Stargazing: A Dallas Stars Puckcast | Defending Big D

The officially playoffs-bound Dallas Stars always seem to have one player or another going off these days. If it's not Wyatt Johnston racking up points like a veteran elite forward, or Jason Robertson regaining his scoring touch with a vengeance, then it might be Thomas Harley making a late run at the postseason awards with all the offensive-defenseman flair he can muster. But we are Stars fans, w...

By the time you listen to this, the Texas Stars will have already punched their ticket to the 2025 Calder Cup playoffs. Turns out Victory Green is a fun color in Austin Metro, too! The Stars in Dallas benefit greatly when the Stars in Cedar Park succeed. So to take the measure of the T-Stars' prospects, Mark once again calls on the expertise of Stephen Meserve — creator of the must-read Texas Star...

The book has been written, and quite literally: The Dallas Stars are now co-favorites to win the 2025 Stanley Cup , and it's down to the deal that brought Mikko Rantanen into the fold. How does this team look for a deep playoffs run, especially if Tyler Seguin returns in his early-season form? Is it ridiculous to put so much faith in this lineup so early? Can the defense measure up? And what does...

In case you haven't checked the NHL.com top page this afternoon, the Dallas Stars made a bit of news today. The deal to bring Mikko Rantanen to Big D, which seemed all but dead last night, came roaring back to life this morning. And less than three hours before the NHL trade deadline, we learned that the Carolina Hurricanes were getting top prospect Logan Stankoven and a trove of future considerat...

This season's Dallas Stars are...really, really Stars-ing. Right now, that's largely for the better. That doesn't keep any of us for looking for where they can be better still...but at what cost? What impact can the right forward have? Can even the most dynamic forward compensate for not having another difference-making defender? At what point, if any, does a successful GM compromise his long-term...

The Dallas Stars picked the week before a big road trip to go on a bit of a tear, winning-wise. Four consecutive victories, three of them at home, felt like a great holiday gift that arrived just a couple of days late – at once a delight and a relief. Which means it's a great time for Wes and Mark to start rolling sports takes. In this episode, they discuss the resurgence of Jason Robertson, the f...

The Dallas Stars are still in the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs race, but they're not ranked as highly as we all thought they would be. If that feels like a big fat lump of coal in your Christmas stocking, well, you're probably a longtime Dallas Stars fan. Wes and Mark make the case that we're not seeing anything we didn't expect from a team on a learning curve – which also happens to be a team with t...

History tells us how the Dallas Stars embarked on their fateful 1999 Stanley Cup run, and now we will, too: It was a time of magic and fantasy, brought to you by hard work and hard decisions. Few have forgotten that the deal that brought the Stars Joe Nieuwendyk also cost them Jarome Iginla. And fewer would take that trade back – even knowing the face-of-the-franchise, first-ballot Hall of Famer I...

It's never a bad time to overthink your Dallas Stars opinions. But with a new year just around the corner, and the Stars looking like an inevitable playoffs contender once again, it's a good time to fire up the special holiday hot-takery bakery. Wes and Mark are on the case, but then again, they're always on the case. In this episode, they discuss: the Tyler Seguin injury, the quiet advent of Oska...

As a team, the Dallas Stars are building a fine season. But as an organization, they're building fine seasons in all their affiliates, and over time as well. And a couple of times a year, we like to take a closer look at how that's working for them. In case you've just met Mark Zimmerman, he can talk about the Texas Stars all day – but it's more fun to listen when he can bounce off someone who has...

The Dallas Stars are in a pretty good place right now. They're in Stanley Cup playoffs position as Thanksgiving approaches, if that old measuring stick still means something. But even so, are they living up to their own outsize expectations? As the only podcast that didn't get invited to Finland last week, Stargazing has been stewing in its long-distance thoughts about that. Wes and Mark have ques...

October is over for the Dallas Stars. They're sitting comfortably near the Central Division's top spot. They have an appointment on the world stage with the 2024 Stanley Cup champions. And this may not even be as good as it gets this season. So...what's wrong with this picture? As we wait with bated breath for the NHL Global Series, Wes and Mark took a close look at how the Stars started the seaso...

The Dallas Stars begin their regular season today! It's the perfect time to talk about (almost) everything that could go wrong. Wes and Mark have something of a feel for adversity, and in Stargazing's annual Doomcast, they let most of their darkest thoughts roam free in the pre-Halloween hellscape. We do have rules, sort of. We'll never include injuries to specific players in our contemplation of...

As of this posting, the Dallas Stars are 3-0 in the 2024-25 preseason. And here we were thinking Victory+ might be the best thing to come out of September. It's a great environment for Stargazing's annual Brightside Cast, and Wes and Mark are definitely feeling it this year. In this edition, they talk about: the Stars' preseason style and what it means for when the games start counting, the offens...

It's September, and the Dallas Stars are back on the ice. You can almost smell the "Mr. Brightside" in the air, can't you? Wes and Mark are firing up the Victory+ and getting ready to watch some hockey. And on the eve of the Stars' preseason opener, they have so, so, so much to share with you. In this episode, they discuss: how the new contracts for Thomas Harley and Esa Lindell stack up...

We made it! September is here, and as if by magic, the wait for more Dallas Stars hockey has grown ever so much shorter. It's time to start making appointments. Or setting alarms. Your choice. Wes and Mark check the milestones up ahead and point out the landmarks you don't want to miss: the Traverse City NHL Prospect Tournament training camp, and the stories waiting to happen, the preseason schedu...

Summer means fun, and fun starts with the youngsters. And as Dallas Stars fans, we're all about the kids in the team's development system. Who's ready for the big league? Who's still cooking? Derek Neumeier , assistant director of scouting with McKeen's Hockey and longtime Friend of DBD, is back on the mic with Wes and Mark. With th 2024 NHL Draft over and training camp still on the horizon, they...

The 2024 NHL Draft is over, free agency is in full swing, and the Dallas Stars are right in the thick of it. But are they making the moves that will matter next season? NHL.com contributor and DBD editor-in-chief Taylor Baird joined Wes and Mark on the first day of silly season to sort through the Stars action. On this week's episode of Stargazing, we present a wide-ranging conversation that inclu...

The Dallas Stars had a good postseason showing. They took down the past two Stanley Cup champions before injuries, exhaustion, and the risks of playing five defensemen caught up to them. Now it's time to think about what the summer will hold. In our final 2024 episode of Stargazing After Dark, Wes and Mark discuss the issues that may be keeping you awake at night, too. Such as: how to get Miro Hei...

The Dallas Stars gave up their traditional Game 1 loss. Does this mean the rest of their Western Conference Final is proceeding according to the script? It's impossible to discount the Edmonton Connors Leons Oilers at this stage, but the Victory Green Gang keeps doing what it does best – which is find ways to win. Wes and Mark are back from their long Memorial Day weekend, and they're here to catc...

It's turning into A Very Special Throwback Series for the Dallas Stars. They took Western Conference Finals-style revenge on the Vegas Golden Knights. They struck down a longtime foe and legendary rival in the Colorado Avalanche. And now that the Stars have gone through last year's Stanley Cup champions and their most lethal sibling in the #MurderDeathKill Division, they begin a battle for the Wes...

The Dallas Stars earned some much-needed rest this week – but here at Stargazing, we never sleep. It's time to assess what went right (and wrong) in Round 2, and get ready for a really big show in the Western Conference Finals. In this episode, Wes Lawrence and Mark Zimmerman discuss how Chris Tanev countered Nathan MacKinnon, the art of overtime playoffs line-blending, the importance of the team...

The Dallas Stars keep finding ways to win over the Colorado Avalanche. How long until the Avs find a countermove? We've all been thinking it, because we're Stars fans, and we can't have nice things . Wes Lawrence and Mark Zimmerman actually sat down to talk about it. In this edition, they go in-depth into what the Stars are doing right, the likelihood that the Avalanche will figure them out, the p...

The unstoppable road team met the immoveable home team, and we saw who blinked first. The Dallas Stars copped a big win off the Colorado Avalanche over the weekend, and now, it seems, we're getting somewhere. It's OK, Stars fans, you still have time to panic. But Wes Lawrence and Mark Zimmerman took a long look at a game the Avs were supposed to win, on paper...and they liked what they saw. No, re...

The one period of Game 1 in which the Dallas Stars should have expected more goals than the Colorado Avalanche was overtime – i.e., the period in which they ultimately lost the match. It's just one of the infuriating twists that the postseason will throw at you, if you get that far. Settle down – this isn't a doomcast. But Wes and Mark do have some thoughts about line matchups, the important role...