4 Playoff Teams That Have Proved You're Only as Good as Your Stars
The Stars, Panthers, Maple Leafs, and Jets have won and lost through their best players.
At the trade deadline and during the offseason, a lot of teams prioritize their depth. It’s a way to shore up any imperfections on their roster.
In theory, that makes a lot of sense. Too many stars create an imbalance, and you’re not going anywhere with poor depth.
But what if I told you that’s somewhat of a misconception?
Once the postseason comes around, oftentimes, the first-round picks and millions of dollars spent on “depth” become irrelevant. No matter how well they play, the ones allowing or preventing you from going on a deep run are the stars on the team.
Four clubs have seen this in the 2025 Playoffs: the Dallas Stars, Florida Panthers, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Winnipeg Jets.
Note: Stats accurate through May 19
What Is a Star? What Is a Superstar?
To get a better idea of what a star and a superstar are, let’s define them.
There are a lot of stars in the NHL in my book, but the requirement is far from loose. Players who have a track record of solid point production and/or can drive play inside the top six fit under the umbrella for forwards. It’s similar for defensemen, but it’s important to consider their shutdown game, also.
What exactly does this mean? For forwards, Byron Bader of Hockey Prospecting’s model has 0.70 career points per game over 200 games (57 points per full season) as the star bar—let’s use that for simplicity. Using that model, there are 85 forward stars in the league. Some players who just made the cut are Alex Tuch, Seth Jarvis, and Timo Meier.
We can probably expand that if we want, though—Tomáš Hertl’s 0.69 points per game are right on the cusp.
So, what we can do is look at top six players who can drive play. If they make a difference on the ice and actively lead to their lines performing better, that can work. In this case, Hertl would absolutely work, just based on the eye test alone—his blend of skill and physicality is a huge benefit to the Vegas Golden Knights.
Defensemen are a bit trickier, but a combination of production and two-way play is important. They need to have a workload and produce, either points-wise, puck-moving-wise, or by shutting down their opponents (Jaccob Slavin and Jared Spurgeon come to mind as the best examples of the latter).
Basically, most teams should have about one or two defensemen who qualify. Better teams have more. The Golden Knights, as an example, would be Shea Theodore, Alex Pietrangelo, and Noah Hanifin.
Shifting gears, the superstar criteria are much stricter. Personally, for forwards, I look at elite play-driving guys—remove them from the equation, and bad things happen. The only Golden Knight who works here is Jack Eichel—he’s a wizard at distributing the puck, and the team is noticeably more effective when he’s out there. As a result, he scores a lot of points. The best teams have about three of them, at most, while the poor teams don’t have any.
Which teams’ stars and superstars have done well? Which haven’t?
Dallas Stars
The Stars really have one guy to thank for still being alive in the playoffs: Mikko Rantanen. Leading the NHL in postseason scoring and a whole eight points ahead of his next-best teammate, it’s been a sight to behold. Obviously, his Game 7 hat trick and four primary points versus the Colorado Avalanche were essential in a 4–2 win to advance.
He was just as clutch against the Jets, who had some star struggles. But Rantanen has been a monster the entire way, also. He’s the biggest reason they’re in the Western Conference Final.
The Stars looked like one of the weakest teams entering the playoffs, coming off a seven-game losing streak that had frankly been brewing for a while. They weren’t playing well for months, starting with Miro Heiskanen’s injury on Jan. 28.
