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Dallas Stars’ AHL Affiliate Preparing For Season Opening Weekend

By Tom Dorsa

26 December 2015: Texas Stars head coach Derek Laxdal watches action during 5 - 4 loss to the San Antonio Rampage at the Cedar Park Center in Cedar Park, TX.(Photo by John Rivera/Icon Sportswire) (Photo by John Rivera/Icon Sportswire/Corbis via Getty Images)
26 December 2015: Texas Stars head coach Derek Laxdal watches action during 5 - 4 loss to the San Antonio Rampage at the Cedar Park Center in Cedar Park, TX.(Photo by John Rivera/Icon Sportswire) (Photo by John Rivera/Icon Sportswire/Corbis via Getty Images) /
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Just like the Dallas Stars of the NHL, the minor league Texas Stars are gearing up for their season-opening affair this weekend.

On October 6th, 2017, Dallas Stars fans had their attention on the National Hockey League team’s season-opening bout against the Vegas Golden Knights. For all the right reasons, of course, as the Stars boast perhaps their best roster of this decade heading into the 2017-18 campaign.

The Stars are entering their historic 25th NHL season with healthy superstars Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin, in addition to a horde of new acquisitions slipping on a Victory Green sweater. With solidarity in all positions and all three zones, the Stars are prepared for a potential Stanley Cup run this spring.

And though the Stars didn’t come away with the win, there was a lot to like about their performance last night. As always, it’ll be fun to pack into American Airlines Center and watch Dallas play this season.

However, their farm team down in the American Hockey League, the Texas Stars, prepared for an oddly identical season-opening match on Friday night. A home game – at HEB Center at Cedar Park – against the Golden Knights’ own AHL subsidiary, the Chicago Wolves, on October 6th.

Texas split two preseason meetings with the San Antonio Rampage over the last week, further prepping for regular season play. The Stars are facing the Wolves yet again on Saturday for the first two times of six meetings this season.

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“There’s great energy in the room, the guys are excited to get the season started,” Texas head coach Derek Laxdal said on Thursday afternoon. “We can’t wait to get started tomorrow night.”

They definitely started off on the right foot, defeating the Wolves 6-5 on Friday night to start the season 1-0-0.

For those that see the AHL as a development league and nothing else, you’ll be pleased to see how skilled this team – from top to bottom – really is. The Texas Stars, after missing the Calder Cup Playoffs last season for only the second time in franchise history, looked primed to return to the postseason.

With AHL and NHL training camp at HEB Center having wrapped up, both teams have their rosters set. Just like the Dallas Stars, Texas has got themselves a pretty stacked roster: veterans of the Cedar Park hockey scene Travis Morin, Greg Rallo, Curtis McKenzie, and Justin Dowling return to the fray, assisted by some of the top prospects in the Dallas system; Denis Gurianov, Gavin Bayreuther, Jason Dickinson, Roope Hintz, and Remi Elie amongst them.

Also, the Texas Stars picked up AHL standouts Mike McKenna, Brian Flynn, and Brent Regner to help solidify an already stout club on paper. All three have tastes of NHL time, and are extremely valuable to the young team in Cedar Park. McKenna fills the hole at goaltender left by the departing Justin Peters and Maxime Lagace, Flynn adds some snarl to the forward group, and Regner holds down the fort on the Stars’ blueline.

One thing the Stars will do a lot of this season is match their NHL parent club and skate the wheels off of their opponents. “We try to push the pace as much as we can. That’s been a thing that’s been preached to us since day one of being with this orgaization,” center Jason Dickinson, entering his third season with Texas, said. “That’s the big thing we try to do: attack them with speed.”

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Dallas Stars /

Dallas Stars

It’s always important, especially as the Dallas Stars recently underwent a coaching change of their own to bring in Ken Hitchcock, for an AHL team to match the gameplay style of their parent club. To Laxdal and the coaching staff, the speed of the team is nothing he won’t embrace. “I haven’t seen a group this fast in the four years of me coaching here,” Laxdal added. “The pace should be outstanding. I’m really excited to see these guys play tomorrow night.”

TEXAS STARS FAST FACTS

  • 21 current Dallas Stars roster players are products of the AHL, 13 of them having played for the Texas Stars in their career.
  • The Texas Stars won the 2014 Calder Cup in five games over the St. Johns IceCaps with a team that featured current Dallas Stars Brett Ritchie, Radek Faksa, and Jamie Oleksiak.
  • The Stars are twice winners of the AHL’s Western Conference. Of course, Texas won in 2014, and in their inaugural season of 2009-10.
  • In 2007, Cedar Park announced the plans for a hockey arena to house the Dallas Stars main affiliate that had been playing home games in Des Moines, Iowa as the Iowa Stars. Iowa became Texas in 2009.
  • The Texas Stars are beginning their ninth season in the Lone Star State. Texas has missed the postseason just twice out of eight full seasons.

All in all, the Stars will be playing an extremely fast pace and trying to wear their opponents down over the course of the season. A couple of tidbits for those of you that follow the Stars: Landon Bow has won the backup goaltending job after a strong showing in both training camps; Philippe Desrosiers has been assigned to the ECHL’s Idaho Steelheads.

The Stars will have to scratch two of Morin, Flynn, Rallo, Dowling, McKenzie, Regner, Andrew Bodnarchuk, and Mark McNeill in each game this season to comply with a rule set by the AHL that limits the amount of veterans on a single team. “Things like this have a tendency to work themselves out,” Laxdal says. “We have to be fair to some of our guys.”

As the Dallas Stars carry 13 forwards and eight defensemen again this season, that means the first time someone in Victory Green goes down, one Texas Stars forward will be recalled. Expect that to be Dowling, Dickinson, Elie, or Hintz after their stellar camps and preseasons.

Next: Stars Have Huge Advantage In Being Able To Rebound Well

If you live outside of the Austin area and can get to a Texas Stars game or two this winter, do it. This team is wonderful to watch and HEB Center is a fun arena for minor league hockey. Catch our reports from Cedar Park on Blackout Dallas over the season and Go Stars.

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