Tom Hicks was 10 minutes removed from taking a season-ending team picture with the Dallas Stars when he noted the silence and depression in the room.

	Marty Turco is 28-12-2 in Dallas. But are the Stars ready to hand their Cup hopes to him?

"You could see the mood," said the Stars owner. "It's very different from prior years."

Hicks, who also owns the Texas Rangers, could have been excused if he was the most silent and depressed. He spent $57 million on a hockey team that missed the playoffs. His baseball team went out and broke the piggy bank this summer only to get off to another slow start. It could be awful easy for Hicks to start kicking people with his trademark cowboy boots. Yet, the tall, lean Texan was more philosophical than anything when he assessed what to do with his hockey team.

"Y'know, my other business has been in a real slump for 18 months," said Hicks, who is a leverage buyout specialist. His company, Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, has made over 400 transactions valued at more than $50 billion since it was started in 1989, and the group was hit hard by the recent recession.

"Still, it's starting to pull out of it now, and I see the sports teams the same way," he said. "It's just a matter of having patience and making the right moves."

One could argue there has been little patience with the Stars and Rangers over the past two seasons. The question is have Hicks' people made the right moves?

The transition has started at the top where the Southwest Sports Group has tried to pull as many of the jobs of the two separate teams under the same management umbrella. Management, marketing and ticket sales are done mostly by the same group. When Stars president Jim Lites resigned last month and moved to the Phoenix Coyotes, there was no attempt to replace him. His duties will be absorbed by the SSG management team. That means that the Stars will have lost Lites and marketing guru Jeff Cogen (now Florida Panthers president) in a span of 12 months. And that has to hurt some.

The moves inside the organization have been even more debilitating. GM Bob Gainey has stepped down and become a consultant, firing coach Ken Hitchcock as his last move of active duty. Assistant GM Doug Armstrong has stepped up a year earlier than he expected and hired a new assistant in former Colorado exec Francois Giguere. Coach Rick Wilson has an interim title and will probably know his fate before May.

Many players are in the same boat. Joe Nieuwendyk and Jamie Langenbrunner have been traded. Ed Belfour probably has played his last game in a Stars uniform. All in all, the Stars have moved out a significant part of their 1999 Stanley Cup winning organization, and now it's time to start over again.

Yet, Hicks seems unfazed by the whole process. Stability was the rock on which the Stars were built -- the stability from Gainey and his trust in Hitchcock; the stability of Modano and Nieuwendyk as one of the best 1-2 center punches in the league; the stability of Belfour as one of the most consistent goalies in the league. That's all gone now, but Hicks said the desire to seek the same goal is all the stability he needs.

"Winning is what's important, not stability," Hicks said. "Stability can be part of winning, but not always."

No, change can be a big part of winning, and Hicks said he is ready to make whatever changes are necessary to win the Stanley Cup within the next two seasons. When the current collective bargaining agreement runs out in 2004, there could be a labor stoppage, there could be a salary cap, there could be some hardships for the Stars. So in the next two seasons, the Stars feel they have to make a spirited run.

"This would be the wrong time to start over again," Hicks said.

So he has given Armstrong the green light to seek out free agents or trades or coaching moves -- or whatever he thinks will help the team win. And Armstrong has said that maybe what will help the team most is a little more stability.

"I think there are times you look around and ask yourself if there haven't been enough changes already," Armstrong said. The Stars dressed 26 forwards this season -- part of an ill-fated experiment to improve the skill level. They signed Pierre Turgeon, Donald Audette, Valeri Kamensky and Pat Verbeek in the offseason and traded for Jyrki Lumme. They swapped Audette and Shaun Van Allen for Martin Rucinsky and Benoit Brunet, and then traded them as well. It has been a season of inconsistency that has led to all sorts of chemistry problems in the room.

"It's been like a revolving door in the locker room this year," said assistant coach Craig Ludwig, who was a member of the 1999 team. "I really think management tried to make the best moves they could and what they thought was right at the time, but you never got that team bond. I mean how can you even call it a team when we've had so many changes?"

	“	It's not all money. People want to go where they want to win, so we've got to convince people that this is a place where we can win. ”
		— Tom Hicks, Stars owner

So now, the Stars have five top-six forwards who look like locks. Mike Modano (31), Pierre Turgeon (32), Jason Arnott (27), Brenden Morrow (23) and Jere Lehtinen (28). That's a solid group if the pieces fit. Expect the Stars to go after one of the big name free-agent wingers this summer to complete the group. They'd love Bill Guerin, and probably will also look into getting Blues forward Scott Young to consider reuniting with Turgeon, but Hicks said he understands what happens when a team gets too far ahead of itself. The Stars targeted John LeClair and Jeremy Roenick last summer, but they were so far out of the running they were never able to talk.

"Everybody has their style and Doug's style is to have lots of balls in the air at one time and to be a little more flexible than we've been in the past, which I think is pretty good," Hicks said. "With the free agents, we want to market who we really want and try to do a better job of closing that (deal). It's not all money. People want to go where they want to win, so we've got to convince people that this is a place where we can win."

As for defense, the Stars believe in the group they have and might return it intact. Rookie John Erskine played very well beside Richard Matvichuk late in the season. Derian Hatcher and Sergei Zubov also showed some chemistry. With Zubov the oldest defenseman at 31, the team seems in good shape. That means the biggest change will be in goal. It's almost certain Belfour will not be offered a contract, but is the management group ready to hand the team to Marty Turco (26)? Turco has a 28-12-2 record in two seasons with a 2.01 goals-against average and a .923 save percentage -- numbers that seem to indicate he deserves a chance to take over this team. However, the potential availability of Curtis Joseph, Byron Dafoe or Mike Richter as free agents could sway Armstrong.

It will likely be the most important decision he makes this summer.

Whatever happens, the Stars believe they have a chance to get back to where they once were.

They had poor goaltending this season, made some key mistakes, struggled to score at key times and still could finish nine games above .500. That's indicative that there is plenty of talent on the team. They key is to bring together the talent, coaching and management in the proper mix.

"You need chemistry," Modano implored. "It's not about having the highest payroll. It's how the players mesh together and play well."

Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.