Dallas Stars: Key Games from the 2018-19 Schedule

The Dallas Stars regular season schedule for 2018-19 was released this afternoon. They will open the season at home on October 4 and play their last regular season game at home on April 6.

When the Dallas Stars open the season, they won’t be raising any new banners, but they will be starting their quest to add a second championship banner to the rafters twenty years after their 1999 Stanley Cup victory.

This year’s schedule features four four-game road trips, a five-game road trip, and a six-game road trip. There are also a few long homestands, including four games to start the season and six at home surrounding the bye week.

The schedules of all 31 teams were revealed in a show hosted by the NHL so fans can start marking off their calendars and planning around the games. Here are a few key match-ups fans won’t want to miss.

Arizona at Dallas – October 4

The first game of the season will be at home yet again for the eighth consecutive year. The NHL season starts the night before, but this will be the first time the team takes the ice for a game that counts after the off-season. Barring any major roster changes, this will feature the Stars facing off against two former defensemen, Jason Demers and Alex Goligoski. Demers spent almost two years with the Stars while Goligoski was in Dallas for 385 games over six seasons.

The Coyotes have struggled in recent years, including a rough start to last season that saw the team drop their first 11 games. In addition, the Stars beat them in all three games last year. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2011-12, but they’ve made some strong moves to improve. They reportedly agreed to an extension with their star defenseman, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, and traded Max Domi to the Canadiens in exchange for Alex Galchenyuk. They also locked starting goaltender Antti Raanta up for three more years.

Winnipeg at Dallas – October 6

Two nights after the season opens, the Dallas Stars will host the Winnipeg Jets in the second of a four-game homestand to open the season. The game against the Coyotes may be the first of the year, but this will likely be the first true test for the newest iteration of the team. The Jets had the Stars’ number last year, sweeping the regular season series.

The Jets are going into the offseason with goaltender Connor Hellebuyck needing an extension as he hits RFA status, but most of their core players are locked up on contracts already. They made it to the conference finals last year before falling to the Vegas Golden Knights and they will probably continue to find success next season.

It’s also the first game of the year for the Tyler Seguin/Mark Scheifele rock-paper-scissors battles.

Dallas at Colorado – November 24

In the second game of a back-to-back, the Dallas Stars will travel to Denver to play the Colorado Avalanche. While new head coach Jim Montgomery didn’t coach the Avs themselves, he did coach the University of Denver for five years. While with Denver, he led them to the national championship game, where he defeated current Dallas Stars prospect Riley Tufte‘s Minnesota-Duluth team. This will be his first game back in Denver since taking the job in Dallas.

In addition to the sentimental value, the game against the Avalanche will likely provide a test for the Stars. They have struggled against goaltender Semyon Varlamov in particular, who holds a 13-6 record against the Stars. They play the night before at home and then travel to the mile-high city, which provides an extra level of exhaustion for the team.

Buffalo at Dallas – January 30

A game against Buffalo wouldn’t ordinarily be particularly noteworthy, but this one is for two reasons. One, it’s the 20 year anniversary of the season in which the Stars defeated the Sabres to win their first Stanley Cup. Two, it’s their first game after their long bye week.

This year, the Dallas Stars will take January 20-29 off. This break includes the NHL All-Star Weekend, which will take place January 26-27, but for the players not attending the festivities, they have ten days off with no games. That’s a lot of time for players to get out of the mindset of the season and get their heads out of the game. This is the third year of the league’s attempts at adding bye weeks for teams, and it’s been met with mixed responses. The Stars have gone 1-1 after the breaks so far and they’ll look to improve that record against the Sabres.

Minnesota at Dallas – April 6

The final game of the year is once again at home after being on the road to finish up the 2017-18 schedule. The kicker here is that it could possibly be an important playoff match-up as well. With both the Minnesota Wild and the Dallas Stars in the Central Division, it could have serious implications on the playoffs. It could also be completely irrelevant to anything with one or both teams using it as a game to get younger players some ice time. Only time will tell.

The two teams split last year’s four-game series, but the Wild made the playoffs while the Stars did not. The Wild probably won’t make any major changes for next year, but they are one of the teams in the playoffs this year that look ripe for the Stars to knock off for a playoff berth next season.

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Bonus Game

There’s another big game or two for next year that fans don’t know yet: whichever games are the first against the teams that the biggest off-season acquisitions came from. Last year, it was Ben Bishop against the Lightning and Marc Methot against the Senators. A few years ago, it was Patrick Sharp and Johnny Oduya against the Blackhawks. Fans will see what Jim Nill has in store for them this off-season soon to find out which games to circle on the calendar.

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