Dallas Stars sit atop the league after best 21-game start in franchise history

It wasn’t until last December that Jim Nill began to see glimpses of the Dallas Stars’ capabilities, but their breakthroughs came too late for them to overcome an awful start and make the playoffs in the West.

“We started to do things right,” the Stars’ general manager said. “We were better defensively. We were more responsible with the puck. Our goaltending was better.

“The theme coming back this year was three things: We were terrible in our own division last year and our division record had to get better. We had a real bad start at home and we buried ourselves at home, and we had to be better defensively.”

So far, they’re three for three.

The one-quarter mark of the NHL season passed Monday with the Stars (17-4-0) surprisingly atop the league after the best 21-game start in franchise history. They were 8-9-4 after 21 games last season and didn’t earn their 17th victory until their 36th game.

They’re 2-1-0 against Central Division teams, a small sample but a step toward improving last season’s 8-14-7 division record. They’re 8-2-0 at American Airlines Center after finishing 17-16-8 at home last season. They’ve also cut their goals-against by about three-quarters of a goal per game while Kari Lehtonen and Antti Nieminen split playing time almost evenly. Plus, they haven’t faltered offensively, averaging 3.52 goals per game to rank second in the NHL.

“We came in at the start of the year with the players buying into what the coaches were teaching them,” Nill said. “The players have taken it upon themselves to be better, and it’s working out well for us.”

There’s an understatement.

Left wing Jamie Benn, last season’s NHL scoring champion, has a league-leading 14 goals and ranks third in points with 29, behind the Chicago Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane (32) and Stars teammate Tyler Seguin (30). Maybe the biggest revelation has been John Klingberg, who leads defensemen in scoring with 23 points and is tied for the league lead with a plus-14 defensive rating.

“We knew we had an offensive type of player but what’s probably impressed us the most is his overall game. He’s also very good defensively,” said Nill, who was hired as the Stars’ general manager in 2013 after 19 seasons in the Detroit Red Wings’ organization. “He’s got a great stick. He’s a great skater….A player like that changes your team.”

Nill also deserves credit for his bold deal-making, a pattern he established by acquiring Seguin from the Boston Bruins in 2013 and center Jason Spezza from the Ottawa Senators in 2014. Last summer he traded for forward Patrick Sharp and signed defensemen Johnny Oduya from the salary cap-squeezed Blackhawks, and signed Niemi after acquiring the goalie’s rights.

Their contributions are priceless.

“They’ve won at every level,” Nill said. “They’ve been in every situation. They’ve been down in games and came back and won, they’ve lost games and realized, ‘OK, let’s move on and learn from it.’ They’ve won Cups. They’ve won at world championships. They’ve won at Olympics. And you can never have enough of that in your room. They support Jamie Benn and they’re there to help him when he has to make decisions. It’s been a really good mix in the dressing room.”

Nill said that while the entire team has matured — including Seguin, whose off-ice behavior hastened his departure from Boston — Benn leads the way. “He is our captain and he’s really grown into that role,” Nill said. “It’s his team.”

It’s unlikely that the Stars will maintain their current pace. Nill simply hopes they can minimize any downturns.

“We’re very realistic,” he said. “We know that of those games we won, we could have lost four or five of them, that’s how tough the league is. We still can get better. We still have a ways to go. But I’m not going to lie. We’re very happy with our start, but that’s in the past now. We’ve just got to get better every game because the rest of the league is getting better.”

Kings and domestic violence

Goaltender Patrik Bartosak was among the players at the Kings’ training camp who participated in a session aimed at preventing domestic violence. He’s now facing 12 charges related to a domestic violence incident in Manchester, N.H., and was suspended without pay by the Kings.

What does that say about the educational efforts the Kings initiated following Slava Voynov’s no-contest plea to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge and his jail sentence?

“These programs are not a vaccine,” Dan Beckerman, president and chief executive of AEG — the Kings’ parent company — said Monday in a phone interview. “Though I wish it was like when I take my daughter to get her measles vaccination and you get a shot and you don’t get the measles. This is a process and it involves training, education, investment and resources.”

Beckerman said that while “it is frustrating that this alleged incident may have happened,” he sees no common thread among incidents involving Bartosak, Voynov, Jarret Stoll — who pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges stemming from his April arrest on suspicion of possessing cocaine and Ecstasy — and Mike Richards, who was charged with possession of a controlled substance.

“I think there are issues that are widespread throughout not just our team but the league and all of sports,” Beckerman said. “All we can do is give the players, the staff and the coaches the resources and education to minimize it and eliminate it.”

Concussion suit

Three-time Stanley Cup winner Craig Muni and standouts Michal Pivonka and Dennis Maruk were among 24 retired players who joined a concussion-related lawsuit against the NHL on Monday. The suit states that the NHL knew or should have known of scientific evidence linking repeated head trauma to long-term neurological problems and that it “caused or contributed to the injuries and increased risks to Plaintiffs through its acts and omissions.”

helene.elliott@latimes.com

Twitter: @helenenothelen