Have Stars’ Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz reached NHL superstar status?

Merry Christmas Eve.

The Stars don’t play another game until Wednesday in Colorado, with the league’s holiday break adjusted because of a rise in COVID-19 cases around the league. Dallas sits at the break on pace for 90 points, and four points behind Edmonton for the second wild card in the Western Conference.

After a seven-game winning streak and a five-game losing streak, the Stars have won their last two games entering the break. Let’s answer some fan questions.

During the summer of 2020, between the regular season and the bubble playoffs, a coach told me that the Stars have one superstar: Miro Heiskanen.

That was before Heiskanen’s monster postseason, and before Roope Hintz’s point-per-game 2021 and Jason Robertson’s second-place Calder Trophy finish. So things have changed a bit, but not enough to warrant true superstar status for Hintz and Robertson.

They are two pillars on one of the best lines in the league, players that have developed chemistry quickly because of their skating (Hintz) and vision (Robertson) to pair with the all-around game of 37-year-old Joe Pavelski. Without them, there’s no telling where the Stars would be this season and who would be running the ship. They have been invaluable to Dallas.

Being a superstar is another thing altogether, even if labeling someone as such is all semantics.

To me, a superstar is someone that other teams look at and say “Oh, we have to play that guy tonight?” Or opposing fans buy tickets to see this player when they come into town. They are centerpieces of international teams, whenever a best-on-best tournament happens next. Their name is always on Hart or Norris or Vezina contender lists.

You know the names: Connor McDavid, Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Cale Makar, Leon Draisaitl, Auston Matthews, Victor Hedman, Aleksander Barkov, Andrei Vasilevskiy. Those types of players.

You could even say Kirill Kaprizov and Adam Fox are teetering on that border.

When Jamie Benn was finishing on the year-end All-Star teams, becoming a Hart Trophy finalist and an Art Ross winner, he was a superstar. When Tyler Seguin was the second-best goal-scorer in the league during his first five seasons in Dallas, he was a superstar.

Hintz and Robertson may get there one day.

Hintz, 25, has 71 points in his last 82 regular-season games. Robertson, 22, has 71 points in his 77-game NHL career so far. They have room to grow in terms of dominating on the road as well, when they match up with players like Mark Stone and Phillip Danault.

But Robertson is tied for 42nd this season in scoring and Hintz is tied for 72nd. Sure, Robertson is still a top-10 producer at 5 on 5, and his 3.26 points per 60 minutes would back that up (just behind old friend Valeri Nichushkin at 3.39 points per 60!).

They surely are two of the best players in the league, but superstar status requires more than that.

We touched on this a bit the other day when talking about the Stars’ everlasting search for a second line, but we can go a bit deeper in this space.

Denis Gurianov does not have a goal in the last 11 games, which is his longest drought this season. He’s actually had a stretch like this in each of the last three seasons as well: 15 games in 2020-21, 12 in 2019-20 and 19 in 2018-19. He has just one 5-on-5 goal this season, and that was created on a power play that had just expired.

For a player that once led the Stars with 20 goals, the production has been underwhelming.

Sure, some of that has been his deployment. Stars coach Rick Bowness has moved Gurianov all around the lineup, and fed him minimal minutes. Gurianov has been at right wing and left wing. He’s had Benn, Seguin, Luke Glendening, Radek Faksa and Roope Hintz as his centers. He’s played as much as 18:18 and as little as 8:50. Gurianov has been unable to unleash his one-timer on the power play because he’s been in the bumper almost all year.

Those are factors, and the hope is that Benn and Seguin can help Gurianov.

The Stars coaching staff has asked Gurianov to do a couple things more consistently: make better decisions with the puck instead of throwing it away, and push defenders wide on the rush to capitalize on his fantastic speed.

If we’re to take Seguin’s goal against Minnesota as an example, it shows that this line can help in those areas.

Benn makes a smart play in the defensive zone to hold the puck just long enough to spring Gurianov. Gurianov hits the neutral zone with speed and keeps pushing wide, creating space for a trailing Seguin behind him to bury a shot.

It’s not always going to be so perfect and easy for this trio, but Bowness is betting on a pair of duos becoming a workable trio. Benn has played well with Gurianov before. Benn has played well with Seguin previously, with mixed results this season.

Second lines in Dallas have been fleeting this season, and once it seems like the Stars have found something, it disappears into thin air.

But if Gurianov and Seguin play like they did against Minnesota, perhaps Dallas is in for more positive nights from Gurianov than maddening ones.

If the Stars fail to make the playoffs, is Jim Nill likely to be fired?

— Dan in Frisco

I understand the hypothetical given where the Stars are in the standings, and how streaky this team has been in the last month (Year? Decade?). They have been world-beaters behind their top line, hot goaltending and dynamic special teams. They have been a team without a work ethic that loses battles and hits the skids.

Who knows which team shows up for the final 53 games of the season?

If the Stars miss the playoffs again, I’d have to believe general manager Jim Nill could be in trouble. This is Nill’s ninth season as the team’s general manager, and it would be the fifth time the Stars have missed the playoffs. Dallas would have finished in the top three in the Central Division twice.

The goodwill built up from the Stanley Cup Final run — and extended after a 2020-21 season from hell — would dissolve, and the summer of 2022 could serve as a natural stopping point for a Stars team in transition.

Bowness’ contract expires after this season, and keeping Nill around would mean granting him the ability to hire a fifth head coach (or retain Bowness).

The Stars would have the goaltending position to figure out, as Jake Oettinger is a restricted free agent and Braden Holtby is an unrestricted free agent — plus Anton Khudobin in the minors.

Among skaters, $20.1 million is set to come off the books between Pavelski, Alexander Radulov, Michael Raffl, John Klingberg and Andrej Sekera entering free agency. That’s a lot of wiggle room to play with, even after expected raises to Jason Robertson and Denis Gurianov.

Nill does have one more season left on his contract that runs through 2022-23, and perhaps owner Tom Gaglardi wants to see the entire contract through before making a change. But making the playoffs and making a run would go a long way to keeping Nill.

Who is Jamie Benn to this team? There’s been a lot of talk last season and this one about Pavelski being the emotional leader of this team from reporters, teammates, and others. Do the players still look to Jamie anymore or is it all Joe, and is the C just a letter now?

— Jen in Dallas

The Stars love Benn.

The main thing to understand about Benn is that he is a completely different person in front of cameras and reporters than he is in front of his teammates. To the public, he’s short, emotionless, quasi-robotic and boring. To his teammates, he’s the guy that would do anything for them.

Feeling out of place as the new guy? Talk to Jamie. Need a place to stay after a tornado or winter storm knock out your power? Go stay with Jamie. Maybe you just need a friend to talk to? Jamie is there. Benn was one of the first players in the room for Ben Bishop’s retirement press conference, days after standing in a Staples Center hallway watching him play in the AHL.

If you are part of his tribe, that’s all that matters, and that’s why his teammates like him.

There’s no denying Benn’s on-ice contributions have waned in recent years. For those that think the “C” should reside on the best player’s chest, that is no longer true of Benn. He’s not the Art Ross winner and he’s not going to score 40 goals, but the respect inside the Stars dressing room remains.

It was easy to be monotonous during interviews when the production on the ice spoke louder, but it comes off as passionless when the numbers dip. That’s the disconnect between inside the dressing room and outside. Players don’t care how Benn is with reporters.

Pavelski is better where Benn might have weaknesses. He’s a better, more personable interview. He’s a greater offensive threat. He’s been a big voice in the room at different times during his three-year Stars tenure, that’s undeniable.

That doesn’t diminish how Benn’s teammates view him, however. It just means Pavelski is another respected leader in Dallas.

This is the bet that both John Klingberg and the Stars are making.

Klingberg and his camp are wondering what they can get on the open market vs. what they can get in Dallas. The Stars are questioning the same thing. Two months ago, Sportsnet reported that Klingberg was looking for an eight-year contract in the $62-66 million range, which would carry an average annual value of $7.75 million to $8.25 million.

Given how the defensemen market exploded over the summer, the cap hit seems reasonable. The variable is that Klingberg will be 30 years old when his next contract starts, and an eight-year deal takes him to 38 years old. His productivity is down again this year, so where does it head across the next decade?

You could understand how Tom Gaglardi and Nill are gun-shy about a maximum-term contract to someone in their 30s, given how contracts to Benn and Seguin have aged. (Devil’s Advocate: Is that really Klingberg’s problem, though?) A long-term Klingberg contract would tie up a ton of money on the blue line, in addition to anchoring a ton of money to guys in their 30s like Benn, Seguin, Klingberg and Ryan Suter.

If Klingberg checks out the open market for his next contract, he loses a bit of control over the situation in which he lands. Who is contending? Do they have cap space? What’s his role on the blue line? Does he like the city? Klingberg knows these things about Dallas, and the Stars know that.

That process is how Dougie Hamilton ended up in New Jersey, and how Seth Jones ended up in Chicago.

Might other teams view Klingberg as closer to Morgan Rielly (eight years at $7.5 million) or Torey Krug (seven years at $6.5 million)? Sure, but only time will tell.

Do you get the sense or even have the opinion that the Stars should be buyers at the deadline? Any names that make sense to add to this roster in hopes to give it a little jumpstart going toward the playoff push? I’d love to see Phil Kessel here to play with Pavelski and Suter, but should we not get our hopes up they will do anything of substance between now and March 21?

— Doug in Orange County

Any word on if we’re pursuing Chychurn? Also, any idea of what Nill might be looking for if he did test the trade market?

— Zach in Midland

These all have to do with the same theme, so I grouped them all together here.

The trade deadline is in three months, and the best answer is that no one knows how the Stars will play in the next three months, so we all have no idea what they will do at the trade deadline. If last season taught us anything about this team and Jim Nill, it’s that they will ride their group until they are no longer in the playoff hunt.

In the spring, the Stars were on the playoff periphery all season, but Dallas held on to Jamie Oleksiak, Blake Comeau and Andrew Cogliano. The Stars missed the playoffs and none of the three are contributors on the current team.

Circle back in two months, and we could have a clearer picture. Or we might not, who knows?

If this season were an album, what album is it and what track are we on?

— Tyler in Seguin

OK, “Tyler in Seguin.”

This season is “The Life of Pablo” by Kanye West. An odd and confusing rollout and a tracklist that doesn’t have a cohesive theme. “Low Lights” (the loss to Nashville) is on the album early, immediately followed by “Highlights,” or the seven-game win streak. A bit of self-reflection with “I Love Kanye.” After the five-game losing streak, we were around “FML.”

Now, to look ahead to what’s to come … and “Fade” is the second-to-last track. Uh oh.

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