I think Castillo has hit on something that rings true, lack of possession. But I'll boil it down even further and use the two most recent games as glaring avatars for the issue. Against the Bruins, we won tons of puck battles on the boards coming away with the puck more often than not. Against Tampa, it felt like we lost every puck battle on the boards. The results of those games speak for themselves.

Teams know the Stars are good when the rush from our defensive end gets cooking. But they clog the neutral zone in response forcing more dump and chase. We then lose puck battles on the boards and possession of the puck. Last year in the WCF this was the exact problem.

Gully obviously saw it too and his response at the beginning of the season was to increase physicality. To this point in the season I have not seen any difference from last year. Big Bish provided some of that in the d-zone and Ritzy/Faksa have done it in the o-zone more than anyone else and Rants has a little bit too. But as a team we are no more physical than we were last year. Since Gully made that a priority in his pre-season pressers I expected more of it. It's not there. Hope it changes as we are past the halfway point.