Dallas Stars can still contend for a Stanley Cup after a season gone wrong

It’s that time of the NHL season where a few fan bases start buying playoff tickets while the rest turn their attention to MLB spring training. Elimination is no fun. But it shouldn’t color your whole fandom with tears. Just most of it. Seventy percent of it.

This is the 30 percent: SB Nation NHL Silver Linings, where we send hockey’s eliminated teams into the offseason with five good things to remember from this season.

The Dallas Stars’ playoff hopes faded about two months earlier than they had hoped this year.

Injuries ravaged their first few months, and the reigning Western Conference point leaders could never right the ship. Playoff elimination was inevitable for months now; only a recent run of good pay staved it off until Monday.

As frustrating as this year was for the Stars, it doesn’t mean their window is closing. There’s a few good things to come out of this sinking season that should put Dallas back on the Stanley Cup path if all goes to plan.

Whatever fountain of patience kept Jim Nill from pulling the plug on this has to be dry by now.

Stars fans will tell you that the team’s failings don’t rest entirely on goaltending. And they’re right. For about three months of the season, Dallas’ even-strength save percentage was among the highest in the league. That’s where you point to the penalty kill (more on that in a bit).

But Antti Niemi and Kari Lehtonen are to blame. They’re to blame for the countless times a shot got past them that most NHL goalies make in their sleep. Only the Canucks gave up more third period goals than Dallas; few good teams own a worst win percentage when leading after two periods (.739).

Confidence to close out games starts with trusting the man between the pipes. Mercifully, hockey’s most expensive exercise in goaltending wariness will end this summer.

Lindy Ruff is not a bad coach by any stretch. Stars fans will find issues to gripe about him with, for sure (Cody Eakin centering Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin is a terrible plan). But for the most part Ruff is a good fit for a team this close to contention with young players in the mix. And he’s not afraid to toss line combinations in a blender when things go wrong.

But the results speak for themselves, and the entire coaching staff is under serious fire after this year. The penalty kill is the NHL’s worst in 20 years. The power play has regressed under the coaching staff’s watch, to the point that the Stars are just flat-out uncreative and ineffective.

These issues, combined with inconsistent goaltending and injuries, effectively killed the Stars’ season. And it’s a system-wide problem:

Writers close to the team have hinted for months that Ruff’s contract won’t be renewed and the staff will be refreshed. A new voice and philosophy might be what this frustrated franchise needs.

He technically already arrived, seeing some limited action early in the season as injuries ravaged the NHL roster. The 14th overall pick in the 2014 NHL draft put up 31 points in 49 games with Texas (AHL) this season and showed serious flash with the NHL club.

And by the end of the season, he just looked bored by his AHL competition.

Dallas’ insistence on keeping Honka in the minors with terrible defensive depth is perplexing, but he’s all but guaranteed a spot with the Stars next season. And he could be truly special.

Adam Cracknell was meant as a minor-league depth signing. Brett Ritchie was primed to scrap and claw for playing time.

Instead, Mattias Janmark, Ales Hemsky, and Patrick Sharp all missed significant time. Ritchie and Cracknell were thrust into prominent roles and thrived. Cracknell earned a contract extension after a 10-goal year, and Ritchie became the hard-hitting role player with offensive upside he promised when Dallas drafted him.

Antoine Roussel followed a Brad Marchand-esque path from pure pest to something more, becoming an invaluable penalty killer and versatile player before an injury ended his year. Curtis McKenzie looked good when given playing time.

It took a ton of injuries to prove the Stars have even more forward depth than anyone realized.

Pivoting from a disappointing year back to contention is easier when you have three of the best players at their positions in the NHL on your team. Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn will eclipse the 70-point mark again this year despite spending a lot of time on separate lines.

John Klingberg overcame a rough start to the season and re-found his game; he could end up with 50 points for the second consecutive season.

That trio is proof that the foundation for success is still there. Dallas just needs to tap into it, make changes, and get back in the hunt next fall.