Blackout Dallas
Fansided

Dallas Stars To Take On Rivals Early In New Season

By Micaela Hamid

May 11, 2016; Dallas, TX, USA; Dallas Stars center Cody Eakin (20) and St. Louis Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo (27) battle for the puck during the second period in game seven of the second round of the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
May 11, 2016; Dallas, TX, USA; Dallas Stars center Cody Eakin (20) and St. Louis Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo (27) battle for the puck during the second period in game seven of the second round of the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports /
facebooktwitterreddit

The Dallas Stars will jump headfirst into their new season with pre-season and regular season openers against post-season rivals, signaling an electric start to something very promising.

Season openers are exciting business. There’s something about starting fresh knowing your slate is clean and your best days are ahead of you that make you care a bit less about the bumps in the road you know you will inevitably encounter on the way.

On top of that, the Dallas Stars have a fan base that is becoming one of the most quickly growing in the NHL. With their recent successes and exposure, the Stars are coming into their own and ushering in a new 1999-esque era.

And people are taking notice. The AAC has been increasingly full and loud, and the fans are really starting to understand what the Stars mean when they say everybody ropes and everybody rides.

So naturally, the start of the 16-17 season is going to be explosive. We are all going to be out of our minds that the Stars are back in the saddle and chasing glory again. But on top of that, we can expect some extra sparks to fly.

Just two weeks from today, the Dallas Stars will open up their preseason contests against the St. Louis Blues, at home at American Airlines Center. While it’s true that preseason games can’t predict the outcome of a season, and while it’s true that these games don’t count against the record, they absolutely do still count for something.

Preseason games not only give the players a chance to settle back into the routine of consistent games and practices, but they give fans a chance to do the same.

This years’ preseason opener will do that, and more. In competing against the team that knocked them out of the second round of last season’s playoffs, the Stars will get a chance at some poetic justice.

While the game won’t count, per se, it will indeed say a lot about the tenacity and determination of the Dallas Stars. Now, we can’t expect them to have it all together perfectly for the very first game they play this September.

But I think that if they can put the Blues down in this game, it will go a long way in letting their fellow Central division teams know in no uncertain terms that they intend to dominate even more than in the previous season.

You can see why this game might be important, on multiple levels. But it’s not the only ideologically high stakes competition they’ll face early on. Once their preseason is over, the Dallas Stars will march boldly into their regular season schedule.

Two and a half weeks after the Stars face the Blues in their preseason opener, they’ll turn around and face the Anaheim Ducks at home in their first game of the season.

If you’ll remember with me, the Dallas Stars and the Ducks have some playoff history of their own. In 2008, the Stars defeated the Ducks in the Western Conference quarterfinals, only to fall to Detroit.

Dallas fell short of the playoffs every season after that until 2014, but the tale would be much different this time. The Stars didn’t make it out of the first round, but exited the playoffs early with crushed spirits at the hands of the Ducks.

Again, the Stars will have a chance to make a statement at their home opener. The rivalry against the Ducks and the Stars has been a long-standing one, and we know better than anyone how heated those meetings can get.

But with the Stars fan base out in full force to support their team on opening night, and with Dallas on their home turf, it seems obvious that the Stars would be motivated to let Anaheim know that they’re not going to be bullied this season.

Next: Dallas Stars Suffer Moment of Uncertainty In World Cup of Hockey

So buckle up, Stars fans. You’ve survived through a whole hockey-less summer, and you are to be commended for that.

After just another two weeks, hockey will be back out in full force, and you know just as well as we do that when this train gets rolling, virtually nothing can keep it from slowing down and becoming anything but a wild ride. And hey, that’s just the way we like it.

Home/Editorials