14th 2007.

For those who have yet to see them here they are -

 

I willl give you some time to clean up after you just vomited all over your computer screen at the uglyness of the jerseys.

Where do I start to critize?

How about the fact that my favorite team in all pro sports is now wearing basketball jerseys. What about the lack of green in both jerseys! In the home the only green you see is on the Stars logo, what is for some reason is now on the shoulder. On the front of the jersey you now see the word DALLAS across the HOME jersey. Fans at the AAC aren’t dumb they know where they are! And then the number on the front of the jersey, it is one thing to have it above the right breast (which is ugly) but to have the players number in the middle of the jersey is retarted! We have numbers on the back of a players jersey, numbers on both shoulders and on the back of thier helment, and now on the front of a jersey. The players number is on 5 diffrent parts of the player, we get the point!

Now for the away jersey. This one is actually starting to very slowly grow on me.  On this one we see the players number oncve again on the front of the jersey…AHHHHHH…and then we see something very shocking the Stars logo! The traditional alternate logo is on both shoulders. Another new thing to the both jerseys is the striping found at the mid sleeves and at the bottom of the jerseys. This doesn’t look to bad, and seems quite modern, but it isn’t the ol’ Star pattern all fans enjoyed from 99-07.

Lets look at the bright side, we will see our boys playing in these jerseys in just two more sleeps. And as long as were winning in these jerseys then who am I to complain?

More Pics of the jerseys -

 

Stars New Jerseys Leaked … again

Pictures of the Stars new jerseys have been all over the internet. Forums, blogs,  even TV commercials for a video game have shown the Stars new basketba…errr, hockey jerseys!

For those of you who have missed all of this here are the Stars new Jerseys ( which by the way will be Officially unvieled tommorow ).

I give my thoughts on the jerseys tommorow, after I have a tear over how bad those Home jerseys are.

Also, for those who didn’t know, the AHL is also switching to RBK Slim Fits. THis means that the Iowa Stars are changing there jerseys to.

I will comment on these ones.

They are great!! Why can’t the Dallas Stars use this design? These jerseys have a LOGO on there jersey, must be nice.

In conclusion I will leave you all with a quote from a Stars fan from the DallasStars.com forum, he wrote “Iowa managed to take a similar design to dallas and make it less boring “.

What he said.

More Pics of the Stars Jerseys

For those hoping for a legit jersey leak, you got it.

 While going on my favorite website – www.nhllogos.blogspot.com – I finally found what I was looking for, the Stars new jerseys.

Apparently these pics were taken on a cell phone at the Dr. Pepper Stars Centre. Scroll down and take a peak.

    

This is for sure the most legit picture we have to date. Those pics that were going around the net the past week of the possible new Star jerseys (they turned out to be for the Dallas Stars Selects) seem very similar to the ones the players are wearing in the above pics.

My thoughts on these jerseys is 1 word … UGLY!’

Your thoughts?

Don’t Count Our Boys Out!

One of my traditions is finding out every September about what the so called “experts” think about the up coming hockey year and what they rate the Stars.

 This years batch of yearbooks have made people having to hold me back from sharp objects and shoe strings. For example The Hockey News is saying the Stars will finish 11th in the Western Confrence, that same yearbook graded the Stars a C-. Then theScore Forecaster put the Stars at 9th in the Western Confrence.

These rankings are a joke! Year after year the Stars have proved themselves to be quite worthy of a playoff spot, after all in the past 2 years they have had a grand total of 103 wins and 219 points.

Then what is the deal with  the talk about them not making the playoffs? The same core of players are still there, they had only one major loss,  Sydor. Plus how can you write off any team that has such a strong goaltending? Marty Turco and Mike Smith are the best 1-2 punch in the league. How about the shootout? We will easily get an extra 7-10 points this year from the winning shootouts. Those points will for sure make us a shoe in for the playoffs.

I almost forgot to tell you about my other favorite tradition.Picking up these yearbooks in April and looking at what kind of idiots these experts look like after picking the Stars to finish so low.

-Just a Reminder that my ‘expert’ picks for the 07/08 season will be shown on this blog in about 1 week-

Top 10 Stars Players of All-Time

After not writing for a month, I am back an am about to write my most controversial post to date.

With the Stars 15th season about to begin in about 1 1/2 months, I thought it fitting to countdown the Top 10 players of the Dallas Stars history. Only rule is that a player chosen has to atleast played one season with the Dallas Stars (this means a 100% North Stars player can not be chosen)

Let the countdown begin!

10. Brendan Morrow – The curent captain is just the 5th captain in Stars history. He was chosen 25th overall in the ‘97 entry draft and has 269 pts in 6 season. Morrow has been a consistent producer for Dallas. Morrow has been consistent with his +/- rating, never earning an overall minus rating at the end of any regular season he has played in the NHL.

9. Joe Nieuwendyk – Joe is the first of 7 members who were on the ‘99 Stanley Cup Team. He came to the team in 1995 for Prospect Jarome Iginla. He did not dissapoint, getting 339 points with the Stars. One of his best years was in 1999 where he was instrumental in helping the Stars win the Stanley Cup. He had 6-game winning goals which helped his total of 21 points in ‘99 playoffs, a total that was good enough for his first and only Conn Smyth Award.

8. Marty Turco – Marty was picked up 124th overall in the 1994 entry draft, but that certainly did not stop him from putting up record numbers. Since he started in the NHL, he has been turning heads. He has the Stars All-Time Wins record as well as the most wins in a season for the franchise. His carrer record for the team is 175-82-36, he also has a 2.11 GAA and an impressive .914 Save Percentage.

7. Eddie Belfour – Belfour backstopped the Stars during there glory years and helped them win 4 divison titles, 2 President Trophys, 2 Confrence Championships and a Stanley Cup all in just 5 years. Belfours also made 53 saves for a .981 Save Percentage in Game 6 of the ‘99 Finals.

6. Brett Hull – Of all the players on this list Hull was in Dallas the shortest period of time. Hull was picked up as Free Agent before the start of the 98/99 season. Hull helped Dallas reach the finals twice and will always be known for scoring the most disputed Cup-winning goal in NHL history. Hull is now working for the Stars office.

5. Sergei Zubov – Sergei has spent most of his carrer in Dallas and his best years with the team. The 4-time all star, has been in Dallas since 1996 while putting up 510 points in that time as a defenseman. Zubov, despite being 36 years old, had 71 points during the 2005/06 season to make him a Norris Trophy finalist.

4. Jere Lehtinen – Lehtinen has never played for any other NHL team other then the Dallas Stars, and Stars fans have benn lucky to have him on there team. His has won the Selke Trophy 3 times (1998, 1999, 2003). Lehtinen has been one of the faces of finnish hockey for a long time and reasonably so as he is the only  Finnish player to have won both a World Championships gold medal and a Stanley Cup.

3. Neal Broten – The only member of this list to have his number retired by the team. HIs  best years were in Minnesota, none the less for he was still a captain of the team in 1994/95. Neal was fan favorite, former team mate of his Dave Gagner said ” Neal was the guy the fans loved, I’d score two goals and the fans would barely cheer. Neal would get one and the place would go bananas.”

2. Derian Hatcher – He was picked up 8th overall in the 1990 entry draft and cameover to Dallas from Minnesota in 1993. He was the captain from 1994-2003, and in that span had 71 goals and 223 assists while collecting an impressive 1380 PIM. He led the Stars to the 1999 Stanley Cup where he became the the first American born Captain to win the Stanley Cup.

1. Mike Modano – Was there ever any doubt as who was going to be #1? Mike is the best player to ever put on a Dallas Stars jersey. He selected #1 overall in the 1988 Draft by the North Stars and never looked back from there. He has 507 goals, the most ever by an american born player, 1226 points in 1238 games. He hold almost every important scoring record for the franchise including career games played, career goals, carrer assists, carrer points, career playoff goals, assists and points as well carrer playoff games. Mike has been the face of the Dallas Stars franchise for over 14 years and because of this and 507 more reasons, Mike Modano is the greatest Stars of all-time.

zzzzz…

10 days after the 2007 FA Season has started, there are very few players still left out there.

You would think that after another disappointing season the Stars would be picking up the top of the free agent crop. After all such players as Briere, Drury, and Gomez were all available and combined they had a total of 224 points last season.

In a perfect world I would be telling you that Armstrong and the Stars picked up one of these guys and the goal problem for the Stars is solved. Wrong!

One day goes by, were silent. Two, three, four, five days go by and nothing happens. Finally after all Stars fans are in a frenzy we finally pick up 3 players! One problem, I have never heard of any of the players picked up. Another problem,in total they have had 25 points in there NHL carrer.

Way to help out with our weakness Armstrong! We had 6 million dollars to offer any one of these high profile free agents, yet the Stars organization was silent! Why? Our team can’t score! We need one of these players to help us out, and hopefully lead us atleast past the first round.

As all the FA’s have signed deals with other teams I only have one thing to say, “Armstrong you better know what you are doing!”

Top 10 Jersey Designs and Logos

Today the Boston Bruins released there new slim-fit design along with a new logo and alternate logo as seen at http://bruins.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=NHLPage&id=10891 and http://www.hockeyjournal.com/Article.php?ArtID=857547.  With the other 29 teams about to introuduce there jerseys, it is time to look back at the 10 Best Jerseys of the Past Year.

10. Ottawa Senators Home - It is possible to hate a teams Away jersey but love there Home. Ottawa has an awesome logo with the Senators facing you along with a cool design.

9. Edmonton Oilers Alternate – Lots of thought went into this jersey and the logo on it. For example the 3 points at the top of the sheild represent a crown symbolizing the Edmonton Oilers as “Oil Kings” also the 5 rivets on the logo represent the 5 Stanley Cup Championships that the Edmonton Oilers have won. The 10 gear teeth also symbolize the 10 captains that the Edmonton Oilers have had so far.

8. Pittsburgh Penguins Home – I had always hated the Pens logo that they used from 1993-2000 so when they went back to the skating penguin along with making there new colors Black and Gold it has always been a personal favorite of mine.

7. Detroit Red Wings Away – It took me nearly 12 years to figure out what the Red Wings logo was, and finally someone pointed it out to me. The flying wheel has so much history in it along with the colors of red and white that even as a Stars fan, I really like that jersey.

6.  New York Rangers Alternate - The Face of the Statue of Liberty on the Jersey has always looked great. Mix that along with a darker shade of blue and red and you got yourself a perfect 3rd jersey for the Rangers. Unlike many LAternates that have been thrown away after just a few years…cough…mooterus….cough…this one has stayed around for a long time.

5. New York Rangers Home – So many diffrent teams have tried to copy the slanted letters that the Rangers show on there Home and Away jersey. But personally I think only one team can pull it off, and hopefully the Rangers will keep the same style for the slim-fits.

4. Montreal Canadiens Home – Simply a classic.

3. Calgary Flames Home – If you don’t like the jersey then maybe the 18 000+ that where it to the Saddledome might change your mine. When the team went to the finals in 2004 you would be hard-pressed to find one home in the city that didn’t have this jersey. The black flaming C, is then put on a excellent design to make it up to #3 on the list.

2. Dallas Stars Home – Everyone is going to say I am biased, but I love there jersey.  The Star outline is extreamly unique and a fan favorite. It also has the colors of Green and Gold that looked quite good with Lord Stanley’s Silver in 1999.

1. Chicago Blackhawks Home, Away and Alternate – No one can argue that the Blackhawks have the coolet Jersey around. If you put the logo on White, Red or Black and have horizantel striping you will have the best jersey in the NHL. Also intresting, is how with all the sports teams being critized about there “Native American Logo’s” this one has escaped critism.

As for the worst in the League there is the Atlanta Thrashers Home, all the Predators,  the Ducks, and especially the Canucks.

For years NHL jerseys have been fan favorites, let’s all pray that these new slim-fits will no only be just as good but better.

The Curse Hull Left Behind

Brett Hull scored possibly the most controversial goal in NHL history to make the Dallas Stars the 1999 Stanley Cup Champions. One problem, after Hull got that goal the hockey gods have been frowning down on the Stars ever since, as shown in our playoff performances. 

Since the 2000-01 season, 2 years after Dallas won the cup, the Stars have had an incredible regular season record of 274-143-49-26, good for a winning percentage of .657! Not bad, eh! But that is where the good stuff ends as from 00/01 they have made the 2nd round only twice and all the other years they got booted out of the playoffs in the first round.  Something’s fishy about that. 

Now I am not a superstitious guy or anything but looking at these stats it seems as though the reason for failure is all because of Brett Hull’s foot! Maybe not now, maybe not in the next two years but a few more years down the road every time the Stars lose the reason will be blamed on the Foot Curse. If the Stars go long enough without winning another championship, it could possibly become more popular then the curse Babe Ruth left behind in Boston, which made the Red Sox not win a championship in over 80 Years! 

For every Stars fan out there let’s hope that the curse Hull left behind won’t be that bad, if there is even a curse.