Are the Stars in danger of becoming the next Sharks after another squandered season?

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Sticks were flying, dislodged from their owners with hands, elbows, shoulders — probably even teeth if need be. Mavrik Bourque was chasing Quinn Hughes into the corner, matching him stride for stride and ripping the puck away from him. Mikko Rantanen was obliterating Jared Spurgeon behind the net, separating him from the puck and nearly separating his head from his body. Thomas Harley was diving toward the net, Wyatt Johnston was hunting for deflections, Miro Heiskanen was weaving in and out of traffic.

Suddenly, finally, the Dallas Stars had woken up — the sleeping giant rising from its slumber to remind the Minnesota Wild and the rest of the NHL just how good, just how dangerous, just how menacing they can be.

Only took 20 1/2 periods.

That fire, that urgency, didn’t surface until the Stars were truly up against it. Hughes had just given the Wild a 3-2 lead, pushing the Stars nine minutes, 22 seconds from a first-round exit. And Dallas responded.

That’s what it took. That’s how dire things had to get for the Stars to start taking this thing seriously. It was a reminder of how good the Stars can be, yes, but it was more so a condemnation of just how, what’s the word — mild? indifferent? disengaged? blasé? — the Stars had been. This tremendous assembly of talent, with four 40-goal scorers, a former scoring champion, a perennial Norris Trophy-candidate defenseman and an elite goaltender, coasted through much of this series. They leaned too heavily on their power play, went a preposterous 254 minutes without a five-on-five goal and let the Wild push them around, muscle them out of the slot and beat them to every 50-50 puck.

Stars coach Glen Gulutzan kept pointing to the analytics, which said the Stars went toe-to-toe in terms of possession, scoring chances and shot attempts. Even after the Wild sent the Stars packing and Grand Casino Arena into a delirious dizzy 11 years in the making with a 5-2 Game 6 victory, Gulutzan said it hadn’t been that lopsided. The numbers backed him up.

But anyone who watched this series knew better.

“Wanting it more” is a silly construct, one of those hockey cliches that make your eyes roll back so far in your head you can see Matt Boldy waiting at the back door. The Stars absolutely wanted to win this series. But the Wild, with so much futility on their shoulders, with so much fan angst and frustration and hope — actual hope! In Minnesota! — in the air? The Wild needed to win this series. And they played like it.

And when two legitimate Stanley Cup contenders meet, regardless of round, desperation tends to win out.

“I think we had good moments and stuff, (but) we just couldn’t play like that the whole 60 minutes,” Heiskanen said. “And that’s what we kind of needed.”

Oh, there are ways to explain this loss away. Legitimate ones, at that. The Stars went the whole series without their No. 1 center, Roope Hintz, a two-way standout and the most complete player on the team. Few teams could withstand such an injury, and Dallas wasn’t one of them. The Stars’ biggest strength is their depth, and removing the linchpin from the top of the lineup affected every line.

Then there’s the playoff format, which pitted two of the very best teams in the league against each other in the first round. It’s an absolute fact that significantly worse teams than Dallas will be in the second round, and will have had a much easier path to get there. This could have been a Western Conference final. But it wasn’t, and the Stars have to live with that.

And then there are the bounces. Ah, the bounces. Stars players spent all series talking about how Minnesota was getting the bounces, and that they were due for some bounces of their own. But another one of those hockey cliches is that you earn your bounces. And the bounce that ended Dallas’ season was well-earned.

On his game winner, as Jake Oettinger careened toward the near post to square him up, Hughes very intentionally shot wide to the far side into a tangle of bodies. Maybe Kirill Kaprizov or Ryan Hartman would get their stick on it. Maybe it would bounce in off a leg. Or maybe it would hit the back of Stars defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin’s skate and go in and give the Wild a 3-2 lead, blowing the roof off the arena. It was a savvy, heady play by a brilliant player, one who completely took over Game 6 in a way that no Dallas player took over any game — pfft, any shift — in this series.

“It felt like every time we made a mistake, it would end up in our net,” Matt Duchene said. “It wasn’t for a lack of trying to score. We just didn’t get the bounces that we needed, and they did at times — and at big times.”

The Stars will be back. Maybe wholesale. General manager Jim Nill has some offseason questions to face — starting with Jason Robertson, a restricted free agent coming off arguably the best season of his career. He might even command a higher salary than Rantanen’s $12 million. Is Nill willing to pay that, or will he dangle the 26-year-old three-time 40-goal scorer to try to replenish a depleted prospect and draft-pick pool? If he chooses to re-sign Robertson, does he move out somebody else to clear the room? A veteran such as Duchene? An injury-prone but still highly respected player such as Hintz?

Or does he run it back? Few could blame him. This group posted 112 points this season despite pretty much never having a fully healthy roster. They had a 14-0-1 run in the dog days of the season when they were at their most injured. And they’re coming off three straight trips to the Western Conference final. This is a really, really good team.

Gulutzan, for one, expects to have essentially the same group back in the fall.

“I would think so,” he said. “It’s hard to win. You just kind of keep punching your ticket and then try to have things line up and punch your way through. That’s just the only thing you can do in this league. So that’s why it’s the hardest trophy to win.”

There’s the rub, though. This is four years now of being a true Stanley Cup contender with zero Stanley Cups to show for it. Not even a trip to the Final. Four years of Robertson’s, Heiskanen’s and Hintz’s prime. Four years of going for it, of loading up at the trade deadline.

Four years of being really good. Zero years of being truly great.

“It’s frustrating, for sure,” Heiskanen said. “I don’t know if it’s concerning. I think we have a great team, and we have been close. We’re not going to win every year. It’s a hard thing to win.”

No matter what Nill decides this summer, the window will remain open. Harley is signed for eight more years. Rantanen and Oettinger are signed for seven, Hintz for five, Johnston for four, Esa Lindell for four, Duchene and Heiskanen for three. And remember, it took Alex Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals more than a decade to finally break through, rendering all the preceding perennial pain entirely worth it.

But remember Joe Thornton’s San Jose Sharks, too. All those dominant regular seasons. All those deep playoff runs. All for naught.

“It’s another year gone, and another opportunity where you don’t accomplish your goal, and that’s the worst part for me,” said Duchene, who’s been chasing that trophy for 17 years since making his playoff debut at age 19. “We’ve got a really good-caliber team, and that’s the hardest thing to swallow right now.”

It’s not as if things will get any easier. There’s the coming cap crunch, which makes Robertson’s future so uncertain. In the Central Division, the Colorado Avalanche are built for sustained success, too. The Wild certainly aren’t going anywhere. The Utah Mammoth are getting better and better. Even the Chicago Blackhawks — like the Anaheim Ducks and Sharks — are building what they hope will be a long-term Western Conference contender.

This was a year the Dallas Stars could have won the Stanley Cup. And they didn’t. That they didn’t even get out of the first round is almost immaterial.

“Since I got here — it’s only been two years — the standard here is Cup or nothing, basically,” Bourque said. “That’s the standard.”

The Stars take great pride in their composure, their poise. The only phrase that popped up more the last two weeks than “the bounces” or “five-on-five” was “even keel.” They never get too high, never get too low. That’s a great asset. But if there’s a lesson to be learned from these six games against the hungry — no, the absolutely famished — Wild, it’s that sometimes you need to show a little fire. A little urgency. A little desperation. Just being good isn’t good enough.

“You expect more,” Gulutzan said. “But it just goes to show you how hard it is to win.”

There will be more kicks at the can. But every one of them is precious. And every one squandered leaves a mark, takes its toll, ages you just a bit — and takes you one year closer to hockey oblivion.