One of the big stories this week in the NHL was Patrick Kane signing a one-year deal with the Detroit Red Wings. That brought an end to a lot of speculation about where the longtime Chicago Blackhawks star would end up this season.

Prior to his signing in Detroit, Kane’s name was linked to the Dallas Stars as a potential fit. To be fair, chatter about Kane to the Stars were mostly about the Stars being high on Kane’s list, not about the team being in heavy pursuit of him. Kane is 35 years old and is coming off of a hip injury that seriously limited his abilities last season and required surgery. At this point in his career, sheltered minutes in the bottom-six on a contender is Kane’s best bet. The Stars are a legitimate contender this year, not to mention the presence of fellow veteran Americans in Ryan Suter and Joe Pavelski.

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All of that points to the Stars being a perfect fit for Kane. On the flip side, Kane wouldn’t have made any sense for the Stars.

Let’s start with the obvious. The Stars don’t have the cap space. Kane obviously wasn’t looking to break the bank but he did still sign for $2.75 million. The Stars also don’t need help up front. They need to keep their options, and money, open for making an upgrade on the blue line as the trade deadline gets closer, especially after their top defenseman prospect made the decision to go back to Europe for a few months. At forward, the Stars are set. There are tweaks and movements to be made within their top-nine to get certain players or combinations going but that group is one of the best in the NHL.

While the Kane saga is over, the following point is an important thing to keep in mind in the next few months, any time there’s a forward linked to the Stars: Dallas has two capable lineup upgrades, at less than $1 million each, already within the organization.

Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque are thriving in the AHL. The Stars are taking the prudent approach and prioritizing their development. Them playing pro hockey in the AHL this season is a luxury for the Stars, something that allows Stankoven and Bourque to advance their skills in a low-pressure environment against good competition and be even more ready to hit the ground running in the NHL, when their time arrives.

That time could very well be this season.

“A lot of things come into play,” Stars general manager Jim Nill told The Athletic. “Do we get injuries? How are guys playing? They’re in a good situation, we’re in a good situation up here. We’re just going to monitor as we go. If there’s an opportunity for us to get them up, would love to do it but like I said, we’re just going to monitor this as we go.

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“Things change quick in this league. We’re just happy they’re in a good place with where they’re at. Situations will arise that will determine whether they come up or not. We’ll make that determination depending on the circumstances.”

We outlined the Stars’ cap situation and how it relates to a potential call-up for Stankoven and/or Bourque. The Stars are about a month away from accruing enough cap space to call one of them up, if they want to. Some of it will depend on the health of the NHL team but, as Nill mentioned, player performance will also be a factor. Stankoven and Bourque are doing their part to keep the pressure on.

Here’s a look at the Stars’ week:

Nov. 24: Stars lost to Calgary Flames, 7-4.
Nov. 28: Stars beat Winnipeg Jets, 2-0.
Nov. 30: Stars lost to Calgary Flames, 4-3 in overtime

Scoring plays

These are three scoring plays this week that stood out.

Vintage Robertson

It’s been a strange season so far for Jason Robertson. Coming off a 109-point season and back-to-back 40-goal campaigns, expectations are high for the 24-year-old forward. Robertson feels like his game could be better, and that’s also a popular assertion for those watching, inside and outside of the organization. It’s a fair viewpoint but also has to be balanced with the fact that Robertson has essentially still been a point-per-game player for the Stars this season, scoring 20 points through 21 games. A lot of that production has come on the power play.

Against Vegas last week, Robertson snapped an eight-game streak of being scoreless at five-on-five when he tallied a secondary assist. On Friday, at home against the Flames, Robertson scored a very Jason Robertson goal.

Robertson’s patience with the puck on his stick is one of his trademarks. I’ve previously made the analogy, it’s like he’s kicking back at a picnic and then, all of a sudden, the puck is at the net. Robertson slows everything down physically but is operating at double speed mentally, calculating where he’s going to go with the puck. This was a great example.

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Matt Duchene’s pass

The Stars’ power play has been under some heat this season for its lack of production and, at times, ineptitude to the point of serving as a disadvantage. But when the power play is working, the Stars can make hockey look beautiful. It’s a combination of their philosophy and their personnel. This power-play goal from Joe Pavelski against the Flames is a great example of that.

Pavelski goes to the far wall and gets the puck back up the ice. The Stars pass it around the perimeter. All the while, Pavelski is drifting back to the net-front. By the time Duchene gets the puck at the bottom of the circle, Pavelski is in position. As simple as the movements and the finish were, Duchene’s pass through the middle traffic was spectacular and something he made look a lot easier than it actually is.

Mason Marchment’s saucer

Even though we wrote about this game individually earlier this week, Mason Marchment’s pass on the dagger goal deserves to get a second mention and its own spotlight once again. One aspect of this play that gets lost in the shuffle is Duchene’s strong, physical work in the defensive zone to spring the two-on-one in the first place.

Marchment has his ups and downs, but one of the most consistent things about him, dating to last season, is that he’s an incredible passer. He has the ability to get the puck through tight spaces and is one of the best long-distance passers among Stars forwards. His patience and skill delivered the dagger for the Stars in Winnipeg.

Non-scoring plays

These three non-scoring plays stood out.

Thomas Harley’s vision

Thomas Harley has been playing at a top-pairing level most of the time he’s on the ice. Harley’s game is continuously improving, which is impressive when one considers about how good he already looked late last season and into the playoffs after getting called up.

This pass against the Jets would get a lot more shine if Craig Smith’s shot was an inch inside and went in the net instead of clanking the post.

This was actually a scoring play but Harley did a good job in Calgary getting the puck up to Jamie Benn on this play that ended in Wyatt Johnston’s second goal of the evening.

Harley’s progression is huge for the Stars. Not only does it give them another reliable defenseman next to Miro Heiskanen, but it could help the Stars manage Heiskanen’s load, too. Heiskanen is one of the best defensemen in the world and arguably the best player in Dallas. While Heiskanen has mostly been performing to his usual standard this season, there have been some uncharacteristic bumps in the road. Dallas has been very careful in its handling of Harley and his development, and the Stars won’t put more on his plate until they feel sure he can handle it without his game dropping off elsewhere, but Harley is showing that he’s climbing quickly.

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Jamie Benn’s toe drag

Again, another play that was close to scoring but couldn’t quite finish. For Stars fans who go back a decade or so, this short-handed play by Benn was a jump-out-of-your-seat type of vintage moment. A filthy toe drag with a real chance at scoring, if not for the stellar play of Connor Hellebuyck.

Shutout Jake

Six goals allowed on Friday prevented Oettinger from being the highlight of the week, but his shutout in Winnipeg deserves some shine. The Stars played a good game in front of him but they also put him in situations that required Oettinger to bail the team out (more on that in a moment). When going against an elite goaltender like Hellebuyck, a team needs its own elite goaltender to respond. No sequence showed that better than when Hellebuyck made the stop on Benn’s toe drag and the Jets came back down the ice, still on the power play. They created a good chance of their own, but Oettinger was better.

Highlight: The five-on-three penalty kill

The Stars had the potential to lose a 60-minute hockey game to a division opponent in less than two minutes on Tuesday. The Stars have a top-five penalty kill in the NHL, so killing off penalties, especially against a bottom-half power play like the Jets, is hardly a story. But in the second period, the Jets had 1:08 of five-on-three time and one of the Stars’ best penalty-killing forwards, Radek Faksa, was in the box. Coaches often say that in order for a penalty kill to be elite, your goaltender has to be the best penalty-killer. That’s especially true at five-on-three for an extended time, when it’s nearly impossible for the defending team to completely prevent point-blank shots. The Jets got s few good looks at the net, but Oettinger stood strong.

The Jets got another five-on-three later in the game, this time 44 seconds. It added up to 1:52 of five-on-three play for the Jets and the Stars still left the building with a shutout. That’s a huge credit to the entire operation, but especially Oettinger, who was technically sound and composed.

Lowlight: Late-game collapse

For most of the early part of the season, the critique of the Stars were that they routinely had slow starts to the game with lethargic first periods. On Friday against the Flames, the Stars got off to a fast start, thanks to a quick goal by Wyatt Johnston, his first of two on the evening. Dallas mounted a 4-2 lead midway through the game before Calgary rattled off five unanswered goals, including four in the third period. The final one, an empty-netter, resulted in visible frustration from Benn and Heiskanen.

“They’re equally offensive and equally troublesome,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said on slow starts versus slow finishes. “The parity in this league, you’re never going to be perfect but you can’t beat yourselves with either of those things on a consistent basis and expect to have success. You’re going to have some of those games, on both ends of that. We’ve had too many on the start side. We’ve had a couple on the ending side here recently. I think all correctable for us as a group.”

(Photo of Mavrik Bourque: George Walker / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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