Before the season, the Central division was presumed to be the toughest division in the NHL once again. The division has not disappointed as three of the top four teams in the league are Central teams. The Dallas Stars with 82 points lead the division, followed by the defending champion Chicago Blackhawks with 81 points and the St. Louis Blues with 79. The Stars have a game in hand on both teams having played only 61 games this season.
The Stars are on pace to finish with 110 points, second only to the Washington Capitals in the NHL. Chicago directly follows with 107 and then St. Louis with 104. With competition this tight, winning the division will be more crucial this year than ever before. Because the two teams that don’t win the division will face each other in the first round, barring some incredible run by either the Nashville Predators (who are on pace to finish with 93 points), Minnesota Wild (87) or Colorado Avalanche (87).
But back to the top three, all three of them are well rounded teams but each have a weakness. Here are their strong suits followed by their weak point:
Chicago Blackhawks
Strong Points - Goaltending and all around scoring. Corey Crawford is the best goalie among these three teams. He has been one of the best goalies in the league this season with 32 wins and a save percentage of .928. He is 11th in goals against average at 2.26. During the first two Stanley Cup runs, the goalie was looked at as the weak point of the team but that is not the case anymore. Crawford has established himself as one of the best in the NHL. The Blackhawks are sixth in goals per game and have the second best power play in the league at 22.6%. A large part of their offense comes from their defense as two of their top five point getters are defensemen. Obviously, Patrick Kane leads them in points with 84, followed by Artemi Panarin with 57 and Jonathan Toews with 43. Then it’s Duncan Keith with 38 and Brent Seabrook with 37. The two of them together have 56 assists.
Weakness - Lack of depth defensively. The Blackhawks are 7th in the league in goals against at 2.4, but you would not know it from the shots against. They allow 30.9 shots per game, 23rd in the league. Furthermore, their top three players in average ice time are Keith, Seabrook and Niklas Hjalmarsson at 25:31, 23:07 and 22:19, respectively. All three are defensemen. They were able to win the Cup last year primarily rotating just four blue liners, but that run will be hard to reproduce. The loss of Johnny Oduya has become apparent. Trevor van Riemsdyk is a young guy and may grow into his role on the second pair, but he is just not on the same level as Oduya was.
St. Louis Blues
Strong Points - Special teams and goaltending. They have a buzzing power play at 21.3%, good for sixth in the league. The penalty kill has been spectacular at 86.4%, second best in the NHL. Part of that is due to the goaltending combination of Jake Allen and Brian Elliott, who have save percentages of .923 and .929 as well as goals against averages of 2.18 and 2.14, respectively. They have been excellent despite both Kevin Shattenkirk and Alex Pietrangelo missing time this season. Rookie blue liner Colton Parayko has been excellent this season with 26 points and filling in well in his own zone.
Weakness - Lack of star power outside of Vladimir Tarasenko. The Russian phenom is their only player with 20 or more goals as he has 29. He leads the team in points with 54, and the only player that is close is Alex Steen with 47 points, including 30 assists. Their secret weapon could be Robby Fabbri, who has 14 goals, fourth on the team. He has averaged only 13 minutes of ice time so far this season, but he has played well recently and could provide the Blues that extra boost they need. When you look at David Backes, Jori Lehtera and Paul Stastny, they are all good at setting others up but they don’t score much themselves. They’ve also gotten ten points in just 13 games out of Jaden Schwartz. He needs to stay healthy for them to make a run.
Dallas Stars
Strong Points - All lines can score; defense is much improved from last season. It’s more than just Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin being brilliant. They have ten or more goals from seven players, one of only ten teams with that many or more. Mattias Janmark has been a real surprise with 13 goals, emerging from starting the season on the fourth line to really make an impact this season. The team is scoring 3.2 goals per game, second in the league only trailing Washington. Last year, the defense was so bad it kept them out of the postseason. The goaltending was not good either, but the defense allowed too many shots and hung their goalies out to dry on a regular basis. This year the defense has tightened up with Oduya coming from Chicago and more experience for young blue liners like John Klingberg. They are 12th in shots against with 29.3 per game.
Weakness - Lack of consistent goaltending. From the beginning of the year, it has not been conclusive who was the #1 goalie in Dallas. Offseason acquisition Antti Niemi started on opening night and was in net for much of the first part of the season, when the Stars were neck and neck with the Capitals for the top point total in the NHL. Then after a while he started to struggle and gave way to incumbent goalie Kari Lehtonen, who struggled most of last season and has not been much better this season. This writers guess is that they will roll with Niemi in the playoffs, simply because of his experience. He won the Cup with Chicago back in 2010, which should give him the edge. But right now, the Stars seem to be rotating goalies on a nightly basis. If the starter struggles in the playoffs, will Lindy Ruff be forced to make a change? Both goalies have a save percentage of .907 and the team is 20th in the league in goals allowed at 2.8, partly due to a 79.2% penalty kill.
So far this season the Stars are 2-1 against the Blackhawks, with two games in Dallas and one in Chicago. The two games in Dallas were blowouts, the first a 4-0 win for the Stars then a 5-1 win for the Blackhawks. Dallas won in Chicago 4-2 behind an unlikely first period hat trick from Patrick Eaves, and they will play twice more this season - once in each city.
The Blackhawks are 2-0-1 against the Blues so far this season, losing 6-5 in OT in the first meeting before winning 4-2 and 2-0 in the two meetings since. They play twice more, once in each city as well.
The Blues have had success against the Stars this season, winning three of four games so far. With Niemi in net for the Stars, St. Louis won 3-0 and 3-2 in a shootout. With Lehtonen in net, Dallas won 3-0 and lost 2-1 in a shootout. They play once more in Dallas during the regular season.
The race in the Central will undoubtedly be a great appetizer for the full course that is the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Three team races this good only come around every once in a while, which is great regardless if you’re a fan of one of the three teams or not.