The Texas Stars have seen a new wave of players enter the roster of the past few weeks. With NCAA college hockey seasons ending over the last month or so, NHL teams were getting into bidding wars on top free agents, where Dallas’ prospect appeal, take-home money, among other things, often lures these NCAA free agents our way. Because of another year of solid acquisitions (credit to Dallas Stars team staff like Rich Peverly), the newly signed players are attached to the Stars franchise, but without a team to play hockey for these few months before the typical pro hockey offseason.
This means that, despite Texas’ competitive season with the lineup they had, it was time to find lineup spots for these new signees, to get them into hockey games as tryouts or prove-it games for their contracts to set the tone for next season. This list includes Trey Taylor, Sean Chisholm, Ayrton Martino, Artem Shlaine, Tommy Bergsland, and Harrison Scott, who played at least one game this week for the Texas Stars AHL club.
It’s a difficult sell to AHL players when they’re being told to sit games late into the regular season, but this process is essential for the long-term sustainability and success of the Dallas Stars organization and its prospects, promoting the idea to future signees that the Dallas Stars organization offers quality playing time in professional hockey spaces “should you sign here”. Players like Justin Hryckowian are prime examples of thriving when given playing time, ultimately earning NHL games for themselves at a young age, which is attractive for others from the outside.
Unfortunately, this means that players like Justin Ertel, Chase Wheatcroft, Kyle Looft, Gavin White, Matt Seminoff, Anthony Romano, and even Christian Kyrou have been scratched at times this week despite being healthy.
As a consequence of this lineup jumbling and slight chaos, Texas’s team identity changed a bit this week. New signees quickly adapt to the professional hockey speed/style of play, which sometimes comes with mistakes, and are given the chance to show creativity, sometimes with errors. When other teams don’t recruit as well as Dallas, Texas, they keep the status quo for their rosters and can take advantage of the chaos in the Texas organization.
This is my theory regarding how this week went, and it doesn’t represent Texas’ playoff potential.
In Tuesday’s game against Iowa, the first two periods went back and forth, with Iowa leading 1-0 into the third. Despite some shaky moments, Texas was holding on. Jack Becker responded to an early 3rd-period Iowa goal to make it 2-1 Wild, but Texas could not beat Samuel Hlavaj again, with two empty-netters sealing the deal in a 4-1 Iowa victory.
In Wednesday's rematch, the game was filled with physicality and chaos, with 36 PIM handed out and eight goals. Unfortunately, six of those goals were scored by Iowa. Texas was down 4-0 by the early moments of the second period before Jack Becker scored for the second straight game to try to give Texas some momentum.
However, Iowa did not allow Texas to get going, and Texas ran into penalty trouble in the second period. Emilio Pettersen scored in the third period to make the game 5-2, but the game had felt out of reach for a while. Losing back-to-back games to a bottom-half team is tough, but it is a lesson for Texas about better insulation for the new guys and focusing on simplicity and systems going forward to accommodate changes (injuries, new players, etc.).
In Saturday’s game against Milwaukee, Texas had a chance to compete against a top AHL team and redeem what had been a poor week. The game was close, and Texas outshot Milwaukee for the entire game. Anthony Romano scored to tie the game 1-1 early in the third period. However, unnecessary penalties allowed for a Grigori Denisenko power-play goal that remained the game-winner, leading to a 2-1 Milwaukee victory.
In Sunday’s rematch, Texas played closer to their offensive potential, but was still unable to put together any goals in meaningful sequences in the first 40 minutes, trailing 1-0 going into the third period. Even with a Power Play from a Milwaukee faceoff violation, Texas could not capitalize when given gifts. Milwaukee scored again with 9 minutes to go, but another Power Play prompted a Justin Hryckowian goal, his 20th of the season, which is an outstanding number for an AHL rookie. Texas could not find the equalizer, and a Milwaukee empty-netter sealed the deal, making Texas 0-4 on the week.
This is one of the first weeks in a while with very few positive moments. Players like Jack Becker and Anthony Romano were relentless in their bottom-six roles and were rewarded this week for their season-long efforts. Most of the recruits looked like recruits, and I expect an adjustment period before they settle into the pro game, but I was pleased with the Texas Stars’ team effort amidst these changes, despite going 0-4 this week.
Player of the week: Jack Becker
Week Stats:
GP | G | A | P |
|---|---|---|---|
4 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
Season Stats:
GP | G | A | P |
|---|---|---|---|
65 | 10 | 6 | 16 |
Overall, Texas has a more enormous beast to focus on: the playoffs. It’s not guaranteed that the lineup you saw this week is the Game 1 playoff lineup. Despite the lack of team success this week, the auditions that occurred are critical to a standard for a professional hockey organization that wants to attract each year’s top free agent talents. I’m happy to see the team work through these situations, and I hope they come out stronger in future weeks.
We are approaching the most exciting time of the year for Texas Stars fans, it’s almost playoff time.
Week ahead:
- Fri Apr 11, 2025 @ Grand Rapids
- Sat Apr 12, 2025 @ Grand Rapids
- Sun Apr 13, 2025 @ Chicago