Stars skid into NHL playoffs on 7-game losing streak and have season on the line again

The Dallas Stars have skidded into the playoffs on a seven-game losing streak.

Mason Marchment and other players say that skid doesn’t matter, and coach Pete DeBoer knows that the Stars will ultimately be judged on what they do in the playoffs.

"No concern," Marchment said. "We're not going to worry about the regular season. It's behind us now. … We're going to turn the page and ramp it up here."

The Stars have no choice if they want another long playoff run after making it to the West final each of the past two seasons. Dallas, still the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, opens the postseason Saturday night with Game 1 at home against rested Central Division rival Colorado. The Avalanche finished their regular season last Sunday.

"We've got to figure it out. I mean, you know, Saturday's the first time in probably three weeks where we're playing basically with our season back on the line again," DeBoer said. "So our desperation level has to be there, our execution has to be there. … We've got to make sure we're ready for that."

Dallas has been locked into a playoff spot since March 29, and the first-round matchup against the Avs has been anticipated for even longer than that. They met in a second-round series last year that the Stars won in six games against the then-defending Stanley Cup champions.

The Stars have gone 0-5-2 since getting their 50th win of the season April 3 at home against Nashville. They were outscored 34-18 while being outshot by an average margin of 10 a game in that stretch that culminated with a 5-1 loss at the Predators on Wednesday night.

"It doesn't really matter. You'd like to be going into the playoffs in a different way. We went in the playoffs last year like 10-2 and lost the first two games," Tyler Seguin said. "This year we’re going in oh-and-whatever. All that matters is the puck drop on Saturday, so we'll move on pretty quickly."

Dallas is only the ninth team in NHL history to enter the playoffs on a winless streak of at least seven games, according to SportRadar. The record of eight is shared by the 1987-88 Chicago Blackhawks and 1991-92 Montreal Canadiens.

The last team to do it was the New York Islanders with an 0-3-4 stretch to end the 2019-20 regular season that was suspended that March and never resumed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They were part of the modified playoff that began about 4 1/2 months later in a Canadian-based bubble, and lost in the Eastern Conference Final.

Only the 2001-02 Detroit Red Wings went on to win the Stanley Cup after skidding into the postseason with that long of a winless streak - a seven-gamer than included two ties. They were also the last team before the Islanders to even make the playoffs with that kind of finish to the regular season.

Seguin returned for the Stars’ regular-season finale after missing 58 games following hip surgery in early December. He had the secondary assist on Marchment’s goal only 16 seconds into the loss at Nashville.

The 33-year-old Seguin has 21 points (nine goals, 12 assists) in the 20 games he has played this season.

In the same game that their six-time All-Star returned to the lineup, top goal scorer Jason Robertson (35 goals) played only six minutes before exiting with a lower body injury. His status for the playoff opener is uncertain.

Dallas is still without standout defenseman Miro Heiskanen, who missed the last 32 regular-season games since after injuring is left knee against Vegas on Jan. 28. He later had surgery and hasn’t yet returned to practice.