Stargazing: A Dallas Stars Puckcast | Defending Big D

The Dallas Stars are probably going to have a pretty boring draft this year. It's the rest of the offseason that is shaping up to be a ride, and many fans are afraid it will be a dark one. But how much do we really have to fear, with the NHL salary cap rising and Jim Nill at the helm?

Mark knew who he wanted to talk to about it, so he contacted self-described stats nerd and friend of DBD Juraj Kralik – who's also a big maven concerning the business of hockey and is generally in his gl...

The Dallas Stars are this close to the mountaintop. It's not close enough. What will they do to get their next Stanley Cup, and will they have to change their entire team identity to cover that last mile?

Wes and Mark want to know, too. Their latest talk covers everything from Jason Robertson trade rumors to the new two-way contract for Rémi Poirier, with a few stops at the salary cap situation just to keep everything in perspective. (And keep in mind that this conversation took place before everyone's season ended earlier this week, so please g...

The Dallas Stars' season is over, and we're all left to contemplate what happened to their Stanley Cup hopes. Was this an Edmonton Oilers problem, or a symptom of something bigger that an occasional explosion of elite talent could only hide for so long?

Wes Lawrence and Mark Zimmerman sat down after the end (and before the news of Pete DeBoer's departure) to examine the strategy...and why we might have seen this coming. In this edition, they discuss how slow starts seem to doom the Stars' chances, the eerie silence of their vaunted scoring depth, and...

The Dallas Stars are back in town, and they're really really going to need help from the home crowd in Game 5 against the Edmonton Oilers. The Oil are a tough team – but that doesn't absolve the Stars of their deficits on offense, nor of their dumb-penalty problem. So the question is, who will step up to ensure they get a Game 6?

Wes and Mark discuss the dangers of over-passing, the importance of scoring first, and the importance of turning expected goals into, well, goals.

Wyatt Johnston, you're probably going to be the key to whatever ha...

The Dallas Stars and the Edmonton Oilers have won their way to the Western Conference Final by working each other's side of the street. The Stars have gotten all-time performances from their superstars, while the Oil's goaltending and depth scoring have come through for them in a big way.

So what does this tell us about the rematch we've all been waiting for? Wes and Mark worked After Dark to fashion a narrative for the Stars based on everything they had to do to beat the Colorado Avalanche and the Winnipeg Jets. And in this edition, they...

It sometimes seems as if the Dallas Stars are only permitted to have one player get hot at a time. But do you need Mikko Rantanen to score a hat trick every game when Mikael Granlund can go off in his stead?

A lot has happened in the past five days, and Wes and Mark want to talk about all of it. In this edition of Stargazing, they examine the advantages of having two No. 1 defensemen, compare and contrast the return trajectories of Jason Robertson and Miro Heiskanen, and discuss the importance of playing within your structure – an...

The Dallas Stars won a Game 1! This is the best thing to happen since 2020, when they won Game 1 against the Tampa Bay Lightning...hey, wait a minute.

We know everyone loves a doomcast, but at this point we're constantly on the lookout for reasons to believe. So Wes and Mark worked through the night to find sustainability in the Stars' current good fortune (you know, the kind that doesn't involve counting on Mikko Rantanen to tally a hat trick in every remaining game).

In this edition, they discuss double-shifting Moose, dealing with the Jets' dominant...

The Dallas Stars are about to begin the fight for another Central Division championship – and to get there, they only have to knock off the team that earned the 2025 President's Trophy. (Oh, is that all?)

Brad McDonnell joined Wes and Mark to examine how the Stars match up with their Dirty Central cellmates, the Winnipeg Jets. In this edition, they discuss how Mason Marchment can help (and hurt) by creating chaos, where Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson will slot back into the lineup, and whether Connor Hellebuyck is human after all.

It's just like the re...

The Dallas Stars did it. They won a Round 1 against the Colorado Avalanche that, in a better world, would have been a Western Conference Final. It wasn't easy, or pretty, or predictable – but the Victory Green Gang gave themselves the chance to win a Central Division title with all their elite players healthy and back on the ice.

And if Game 7 taught us anything, it's that sometimes you need to rely on your superstars. That's why we turned to Taylor Baird – DBD's managing editor and NHL.com's go-to Stars contributor. In this edition, she and Wes talked abou...

Good news! The Dallas Stars can close the Round 1 deal on home ice. Bad news: The Colorado Avalanche can finish them off in their own barn. How do you play those match-ups?

Wes and Mark worked After Dark to put their thoughts together, and in this episode they discuss the advantages of shortening the Stars' bench, the dangers of relying on Pete DeBoer's playoffs streak, and why it may be a good idea for Mikko Rantanen to play 20 minutes in Game 7.

Who will be the hero the Stars need in Game 7? Tell us at Defending...

The Dallas Stars keep defying the doomcast. After a stunning Game 4 bellyflop, they came back with a dominating performance in Game 5. Now the Round 1 outcome is once again in their hands – but it will proceed on the Colorado Avalanche's home ice. Can they finish the job before the series stretches to seven games?

Wes and Mark met up After Dark to pore over the possibilities. In the process, they parse the ongoing threat of Gabriel Landeskog, Lian Bichsel's debut as a meme, and why – right now – the Stars are a better team for having Oskar Bäck in the...

We did ask what would happen when the Colorado Avalanche got desperate, and it appears the Dallas Stars gave us an answer. A terrible answer, true, but they did provide one.

In this episode of Stargazing, Wes and Mark had plenty of dark thoughts about the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. But, as usual, they also found a couple of reasons to believe this game was an outlier. In the middle, they discussed getting the top line unstuck, the need for Esa Lindell to start providing offense again, and why Jake Oettinger had to take the walk of shame...

Is this 2025, or 2015? The Dallas Stars won another nail-biter against the Colorado Avalanche, and it was largely thanks to Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin. Yet the team continues to get contributions from up and (mostly) down the lineup. What is possible when everyone is That Guy?

In the latest episode of Stargazing, Wes and Mark got together After Dark to pore over the Stars' first road victory of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. And they found plenty to discuss — including the signs that point toward Miro Heiskanen's return, the real threat of Gabriel Landeskog, and what might happen no...

You have to give the Dallas Stars credit: They know how to add extra thrills to their wins. They evened up Round 1 with a victory in overtime. Now they'll take their game on the road and look to grab another W in the Colorado Avalanche's home barn.

Wes Lawrence and Mark Zimmerman have gone over the data from the Stars' 4-3 win on Monday, and they're happy to remind you that they put Colin Blackwell out into the world. They also took a look at how the system is working, and they huffed just a little hopium...

The Dallas Stars are really dependable about losing Game 1. The good news has always been that it isn't necessarily predictive, until it is.

Wes and Mark took a few hours to process the good and the bad in the Victory Green Gang's 5-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. What they found was some surprisingly good news about structure and puck luck, and one or two shrieking warning sirens (fourth line, looking at you.)

It’s time for Stargazing After Dark. Please do not bring your "Esa Lindell and Cody Ceci are a shutdown pair" statements he...

The Dallas Stars won their position in the 2025 Stanley Cup race relatively early. Then they skidded into the end of the regular season on a seven-game losing streak unprecedented during head coach Pete DeBoer's tenure. So what happens now that this team is supposed to be all in?

To survey the first-round ice, Stargazing welcomed back longtime Colorado Avalanche writer Evan Liu, now of Hockey Mountain High. He sat down with Wes and Mark to talk about forward depth, netminder performance, the playoffs return of Tyler Seguin and Gabriel Landeskog, and why whatever happens...won't be a...

The Dallas Stars are pretty good at winning. They've even gotten good at winning games in which they didn't play as well as their opponents. That's one reason why it's so frustrating to see the Stars' vices become their manners...especially when they drop games that were in their reach.

What does it mean for the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs? Wes and Mark needed backup for this one, so they invited DBD alumnus Robert Tiffin – who's now kind of everywhere, thanks to D Magazine and his own Stars Thoughts Substack. And they talk about everything — from odd-yet-effective set play...

The officially playoffs-bound Dallas Stars always seem to have one player or another going off these days. If it's not Wyatt Johnston racking up points like a veteran elite forward, or Jason Robertson regaining his scoring touch with a vengeance, then it might be Thomas Harley making a late run at the postseason awards with all the offensive-defenseman flair he can muster.

But we are Stars fans, which means we can't have nice things. So we're left to wonder if a Stanley Cup competitor's path through the Victory Green Gang will simply involve beating up on our...

By the time you listen to this, the Texas Stars will have already punched their ticket to the 2025 Calder Cup playoffs. Turns out Victory Green is a fun color in Austin Metro, too!

The Stars in Dallas benefit greatly when the Stars in Cedar Park succeed. So to take the measure of the T-Stars' prospects, Mark once again calls on the expertise of Stephen Meserve — creator of the must-read Texas Stars source 100 Degree Hockey and co-author of We Win Here: The Definitive Essays You Need About The Texas Stars.

In this episode, they address some ho...

The book has been written, and quite literally: The Dallas Stars are now co-favorites to win the 2025 Stanley Cup, and it's down to the deal that brought Mikko Rantanen into the fold.

How does this team look for a deep playoffs run, especially if Tyler Seguin returns in his early-season form? Is it ridiculous to put so much faith in this lineup so early? Can the defense measure up? And what does Rantanen's presence mean for the Stars going forward – their power play, their postseason resilience, their...whatever you've got?

History shows that we need al...

In case you haven't checked the NHL.com top page this afternoon, the Dallas Stars made a bit of news today. The deal to bring Mikko Rantanen to Big D, which seemed all but dead last night, came roaring back to life this morning. And less than three hours before the NHL trade deadline, we learned that the Carolina Hurricanes were getting top prospect Logan Stankoven and a trove of future considerations in exchange for one of the league's true superstars.

It's a lot to take in, so Wes and Mark called in backup. Our own Tyler...

This season's Dallas Stars are...really, really Stars-ing. Right now, that's largely for the better. That doesn't keep any of us for looking for where they can be better still...but at what cost?

What impact can the right forward have? Can even the most dynamic forward compensate for not having another difference-making defender? At what point, if any, does a successful GM compromise his long-term vision for a player who can alter the course of a seven-game series?

You know Wes and Mark – they still haven't found a subject they can't hot-take on. They fi...

The Dallas Stars picked the week before a big road trip to go on a bit of a tear, winning-wise. Four consecutive victories, three of them at home, felt like a great holiday gift that arrived just a couple of days late – at once a delight and a relief.

Which means it's a great time for Wes and Mark to start rolling sports takes. In this episode, they discuss the resurgence of Jason Robertson, the frustrations of Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque, and what it means to have Lian Bichsel carrying the entire defense for the Texas St...

The Dallas Stars are still in the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs race, but they're not ranked as highly as we all thought they would be. If that feels like a big fat lump of coal in your Christmas stocking, well, you're probably a longtime Dallas Stars fan.

Wes and Mark make the case that we're not seeing anything we didn't expect from a team on a learning curve – which also happens to be a team with three rookies playing as starters. The Hot-Takery Bakery is wide open, so spend a bit of your pregame time with them, won't yo...

History tells us how the Dallas Stars embarked on their fateful 1999 Stanley Cup run, and now we will, too: It was a time of magic and fantasy, brought to you by hard work and hard decisions.

Few have forgotten that the deal that brought the Stars Joe Nieuwendyk also cost them Jarome Iginla. And fewer would take that trade back – even knowing the face-of-the-franchise, first-ballot Hall of Famer Iggy would become – considering what it ultimately brought.

With all this being true, and assuming the Stars are one player away from taking it all again in 2025...what...

It's never a bad time to overthink your Dallas Stars opinions. But with a new year just around the corner, and the Stars looking like an inevitable playoffs contender once again, it's a good time to fire up the special holiday hot-takery bakery.

Wes and Mark are on the case, but then again, they're always on the case. In this episode, they discuss:

As a team, the Dallas Stars are building a fine season. But as an organization, they're building fine seasons in all their affiliates, and over time as well. And a couple of times a year, we like to take a closer look at how that's working for them.

In case you've just met Mark Zimmerman, he can talk about the Texas Stars all day – but it's more fun to listen when he can bounce off someone who has as much passion for Cedar Park hockey as he does. For that, he's joined by Stephen Meserve, founder of th...

The Dallas Stars are in a pretty good place right now. They're in Stanley Cup playoffs position as Thanksgiving approaches, if that old measuring stick still means something. But even so, are they living up to their own outsize expectations?

As the only podcast that didn't get invited to Finland last week, Stargazing has been stewing in its long-distance thoughts about that. Wes and Mark have questions:

October is over for the Dallas Stars. They're sitting comfortably near the Central Division's top spot. They have an appointment on the world stage with the 2024 Stanley Cup champions. And this may not even be as good as it gets this season. So...what's wrong with this picture?

As we wait with bated breath for the NHL Global Series, Wes and Mark took a close look at how the Stars started the season – and whether their hot start is sustainable. In this episode, they discuss:

The Dallas Stars begin their regular season today! It's the perfect time to talk about (almost) everything that could go wrong. Wes and Mark have something of a feel for adversity, and in Stargazing's annual Doomcast, they let most of their darkest thoughts roam free in the pre-Halloween hellscape.

We do have rules, sort of. We'll never include injuries to specific players in our contemplation of worst-case scenarios. But that just leaves sleep-disturbers like these at the top of the menu:

As of this posting, the Dallas Stars are 3-0 in the 2024-25 preseason. And here we were thinking Victory+ might be the best thing to come out of September.

It's a great environment for Stargazing's annual Brightside Cast, and Wes and Mark are definitely feeling it this year. In this edition, they talk about:

It's September, and the Dallas Stars are back on the ice. You can almost smell the "Mr. Brightside" in the air, can't you?

Wes and Mark are firing up the Victory+ and getting ready to watch some hockey. And on the eve of the Stars' preseason opener, they have so, so, so much to share with you. In this episode, they discuss:

We made it! September is here, and as if by magic, the wait for more Dallas Stars hockey has grown ever so much shorter. It's time to start making appointments. Or setting alarms. Your choice.

Wes and Mark check the milestones up ahead and point out the landmarks you don't want to miss:

How many days until Victory+ TV? Here at Stargazing, we're counting it down. And you can...

Summer means fun, and fun starts with the youngsters. And as Dallas Stars fans, we're all about the kids in the team's development system. Who's ready for the big league? Who's still cooking?

Derek Neumeier, assistant director of scouting with McKeen's Hockey and longtime Friend of DBD, is back on the mic with Wes and Mark. With th 2024 NHL Draft over and training camp still on the horizon, they devoted an entire episode to Nothing But Prospects. Here's the kind of thing you'll hear:

The 2024 NHL Draft is over, free agency is in full swing, and the Dallas Stars are right in the thick of it. But are they making the moves that will matter next season?

NHL.com contributor and DBD editor-in-chief Taylor Baird joined Wes and Mark on the first day of silly season to sort through the Stars action. On this week's episode of Stargazing, we present a wide-ranging conversation that included topics like these:

The Dallas Stars had a good postseason showing. They took down the past two Stanley Cup champions before injuries, exhaustion, and the risks of playing five defensemen caught up to them. Now it's time to think about what the summer will hold.

In our final 2024 episode of Stargazing After Dark, Wes and Mark discuss the issues that may be keeping you awake at night, too. Such as:

The Dallas Stars gave up their traditional Game 1 loss. Does this mean the rest of their Western Conference Final is proceeding according to the script? It's impossible to discount the Edmonton Connors Leons Oilers at this stage, but the Victory Green Gang keeps doing what it does best – which is find ways to win.

Wes and Mark are back from their long Memorial Day weekend, and they're here to catch you up on the Death Star vs. The Superstars: surviving the first period, responding to chaos, and never, ever starting to panic.

What do Jason Ro...

It's turning into A Very Special Throwback Series for the Dallas Stars. They took Western Conference Finals-style revenge on the Vegas Golden Knights. They struck down a longtime foe and legendary rival in the Colorado Avalanche.

And now that the Stars have gone through last year's Stanley Cup champions and their most lethal sibling in the #MurderDeathKill Division, they begin a battle for the West against the Edmonton Oilers. And if you're a Stars fan, you know that history even if you weren't around for it.

For a preview worthy of this event, we invited...

The Dallas Stars earned some much-needed rest this week – but here at Stargazing, we never sleep. It's time to assess what went right (and wrong) in Round 2, and get ready for a really big show in the Western Conference Finals.

In this episode, Wes Lawrence and Mark Zimmerman discuss how Chris Tanev countered Nathan MacKinnon, the art of overtime playoffs line-blending, the importance of the team game to the Stars' strategy, and what may be their biggest concern going forward. Plus there's so much more – including a look at what might have happened in a Dallas-Vancouver series that...

The Dallas Stars keep finding ways to win over the Colorado Avalanche. How long until the Avs find a countermove? We've all been thinking it, because we're Stars fans, and we can't have nice things.

Wes Lawrence and Mark Zimmerman actually sat down to talk about it. In this edition, they go in-depth into what the Stars are doing right, the likelihood that the Avalanche will figure them out, the possible impact of injuries, and how the Victory Green Gang can definitively make the story their own.

If you've been keeping up with these guys...