Dallas Stars Building Exciting Potential Rivalry With Nashville Predators

There’s a developing storyline between the Dallas Stars and Nashville Predators that involves sincere dislike and repulsion. Considering their frequency of interacting in the upcoming future and the fireworks that come with each matchup, the NHL could very well have its newest rivalry budding.

The Dallas Stars are in Nashville tonight to take on the Predators. It’s the second meeting between the two clubs in the past six days and will serve as the second of three meetings over an 18-day span in February. That’s a lot of action to indulge in against one team over a limited timespan.

And yet, it’s a series that the Stars and Predators openly and even excitedly welcome, from the players and coaches to the front offices and fan bases. In fact, it’s a slate that the rest of the NHL is keeping an eye on. That’s due to a handful of reasons.

For one, the Stars and Predators are divisional foes. Since the NHL realigned prior to the 2013-14 season and pitted the two teams in the Central division together, Dallas and Nashville have squared off with each other 4-5 times every season. That’s brought a certain familiarity of the opposition to both sides as the teams have sized each other up and looked for ways to outdo the other over the years.

To add onto that, the Stars and Predators currently find themselves in a struggle for positioning in the Western Conference playoff race. Going into Thursday night, the Stars sit third in the Central division with a record of 28-21-4 and 60 points. The Predators sit just above them in second with a 32-19-4 mark and 68 points. But Dallas owns two games in hand, and with two four-point games against Nashville scheduled over the next few days, there is plenty of opportunity for the standings to jumble.

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But, perhaps more than anything, this is an exciting part of the regular season schedule because of the storyline that the Dallas Stars and Nashville Predators are currently brewing. It’s a storyline filled with friction, conflict, and discontentment. Simply put, it’s a rivalry in the development stages.

Rivalries are one of the most important, meaningful, and lasting themes in the world of sports. They serve as an irremovable glue that pits two franchises together for eternity. On top of that, they always make a game more meaningful, regardless of where the teams may be in the standings or how “important” that game may be to one of the clubs.

In the MLB, think New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. In the NBA, think Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers. The NFL boasts matchups like the Chicago Bears vs. Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Redskins. In college football, it’s Ohio State vs. Michigan, Alabama vs. LSU, and (though not so much anymore) Texas A&M vs. UT.

The NHL boasts its own list of brooding teams, including the Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Philadelphia Flyers and the Boston Bruins vs. Montreal Canadiens.

These are just some of the bigger rivalries that always find a way to draw a large field of attention. Whether that involves national networks broadcasting the game (regardless of what time of the season it takes place) or a battle for positioning in the standings race, rivalries make sports fun for even the casual fan. The fans love to hate each other, the players love to jaw with each other and stir up intense emotions, and the history books continue creating space for new chapters to be added.

Unfortunately for the Dallas Stars, they have never really built a true rivalry with any NHL team. Sure, they had a bit of an aggressive spat with the Detroit Red Wings in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, but they only see the Wings twice per season now. The intensity always steps up a notch when Dallas faces the Chicago Blackhawks, but that happens when most other teams face the Hawks as well.

Anaheim? Things can get chippy sometimes, but it’s never amounted to consistent beef. What about the Minnesota Wild since Dallas “stole” their first NHL team? That storyline is a fun one to exploit and follow, but there hasn’t been many positive steps past it.

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So, where does that leave the Stars? Well, it leaves them without a significant rival and somewhat in need of one. Rivalries generate following and revenue, hype fans up, and draw attention to the game. They are good for both teams as well as the sport in general.

But teams cannot simply declare another team as their rival and expect that to change the perception of the masses. There has to be output. Both teams have to see it in the same light. The product has to be visible.

Right now, that product is visible between the Dallas Stars and Nashville Predators.

For a rivalry to originate and grow, a few things need to happen: the opponents need to meet up frequently during the regular season, there needs to be a common theme between the two clubs (whether they play in the same state, are part of the Original Six, have an extensive history of meeting in the postseason, etc.), and the dislike needs to trend consistently upward with each matchup.

The Stars are a combined 14-11-2 against the Predators since the beginning of the 2013-14 season. On the flip side, Nashville is 13-10-4 against Dallas. And in the 27 contests against each other, both clubs have scored 79 total goals. This closeness is enough to make two teams circle each other’s names on the calendar every season. But it gets better.

The last 27 meetings have also brought about plenty of entertaining and “must see” action. In 2014, the Stars defeated the Predators in an intense shootout to keep their playoff hopes alive in early April. In 2015, Jamie Benn secured the franchise’s first Art Ross Trophy in a meaningless game 82 against the Predators thanks to a four-point night.

Back in February 2017, the Dallas Stars watched their season and playoff hopes fall apart at the seams as they blew an early 3-0 lead at Bridgestone Arena and fell 5-3 to pin themselves behind the 8-ball in a loaded Western Conference race. That game included three fights in a span of 9:39 in the first period, 58 combined penalty minutes, and a hefty number of roughing, cross-checking, and slashing calls. The frustration was evident for the Stars as they saw their season summed up in a deflating loss, and the Predators and their fan base fed off of it.

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This season, however, things have kicked up yet another notch. Back in November, the Predators traveled to Dallas and snuck out with a 5-4 comeback win in overtime while a respectable number of fans clad in yellow cheered in the American Airlines Center stands.

Six weeks later, Anton Khudobin put on the best performance of his career, silencing Nashville at Bridgestone Arena with a 49-save shutout as Dallas pulled out a 2-0 victory. The blanking went down in the history books of both franchises and left Predators fans in disbelief.

Last Saturday, no. 35 did it again at Bridgestone, stopping 38/39 as Dallas mounted a late rally and surged to a 3-1 win.

And that’s where the current focus lies as we get set for the fourth chapter of this showdown in the 2018-19 campaign on Thursday night. In last Saturday’s game, the Stars and Predators made it painfully obvious that they did not like each other.

Blake Comeau hit P.K. Subban with a fierce body check behind the net midway through the second period and drew a penalty from Subban’s retaliation. Ryan Hartman was shoved into Anton Khudobin a few minutes later and, after some spirited chattering, put his stick between Khudobin’s pads. Seconds later, Esa Lindell intervened for his goaltender and dropped the gloves for the first time in his NHL career.

"“My point is, if you look at the first period, he hit me really, really slightly and fell down. I don’t like diving in hockey. And he speared me a couple times, too, and I didn’t answer. But, you spear me again and dove, I’m like, ‘What are you going to do?’ Diver. That’s it. But, it’s hockey and it’s always going to be like this. If I need to drop the gloves, I will. But guys stepped in for me and I hope it’s not going to happen again.” – Khudobin on his bout with Hartman on 2/2"

The intensity picked up, the emotions were high, and the players took hold of that and turned it into a high-spirited game. And by the end of it, the only thing people could do was look at the schedule and make sure they could catch the next meeting.

If the season ended today, the Stars and Predators would meet in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. On Jan. 1, 2020, the two clubs will get together at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas for the 2020 Winter Classic. It will be the first time that both non-traditional franchises participate in an outdoor game of any kind and will be broadcast on NBC for the world to indulge in.

“When we were drawing this up in our minds, Nashville was always the perfect opponent,” Stars president Brad Alberts told Mike Heika of DallasStars.com about the Winter Classic setup. “The fact that the NHL and Gary Bettman made the decision to bring the Predators here, we’re thrilled with their decision. I think everyone agrees there is a chance here to do something new, something exciting and something unique, and now we just need to go make that happen.”