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Dallas Stars’ Upcoming Diet (Leafs, Panthers, Predators) Could Be Filling in Points Column

The Toronto Maple Leafs team that will visit AAC on Wednesday night won’t drag in the NHL’s only winless record after all, winning at Anaheim on Monday night 6-3. You commit 17 penalties like the Ducks, and Niklas Hagman is going to make you pay - three power-play goals (giving him a team-high six this season). The Leafs have risen to 1-7-1.

The Stars’ schedule this week appears appetizing with the Leafs followed by Florida at AAC on Friday and a trip to Nashville on Saturday. Toronto and Florida are last and next to last in goals against. Nashville and Florida are last and next to last in scoring, with Toronto 25th. Dallas will face Toronto and Florida minus Steve Ott, suspended by the NHL for two games for his pop on St. Louis’ Carlo Colaiacovo on Saturday night.

The Leafs are in the second year of the Brian Burke-Ron Wilson regime. (This will be Wilson’s first appearance in Dallas since his top-seeded San Jose Sharks were ambushed in the second round of the ’08 playoffs, causing his departure from the Silicon Valley.) Their first season together resulted in the Leafs’ fourth consecutive season missing the playoffs.

This season, well, the numbers speak for themselves. Mike Zeisberger, the Leafs beat reporter for the Toronto Sun, published a comprehensive look at what had gone wrong going into Monday’s game, including a look at each player.

With Burke’s version of urban renewal, Toronto’s roster features only a handful of players who were there before he and Wilson took over. Their offense has been bad. Their penalty killing has been awful. Their goaltending has been poor. Vesa Toskala has a 5.56 GGA in four starts. Because rookie Jonas Gustavsson was sidelined for much of the last three weeks with a groin pull, Toronto had to resort to No. 3 netminder Joey MacDonald for three starts. Gustavsson, the free agent from Sweden whom the Stars courted, finally made his second start on Monday in the win over the Ducks.

Burke brought in free-agent tough guys Mike Komisarek from Montreal (part of a flotilla let go by Bob Gainey) and Colton Orr from the Rangers. Then there was the 11th-hour trade with Boston to acquire right wing Phil Kessel. Toronto parted with its first- and second-round draft picks for next summer and its first-rounder for 2011. Kessel scored 36 goals last season, more than any Leaf. But he also brought with him a bum right shoulder, injured last March. Kessel hasn’t played yet, only started practicing with the team last week, and Wilson is aiming at early next week for his medical clearance.

Other than that, things are going fine in the quest to win Toronto’s first Stanley Cup since 1967.

Florida owns the league’s longest non-playoff drought (starting in 2001) and is only ahead of Toronto in the East. The Panthers gambled on not trading defenseman Jay Boumeester last spring to take a run at ending that drought and failed. They have few scoring threats. The only Panther going into Wednesday night’s game against Ottawa with more than two goals is new center Steve Reinprecht (four), known more for his defensive play in Los Angeles, Colorado and Phoenix. So far, Stars fans are glad Florida didn’t re-sign Karlis Skrastins.

And we can’t close out October without another Stars-Predators tilt. Third meeting of the month, the teams won’t see each other again after that until the Stars return to Tennessee in late March. Since the Stars beat Nashville 6-0 on Oct. 14, the Predators have one OT win to show for their last five efforts. They’ve been shut out three times. Veteran center Jason Arnott is the only forward with three goals. Didn’t help that wing J.P. Dumont, their top point producer last season, missed four games after bring clocked by the Stars’ Stephane Robidas in the season opener.