This whole thing started with a text message.



On Friday around 9:15 am, texts were sent from a member of the Stars’ public relations staff to three writers who cover the team. One works for the Stars website, another works for a newspaper, and the third is me. It was an invite to a 12:15 pm meeting with Stars CEO Jim Lites to discuss the “general mid-way point state of our team.”



I was the only reporter available for the in-person meeting Friday and arrived at the Stars’ executive offices at noon. Still assuming this was a general interview, I actually started our conversation by asking Lites about the holidays and how the family was doing.



Brief pleasantries were exchanged before Lites asked me, “Well, what do you think about our team?”



In my view the Stars are an inconsistent, but mostly mediocre-to-average team right now. They have some flaws in roster construction and they’ve made bets on secondary...