from Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News,

Coaching is like juggling while walking on a tightrope, while doing your taxes, while running a therapy group.

You have strategies, statistics, contracts and personalties, and you have to keep them all up in the air while maintaining focus on the task at hand — winning hockey games.

Stars coach Lindy Ruff has faced all of that already this season.

You want juggling? How about the decision to play his best players on a top line, and then seeing that line become the most dangerous in the league? And yet Ruff will draw criticism because the move could create a lack of depth that allows the Stars to become one of the most scored upon teams in the league....

As for the highwire, that’s Ruff’s balancing act of high-revving offense with some semblance of defense.

The Stars last season were at their best when they won faceoffs, reduced turnovers and possessed the puck. They have struggled to find that place, but Ruff said they were as close to optimal as they have been this season in the trip to the New York area, where they outshot the Devils and Islanders in splitting two games.

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