from Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News,

Because it is on the Stars to fix this mess, and they need to start by taking full responsibility. This didn't happen because of injuries, this didn't happen because of bad luck. The Stars were exposed as a bad team this year because of bad decisions, bad performances and inherent holes. If this was all about the injuries, why not bring back the coaching staff and the two goalies and take another shot next year?

Why? Because they know it won't work. They know the plan is flawed. And they know they are the ones who have to fix it.

When general manager Jim Nill took over in 2013, he had a lot of challenges. He also had a lot of opportunity. Yes, the team was bereft of centermen and anchored to a big contract for goalie Kari Lehtonen, but it also had a low payroll, and a decent prospect pool created by four years of relatively high draft picks. So Nill went to work and came up with some big winners. Getting Tyler Seguin out of Boston and Jason Spezza out of Ottawa fixed the center problem. Adding players like Mattias Janmark and Stephen Johns also proved beneficial.

To be fair, Nill had about $20 million in payroll space at his disposal, so the moves don't seem as magical in retrospect, but they form a nice base moving forward. That said, this isn't the Stanley Cup contender everyone was hoping for back then.

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