What We Learned: Dallas Stars burned by terrible goaltending

(Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.)

No one would argue that what the Dallas Stars are dealing with in goaltending this postseason is in any way helpful.

Kari Lehtonen is checking in with a white-hot .901 save percentage through nine appearances, including the three goals on 21 shots he conceded in Saturday’s 4-1 loss to St. Louis. Antti Niemi, meanwhile, has played in four separate games and sits at .872.

That is flat-out not going to win you any hockey games, and it’s a trend from the regular season that’s only getting worse. Both played at least 43 games, and both were more or less the same goaltender: .906 for Lehtonen, and .905 for Niemi.

When the league average goaltender is .915, it’s safe to say that they cost their team — which by the way was quite good — plenty of games. Their play alone cost the Stars about 22 goals, or roughly four points in the standings, versus what a league-average netminder would have done.

The good news for Dallas is that their offensive talent is so robust, even without Tyler Seguin, that it barely matters. Stars shooters tortured Devan Dubnyk for an .877 save percentage (21 goals allowed on 164 shots), but have run into a bit of a wall in Brian Elliott (10 on 158, or .937). And still, the series is 3-2.

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Now, it’s absolutely unreasonable to expect any goaltender to match .937 over five games. That is steal-a-series goaltending, full stop. But you really have to say that Elliott isn’t so much stealing things as Niemi and Lehtonen are giving it away of their own accord. You simply cannot allow 16 goals on 143 shots and expect to win much over any length of time.

And really, it’s easy to pinpoint where the Stars’ troubles come from. It’s the front of the net.

Of the 18 goaltenders who have played at least 100 minutes in this postseason, Niemi has the worst high-danger save percentage at 5-on-5 of anyone. Lehtonen’s is fifth-worst. And that’s all you need to know about the situation, really. Combined, they’ve given up a postseason-leading 21 full-strength goals in 11 games, and all but four of them have been from high-danger areas. There is no defending these numbers.

When looking at all the numbers, I wondered whether this was a product of the Stars — who don’t exactly have a world-class blue line group — giving up a particularly large number of high-danger shots on goal. Looking at all the numbers that didn’t seem like a particularly likely outcome, but it had to be investigated. They don’t, though. The 7.6 conceded per 60 minutes is actually a little below the league average of 8.1, and they’re also on the lower side in terms of high-danger attempts per 60 as well.

In fact, Dallas is better than average at suppressing all qualities of shots.

However, they do give up a larger percentage of high-danger chances than all but two other playoff teams still standing. In all, more than 29 percent of the shots they concede are from right around the net, and only Tampa (32.3 percent) and San Jose (30.3 percent) are worse. However, both those teams actually have competent goalies, and therefore seem well-positioned to move into the conference finals. It should be noted, too, that San Jose is the best shot-suppression team in the league this postseason, while Tampa plays higher-event hockey to begin with, out-run-and-gunning the Stars with more shots both taken and conceded per 60.

So yup, Niemi and Lehtonen are just not very good. And at this point, it looks like that’s going to be the reason the Stars lose this series, or even if they somehow advance (highly unlikely; most estimates only give them about 20 percent odds of winning the next two games), the reason they lose in the next round.

Now if you’re Jim Nill, you’re looking at a very sticky situation going forward. Here are two goalies signed with massive cap hits for each of the next two seasons. Lehtonen is at $5.9 million (uuuggghhh) and Niemi at a slightly more manageable but still probably not too wise $4.5 million. Lehtonen also has a limited no-trade clause for the entirety of his remaining years (uuuuuuuuuggggggggggggghhhhhhhhh). That makes it one of the sneakiest bad contracts in the entire NHL, because it both pays a goalie who is clearly in decline too much money, and makes it difficult or even impossible to move him.

Near as I can tell, the details of Lehtonen’s no-trade clause are not publicly available and we therefore do not know exactly how many teams he can veto as potential trade destinations. Even if it’s just, say, five other clubs, that significantly limits the number of potential suitors where he could end up, if Dallas could find a trade partner willing to take on the money. Which is a big if.

What you have to keep in mind about Lehtonen is that he’s dropped off a cliff in terms of quality the last two seasons. He routinely outperformed league averages prior to 2014-15, but since then he’s been well below. And unfortunately, goalies on on the wrong side of 30 who have suffered plenty of injuries over the years tend not to rebound too well.

Meanwhile, you see that Niemi had one bad season when adjusting for shot quality (2013-14) but has since become a perfectly league average goaltender once again. He’s only about three months older than Lehtonen, so he’s also not especially likely to keep that up much longer, but if you were choosing one of the two goalies from this group to keep the guy you have to stick with is Niemi. Better recent track record (even his worst season isn’t really touching what Lehtonen has done the last two years), cheaper, etc.

In a perfect world, you probably jettison both and take your chances on the open markets, be it UFA or trade. Even as Niemi is league-average at 5-on-5, he was clearly substandard on the PK (just .850 in the regular season!). Lehtonen was actually a little better, but still not great, as you might expect.

In retrospect it is very easy to say, “Hmm, maybe Dallas shouldn’t have signed a second goalie for a whole bunch of money last summer.” It was easy to say that last summer as well. But we see now that this is very much a failed experiment, and it was probably always going to be.

It seems the most likely scenario here is that one of the two gets bought out, because I don’t know how you find someone to take either deal off your hands. Then maybe you can find a half-decent starter elsewhere. But if you’re looking to take advantage of the Stars’ otherworldly offensive talents before they start to decline (how much longer are 30-plus Jason Spezza and Ales Hemsky impactful, for example?) you’ve got to do something.

It’s just hard to see what that “something” actually is. All we know for sure right now is that this is Nill’s biggest problem by far, and he kind of put himself in this position in the first place.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: Sure, why not?

Arizona Coyotes: If you’re upset about this, just keep in mind that Wilbon also said this week the Capitals should trade Alex Ovechkin.

Boston Bruins: Malcolm Subban could be the big club’s backup next season, but the larynx injury he suffered last season probably hurts his chances. Hell, there could be another Jonas Gustavsson out there!

Buffalo Sabres: Well, maybe Yakupov to Buffalo makes sense if he’s cheap, but doesn’t the team have more pressing needs? Yes. Yes they do. I was asking that rhetorically.

Calgary Flames: So this is starting to look like the move, yeah?

Carolina Hurricanes: Rod Brind’Amour was named to the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame this week. That qualifies as Hurricanes news this weekend.

Chicago: This here says Chicago is close to signing the Swedish league’s goaltender of the year. Wonder if he can play defense.

Colorado Avalanche: Hahahahaha.

Columbus Blue Jackets: The Blue Jackets might be one of the most-screwed teams in the league in the event of an expansion draft in which players with NMCs must be protected. On the other hand, maybe don’t give so many NMCs to such a mediocre-at-best roster next time. Guess that’s the lesson here.

Dallas Stars: And also: Having good goaltending.

Detroit Red Wings: This doesn’t seem like a particularly good idea, unless you’re going full rebuild. In which case I think it’s fine.

Edmonton Oilers: Saw some criticism of the Drake Caggiula contract the last few days. Doesn’t make sense. Signing sought-after college free agents will never be a bad thing. It’s an asset that costs you nothing but money.

Florida Panthers: This is probably a good idea moving forward. *cough*theBollandcontract*coughcough*

Los Angeles Kings: So Darryl Sutter doesn’t know if he wants to come back for another contract in Los Angeles. Depends on what Dean Lombardi does this summer. Sounds like he’s getting out at the right time.

Minnesota Wild: The special teams consideration is an important one in the Boudreau hiring, but also: having him is better than having any other coach who might have become available.

Montreal Canadiens: The Habs signed Artturi Lehkonen this weekend. He led the Swedish league in scoring in the postseason, so that’s good. His points total also broke a record set by Daniel Alfredsson in the 2005 lockout year, so that’s also good.

Nashville Predators: Worth remembering that Ryan Johansen is a pending RFA after next season. If the Preds are smart, they won’t let it get that far this summer, and will pay him commensurate to what a player of his caliber is owed ASAP.

New Jersey Devils: This year in the draft, the Devils will probably try to take someone who has a lot of skill. This applies to all Devils drafts for the next decade, I’m sure.

New York Islanders: I would argue this is perhaps not a good thing.

New York Rangers: Sure, replace Dan Girardi with Kevin Shattenkirk. And while you’re at it see if you can get Taylor Hall for Tanner Glass.

Ottawa Senators: The Senators have hired the finest cheapest coach they could find. Congrats.

Philadelphia Flyers: Hahahahahahahahaha.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Hey wait I thought they were getting all the calls in this series! Wait, come back!

San Jose Sharks: What a team. I love these boys!

St. Louis Blues: I can assure you beyond doubt that the Blues are not “the Leicester City of the NHL.” Statistically, to be the Leicester of the NHL it would have to be like if the 2013-14 Sabres played the 2007-08 Red Wings for 82 games and still finished north of 100 points.

Tampa Bay Lightning: I’m imagining just that, yes.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Only leaving this here.

Vancouver Canucks: Hey I mean I don’t want to lay all the blame on Willie Desjardins but keeping him around is probably not super-smart.

Washington Capitals: Love the narrative that the Caps are bad until they win. Then they’re really good.

Winnipeg Jets: This kid is going to be something else, man.

Play of the Weekend

These two Braden Holtby saves were within like 15 seconds of each other.

First this…

and then this…

Gold Star Award