No matter what you think of Dallas Stars coach Glen Gulutzan, one undeniable fact about his career as an NHL head coach is that it has not been as good as Peter DeBoer's.
Among the 139 coaches with at least 300 games behind the bench, Gulutzan ranks 94th in wins, which is respectable until you remember how many coaches didn't get to work in an era with loser points and shootout wins.
But another thing that's true about Gulutzan is that in his two previous jobs, his team's points percentage dropped from Year 1 to Year 2, and he didn't keep his job after either of those second seasons.
As the Stars enter the second season of their second Gulutzan era, separated by 14 years, the question becomes what the long-term outlook is for coach and team alike.
The recently signed Jason Robertson contract creates a potential ticking clock on the Stars' window to compete.
Yes, the Stars were one of the best teams in the league last season (recording 112 points in an incredibly difficult Central Division), but if they crash out of the playoffs early, which is very possible given the other teams in that division, you have to wonder if Robertson starts eyeing the door.
Even if he doesn't, and instead commits to Dallas long-term sometime this season, just like all the best-case scenarios say, the sting of another exit is gonna be hard to swallow.
Stars GM Jim Nill relieved DeBoer of his duties after three straight trips to the Western Conference Finals, where the Stars won fewer games each successive year. Gulutzan has coached just 10 playoff games in his entire six-year career, and won only two of them. Not two rounds.
Two games.
Not that you can really hold his one appearance with the Calgary Flames against him, due to how bad that team was. But the pressure on Dallas to win now is immense, among the highest in the league given what their roster looks like.
After a 50-win season, they were almost assuredly looking for more than two playoff wins as an outcome after a great season.
The division is difficult, and multiple top players were either not available or clearly playing through injury. Easy to write that off. But what if the team"only" wins 45 games and, say, crashes out of the second round?
That's improvement in some ways, a step back in others, and ultimately brings the Stars back to the same place.
They cannot add talent to the roster without some serious salary-cap maneuvering and a willingness to give up serious assets. The fact that they tried unsuccessfully to trade Robertson twice tells you how tight of a spot they're in because of the Tyler Seguin contract.
With that in mind, especially if they're slow out of the gate or hit a mid-season skid, Nill might really only have one choice to keep the season afloat: move on from Gulutzan.
It shouldn't take too much for the Stars to avoid that. They have the talent at every single position to be a great regular-season team, and if things go right, push their way through at least one round of the playoffs as well.
Would that be enough to keep everyone in Dallas satisfied, given the state of the team and the precarity Robertson's contract situation creates? That's a question for Gulutzan and his team to answer.