The Texas Stars have generally been a competitive AHL team in the past few years. This past season, they lost in the Division Semifinals (2nd round of 5) to the Milwaukee Admirals, who made it to the Western Conference Finals (4th round of 5). With an expanded playoff format in the AHL compared to the NHL (23 teams this season), making the playoffs is practically essential for legitimizing one’s AHL investment, and the Dallas Stars organization has demonstrated its commitment to its AHL team this past offseason.
Last season, Texas had two of the best prospects in hockey on their AHL squad for most of the season (Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque), but the team wasn't expected to be a top AHL contender. Stankoven and Bourque will not be back next season, so the identity was already going to shift. However, after multiple AHL-related offseason transactions by the Dallas Stars organization this summer, I am surprisingly confident that the Texas Stars AHL team will have higher expectations and results next year.
Let’s take a look at the potential 2024-2025 Texas Stars lineup (new arrivals are italicized):
Forwards (14)
LW | C | RW | |
|---|---|---|---|
Blumel | Hughes | Lind | |
Pettersen | McKenzie | Back | |
Stranges | McDonald | Seminoff | |
Wheatcroft | Hryckowian | Hyry |
Potential Extras: Ertel, Arcuri
Defenders (8)
LD | RD |
|---|---|
Capobianco | Petrovic |
Bichsel | Kyrou |
Karow | White |
Potential Extras: Punnett, Krys
Goaltenders (3)
G |
|---|
Poirier |
Kraws |
Thomson |
Unsigned Players from 2023-2024 team: Nick Caamano, Ben Berard, Keaton Mastrodonato, Scott Reedy, Anthony Romano, Gavin Bayreuther, Jacob Murray, Jerad Rosburg
The Texas Stars Vision
At first glance, this is a deep team with a great blend of AHL high-end talent and prospects. The way this team is projected to line up may help players like Stranges, Seminoff, Wheatcroft, and other younger players develop because of the ‘roster flooding’ that occurred.
I call it ‘roster flooding’ because the Dallas Stars organization signed players who will push some of those names down the depth chart. In previous seasons, it felt like the Stars signed players who would compete with prospects for pro hockey roster spots rather than sign pro hockey talent that could flood the lineup.
I prefer the latter, where Texas offers a competitive team as both a better ‘sell’ to fans when considering their business/operational goals for the season and offers better ‘insulator’ teammates for their prospects.
There is always a fine line when building ‘development squads’ because it will not benefit the NHL club to have all of its prospects sitting in the press box while older players who the NHL club won’t consider to have ‘upside’ are playing AHL hockey.
It will be interesting to see how the AHL roster management goes this season for Texas, where we may see the use of Dallas’ ECHL affiliate, the Idaho Steelheads, as a place for prospects to play (we saw this with Francesco Arcuri last season).
This ‘roster flooding’ movement for Texas means that players like Justin Ertel and Francesco Arcuri may have to earn their AHL roster spots, and this will hopefully extract the best competitive elements of these hockey players.
One could argue that this supports building towards a ‘winning culture’ in Dallas’ affiliate organization, which is uncommon in the ‘minors’ according to recent reports on AHL organizations.
Without AHL MVP Mavrik Bourque next year, Texas will still have a strong team and an arguably more well-rounded roster that could make its way into the Top-8 of the AHL playoffs.
This is not to say that previous years have been uncompetitive. However, the specific signings of top AHL talents and NHL/AHL ‘tweeners’ like Kyle Capobianco and Alex Petrovic show that the Dallas Stars organization is taking good care of its AHL affiliate, looking to offer a competitive on-ice product while supporting the development of its prospects.
It’s not often that both of those pieces are true.
All the best to the Texas Stars next season.