In Dallas, There’s No Bang for Bucks

With the Dallas Stars struggling to score goals, Coach Dave Tippett ended one practice this week by having every player shoot a puck into an empty net.

After that motivational ploy the Stars scored three goals to beat Vancouver, ending a record streak of scoring futility for a team languishing near the bottom of its weak division despite one of the NHL’s highest payrolls ($67 million.)

“We’re frustrated where we are in the standings and we’re continuing to try to do whatever it takes to get out of it,” Tippett said.

Through 32 games, with 50 left in the regular season, the Stars already had 15 losses -- just two fewer than all of last season, when they led the Western Conference with 111 points. With 30 points, they were just one above last place in the Pacific Division they’ve won four of the past five years.

“There are 23 guys in this locker room that are pretty embarrassed at the way we’ve played,” Brenden Morrow said. “We know we need to improve and play better.”

If not, Tippett’s job could be in jeopardy in just his second season. And some of the high-priced players put together to push for another Stanley Cup title -- a mixture of homegrown players and top free-agent signees -- could be headed elsewhere.

There have already been plenty of changes since the Stars won the Cup in 1999 and returned to the finals the following year.

Demanding defensive-minded coach Ken Hitchcock was fired midway through the 2001-02 season. Free agents Bill Guerin, Scott Young and Philippe Boucher were added before last season, and Jason Arnott and Don Sweeney are among others now in the mix.

One of the biggest changes came when defenseman and longtime captain Derian Hatcher, who spent his first 12 seasons with the Stars, left for Detroit as a free agent last offseason.

“We lost our big guy, but we still had the talent, still had the skill,” Morrow said. “Our problem right now is getting the puck in the net, and that wasn’t really one of Hatch’s fortes.”

Hatcher wasn’t a goal-scorer, but the imposing 6-foot-5 defender set the tone with aggressive play and provided front-line protection for goalie Marty Turco. His absence and injuries to remaining defenders have hurt.

The Stars also traded defenseman Daryl Sydor after eight seasons in a three-team deal that brought to Dallas veteran Teppo Numminen, who missed 12 games before this week with a broken right foot.

Richard Matvichuk missed four games last week with a sore left knee, and Boucher is still out because of a shattered eye socket sustained when he took a puck to the face Nov. 28.

“It’s kind of a survival mode right now,” said center Mike Modano, who has taken over the captain’s role. “It’s just kind of getting through our situation with everybody that we’re missing and still trying to gather points as we go.”

The biggest problem remains a lack of scoring -- even with the top nine scorers remaining from last year’s team that was upset by Anaheim in the second round of the playoffs.

Before the 3-1 win Wednesday over Vancouver, the Stars had tied an NHL record with one goal or no goals in seven straight games. Only four other teams have done that in the past 50 years.

The stretch included their first five-game losing streak in eight years and a pair of one-goal games -- a win and a tie -- against struggling Chicago.

Modano, the team’s career scoring leader, went into a pair of weekend games in Florida on a 10-game streak without a goal. He had a minus-17 rating for the season.

Coming off his first season as a starter that included a modern NHL record of 1.72 goals against average and an All-Star appearance, Turco had some early struggles. But he has allowed two goals or fewer in 10 of his last 12 starts with a 1.58 GAA and .935 save percentage in the stretch.

The good news is that while the Stars have struggled, Pacific-leading Los Angeles was just six points ahead.

“I don’t know if that says anything good about our division,” Modano said, “but it’s not too far out of reach.”