Do the Dallas Stars really want 3rd place in the Central Division?

The Dallas Stars have been battling for months to gain third place in the Central Division. But is it really worth it, or are they better off as a wild card?

That the Dallas Stars might want to enter the playoffs as a wild card rather than earn an outright berth sounds a little insane. Toss it up to Dallas Stars head coach Ken Hitchcock, and he’ll assuredly ask if you have a brain in your head. Or maybe he wouldn’t answer at all, but just a hand wave and a scoff. That’s why we love him here in Dallas.

And it does seem a legitimately acid-fueled thing to ponder. The Stars players would say it 18 times over and four more on holidays. “Of course we want third, if it’s available. I mean, we’d rather have first or second place, but third over a wild card? Cue the collective, ‘Duh.'”

But…do they really want third place?

First, let’s look at the pros. Getting yourself into third place means you aren’t duking it out with what amounts to five other teams, Calgary being a mere good week for them and bad week for Dallas away from kicking the tires again on a playoff spot.

At the moment, holding position in a top three in the Central is like insurance. As of this writing, the Stars currently sit in a wild card spot and three points back of Minnesota. They’ve been loving the flip-flops, see. If you take a short dive, it’s not necessarily into a bed of thorns. You’ll likely just fall into…another playoff spot.

So there’s that. Room for error, though the margin is still slim. A couple of mulligans.

You also get home ice advantage but, well, here’s where we need to list out some cons. And for the Dallas Stars, they are big ones. Let’s just say it and get it out of the way — third place in the Central is basically limbo. A hockey purgatory.

With the NHL playoff format, achieving third in your division guarantees you nothing outside of a spot in the dance. It’s a glorified wild card where, if you happen to knock out a team that’s likely to be as tough as the No. 1 seed, you’re hoping that one seed gets knocked out as well so you can play at home. Otherwise, it’s a wash.

Right now, Stars fans know who’s in second place. If the disco broke out today, Dallas would be playing Winnipeg in the first round. And on the road, no less.

Of course, there’s an off-chance the Jets catch Smashville and bump them down. At 95 points, the Predators are first in the Central. There’s a chance, too, that Dallas catches Winnie and gains home ice. But those chances are dwindling. They sit nine points back with 15 games to go.

None of those scenarios look appetizing, even with fewer road games. It hurts my brain to even try and think about the last time the Dallas Stars beat Winnipeg. Scratch that; the Stars beat them once last season.

Which means Dallas has only been outscored by the Jets 37 to 17 so far in the last two years (they play each other one final time on March 18), including an 8-2 horrorfest in 2016. Want to relive that one? Courtesy of Scott Billeck, you can!

You can set a watch by Patrik Laine and Mark Scheifele against the Stars, two guys who routinely look as though the defense plain forgets they exist — like they’ve been shrunken down in some Magic School Bus fiasco where nobody can find them until they reappear wide open in the slot.

Think it’s just your eyes playing tricks? According to Hockey-Reference.com, nah. That’s eight goals Laine scored against Dallas last year. Eight. For 12 points. In five games. He has four hat tricks in his career; do you even need a link to the fact that two of those are against the Stars?

And Laine he has four goals against Dallas this season in three games. Yuck.

As for Scheifele? That would be six goals against the Stars this season. He had five last year, including a hat trick.

Most people reading this will likely say something about the challenge. It builds character to go against the best. To want to beat the teams you’ve struggled against and to hit Goliath in the retina with your slingshot. But stop. Let’s not be ludicrous.

Nobody cares how you win a Stanley Cup. And nobody cares who you beat to win one.

The simple fact is that if the easiest route is there, you take it. You don’t drive over 11 miles of pot holes just for the thrill when the newly paved road is open for business. Or maybe you do if you’re insane, and I would suppose it takes a little insanity to stand in front of a shot that might likely clog your throat with teeth.

There’s something to be said also about the last game Dallas played against the Jets. It actually wasn’t that bad, albeit the second period isn’t helping this cause. The problem is speed, and boy do the Jets follow their namesake.

The same goes for Nashville, though one could argue that Dallas matches up with the Predators a whole lot better than the Flying Laines.

What Stars fans should really want to see is a slugfest with Vegas.

On paper, the Stars and Golden Knights should not even be close. The matchup pits a group of expansion misfits and hand-me-downs against a seasoned team featuring Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn, as well as solid defending, goaltending and coaching.

But all Vegas has done is get those same things from their players, their staff (Gerard Gallant should be a lock for coach of the year), and their goaltending all season.

Good coaching and goaltending will get you far. But how far? The question is can Vegas sustain its momentum through a series of brutal back-and-forths?

Dallas has lost a couple to the Golden Knights this year, but let’s not be quick to chalk those up as this Stars team being trounced by an expansion club.

Dallas has played pretty even with Vegas in every game, losing 2-1, winning 3-0 and losing 5-3, and if not for an utterly Space Jam Mon-Star performance that first game from Marc Andre-Fleury, the narrative could swing more in Dallas’ favor.

Then again, ifs and buts. But this recipe is far less bitter than seeing Patrik Laine or even Blake Wheeler wind up for seven games.

Look, call me crazy. That’s fine. Right now, fans are just hoping the Stars continue to win games and make the playoffs. Anything can happen. But seriously, are you excited to see them play the Jets five or six more times?

The best case is to watch as Winnipeg faces off against Minnesota or St. Louis and they batter each other like rams to the death.

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Let Dallas see the more favorable matchup and then go for the team whose armor has been tested. That’s always fun, right? That sounds more fun to me.