I loved you long time (Not so much this last year or 2). i think he did everything he was accused of. Thank you for 2010, 2013, and 2015. Good bye #10.

Went to a handful of games down in Dallas during Sharp's brief tenure there. I was surprised talking to people at the Dallas games that Sharp was hardly on their radar down there. It was all Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn. If I saw a Sharp sweater at a Stars home game, it'd be a Blackhawks #10.

Sharp had a way of scoring timely goals for the Blackhawks in the playoffs.

Well, it's understandable that there was no sentimental connection to Sharp. He'd never done anything for them and, as it turned out, never really did.

By design, Dallas doesn't seem like a market that's high on sentimentality. The Stars' roster construction under Nill has seemed to de-emphasize the developmental pipeline in favor of lying in wait for other teams to get cap-crunched or have players demand trades out of town (or in Seguin's case, have the GM's brain leak out his ear). That's how they got Horcoff, Spezza, Sharp, Demers, Methot, Bishop, and probably a few others I'm missing, all while not really giving up much of anything -- or in Sharp's case, receiving a bonus asset (Stephen Johns) as inducement to receive another. I suspect this is not only a hockey-ops preference for known commodities but also a fear on the business side of stripping the team down to the copper piping and starting all over as is done in points north: the Stars' glory days at the turn of the millennium were all just checkbook general managing and there's probably not much patience for years of not knowing anyone's name. Compare with Tampa Bay, which, while they've made some finishing-touch moves, grew their core themselves.

The weird thing isn't that it hasn't really worked for them, because overrelying on veteran signings and trades to buttress a miracle fifth-round pick has yielded about what you'd expect: they finished first in the conference once but mostly live in 9th place. What's weird is that they get wheelbarrows of praise for their brilliant offseasons that amount to nothing while the New York Islanders use about the same strategy (hell, both teams even dinged the Hawks on cap crunches) with about the same results (got in a few times, won a round once, usually miss) but are a laughingstock of the NHL. I suspect it's because there aren't many Stars fans and the ones who do exist spend a lot of time online being witty, while Islanders fans tend to be irascible middle-aged chuds who have to pop blood pressure pills just from thinking about Mike Francesa.

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I've spent a lot of time in Dallas for work the last year. Their sports talk yakcer (The Ticket) does give the Stars their share of time....surprisingly....more time than the Blackhawks get here at home. No softballs.....they're PISSED about the Stars performance. I spent the last 2 weeks hearing them just roast the team / players.

Wouldn't picture Dallas as an NHL market, but gotta give them some credit....they've legit.

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Sounds like an inverse of Chicago: they get media attention but no one goes to the games, the Hawks sell out but can't get time on sports radio. Probably has more to do with hockey activists on the Dallas station(s) and anti-hockey activists on ours.

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The picture is of a better time and Sharp is hot. I didn't really miss him when he went to Dallas, didn't really care he came back, and don't think I'll miss him after he retires. I miss watching Hossa play.

The way I have always described Sharp and I think it can at both times be considered a compliment and an insult is when he was in his prime I stated that he was the worst good hockey player in the NHL. I think that sums him up perfectly.

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Bryan Little is like that too.

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true dat. the referenced convos with stars fans re: Sharp's level of popularity with Dallas fans were more about Sharp being the designated heart-throb of the Blackhawk's female fan-base. Sharp didn't seem to have anything like that status down in Dallas. Maybe a function of the main guys on the Stars overshadowing Sharp in popularity with the ladies. Seguin/Benn, moreso Sequin, going by my gf's at the time level of interest in Tyler; always pulling up Sequin's instagram to show me his latest tattoo and asking why I didn't have any tattoos. No amount of ink was going to close the grand canyon-sized looks gap btw me and dude. Millennials, whatchagonnado. Whereas Toews/Kane still looked like jr hockey players years into their NHL careers--the sort of dudes Plano or Deerfield cougars might fantasize about taking home, cooking em dinner and tucking them into bed vs taking them to bed.

Bowman's Wings used the sign Cup seeking veterans strategy to some success post-2000. Bringing in Brett Hull and Dominik Hasek for a cup in 2002 (Chelios was already there). But then the Wings had one of the best defenseman to ever play the game anchoring their D and they could mix and match scorers in front of him. Yzerman/Federov were a few years further into their careers by that point than Toews/Kane are now. But I wouldn't be surprised if the Bowmans pursue a similar strategy to pick up another Cup or 3 with Toews/Kane.

The current Stars franchise never got their defense properly sorted.

Those Wings teams were also in a league where the salary cap was more like a salary suggestion. It wouldn't be hard to round up everyone who wants a ring and wouldn't mind living in Chicago, the hard part is getting them to take the haircuts they'd need to take with the Toews/Kane/Seabrook money on the books and the league's reliance on a volatile currency.

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