Dallas Stars: What Happens if the Top Line Burns Out?

With the Stars’ top line starting the season with a bang, what will Jim Montgomery and the Stars do if they hit a drought?

The first two games of the season for the Dallas Stars were nearly perfect. They shutout the Arizona Coyotes 3-0 in the home opener, with goals from Devin Shore, Alexander Radulov, and John Klingberg.

The second game was also a win, to some surprise, against the Winnipeg Jets, where Dallas was able to secure a strong 5-1 win.

Seguin and Benn both potted two goals, and Radulov added one of his own, and Ben Bishop allowed one goal on 33 shots.

Oh, and Klingberg had an assist.

Fast forward to Tuesday night, where the Stars hosted the Toronto Maple Leafs. Auston Matthews and company handed Dallas their first loss of the 2018-19 campaign, outscoring the Stars 7-4. Seguin had a goal and three assists, Benn had a goal and two assists, and Seguin had a goal.

Oh, and Klingberg had a goal.

All but one of the Stars’ 12 goals this season have come from the top lines (the Benn-Seguin-Radulov line on offense, and the Klingberg-Lindell line on defense).

A full 71 percent of the Stars’ shots so far have come exclusively from Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, and John Klingberg.

See what I’m getting at?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that the first line is producing at the rate that it is—there’s a good chance that the Stars would be 1-2 or even 0-3 on the season had it not been for their scoring output so far.

Dallas’ scoring depth offensively is a problem—in that there isn’t a lot of it.

Devin Shore is the only Star to have scored a goal while not on the Stars’ top line, and in terms of assists, Connor Carrick has the highest (three) among players who aren’t on the top defensive pair.

The Stars still have nine players on their roster who have yet to record either a goal or assist: Tyler Pitlick, Roman Polak, Roope Hintz, Marc Methot, Brett Ritchie, Mattias Janmark, Blake Comeau, Jason Dickinson, and Valeri Nichushkin.

The point is, what if the Benn-Seguin-Radulov trio hits a brick wall, or if head coach Jim Montgomery decides to break them up?

“It’s pretty hard to mess with that top line the way they’re scoring,” Montgomery told SportsDay reporter Matthew DeFranks. “[B]ut you can always go back to that. So maybe we do make a change. We’re just spitballing right now.”

“Monty” has two options; he can either a) keep the top line together and hope they continue tearing it up on the ice or b) break up the top line and spread them out in hopes of strengthening the depth of the roster.

Both of these ideas have positives and negatives. If they’re kept together, there’s a solid chance that they keep putting up good numbers. The negative to that, however, is that the bottom lines of the roster might not be able to score goals, leaving all of the pressure on the top six. If Montgomery decides to split them up, they are spread around the roster and can help out other lines on the team. That downside, though, is that the famed “trio” isn’t together (except maybe on the power play) to have good chemistry and score goals.

What do you think? Should Montgomery split the Benn-Seguin-Radulov line up?

• Published on 10/12/2018 at 17:01 PM
• Last updated at 10/11/2018 at 14:33 PM