Defense wins championships. The Dallas Stars know that, the NHL knows that, and the sporting world as a whole knows that. But sadly, it seemed as though the Stars had completely forgotten about that during the 2016-17 season.
In 2015-16, it looked like Dallas had found a loophole around this fact, and that was outscoring the defensive inefficiencies. Sure, the Stars had a relatively solid defensive group that year, but their offense carried the weight in an offensive-heavy scheme.
After falling two rounds short of the ultimate prize, that defensive group was scrapped and replaced with a relatively younger and less experienced one.