In every professional sports league, play within division is crucial. For example, if a team wins 75 percent of their games in the regular season, but the majority of their losses are against teams in their division, they have a chance at missing the playoffs.
That’s because postseason seeding is based on a division-by-division basis. In the NHL, each division has three playoff seeds to award to teams. For example, if the Stars go 45-25-12 (102 points) but finish 8-15-6 in the Central, they have a good chance at only gaining a wild card spot.
If you can’t succeed in the division, you can’t succeed overall.