NHL hockey will head back to Oklahoma this coming year as the Dallas Stars return to Tulsa. They will play another natural-site preseason game and take on the Florida Panthers during the 2019 preseason.
It’s only been six days since the Dallas Stars ended playoff hockey action with a Game 7 loss in double overtime to the St. Louis Blues. It’s also only been four days since they cleared out their lockers, delivered final remarks to the media, and headed out on their respective offseason endeavors.
And yet here we are talking about their preseason schedule for the 2019-20 season. How’s that for a quick turnaround?
But this isn’t a full spread and breakdown of their 2019 preseason campaign. Instead, it’s just information on one game.
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On Monday morning, the Dallas Stars announced that the team will head back to Tulsa, Oklahoma for a neutral-site preseason contest against the Florida Panthers. It will be the second consecutive year that the two teams meet in Tulsa for a preseason matchup. The game is scheduled to take place on Saturday, Sept. 21 at 7:00 p.m. at the BOK Center.
Last season, the Panthers secured a 4-3 win in overtime against the Stars to hand Dallas their first preseason loss of any kind. And although it was only eight months ago, here’s a quick perspective for you: the goal scorers for the Stars in that preseason contest were Denis Gurianov, Devin Shore, and Gemel Smith. Change comes at you fast sometimes.
Dallas finished the preseason with a strong 4-2-1 mark in 2018 and it helped catapult them into a successful 2018-19 campaign. The Panthers, on the other hand, finished 3-3-0 in the preseason and came up short of a playoff berth in 2018-19.
This time around, the Stars will have a new hill to climb in the neutral-site game. The Panthers spent the early portion of their offseason restocking and retooling. They hired a new head coach in Joel Quenneville (Coach Q) in an effort to turn around a team that has qualified for the postseason in just one of the last seven seasons.
Quenneville was recently fired by the Chicago Blackhawks near the beginning of the 2018-19 season, but has resume speaks for itself. He’s the second-winningest coach in NHL history, owns three Stanley Cup champion rings, and has missed the playoffs in just two of his 20 years as an NHL head coach.
On top of that, the stage is now set for Florida to make a big splash in free agency. Talks have been lingering for months about the Panthers targeting pending free agents Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky, two pieces that could drastically boost any franchise.
And so, the Dallas Stars might be meeting a significantly different Florida Panthers team when the preseason rolls around in September. That remains to be seen, though.
It’s another opportunity for two rising clubs to duke it out at a neutral site while also spreading the game of NHL hockey to a new area.
Tickets go on sale on Friday, May 17 and can be purchased at bokcenter.com. If you want to see all of the great makings of a Dallas Stars hockey game in a different venue, this is a perfect opportunity for you.