| Texas Stars 6-5-4-0, 16 pts #9 Western Conference | at | San Antonio Rampage 11-6-0-0, 20 pts #3 Western Conference |
November 23rd at 4:00 PM
AT&T Center, San Antonio, TX
With the winless skid at five for the Texas Stars, it's time for a gut check. Sunday matinee games in San Antonio have been common over the past five years, but this one might be the most important in team history. It's high time for the Stars to show their championship attitude and right the ship with a W in the Alamo City today.
If the Stars cannot emerge victorious from the game, there's a chance they will drop to 10th in the conference by the end of the day. Hamilton, which is tied with Texas for 9th, plays #13 Toronto earlier in the day. With a point for Hamilton and none for Texas, the Bulldogs would pass the Stars. Texas would also drop to .500 on the season with a loss.
San Antonio will not give it up easily though. The team is seeking its franchise-record seventh straight win. It's a club that looks completely different than Rampage teams past. They bring quick skating, tape-to-tape passing, wicked scoring ability and solid netminding together to lead the West Division.
The flu bug will continue to keep Kevin Henderson, Brett Ritchie and Jussi Rynnas out of the lineup today, according to postgame from Friday. That means the lineup should stay basically the same as the one the Stars iced in the 7-1 drubbing the team took from San Antonio on home ice two days ago. To be fair, the appearance of the team didn't say 100% healthy on Friday night, did it? Think about how you feel when you've got a little touch of a cold. Head congestion, maybe some nausea, feeling tired all the time, etc. Now imagine that all the other people at work already called in sick and you've got to show up otherwise they can't keep the lights on. Well, that's the situation a lot of the Texas Stars lineup was in on Friday night. Now of course, imagine that instead of sitting at a desk for 8 hours, you had to compete in a professional hockey game for two and a half hours. That's not a super great recipe for success.
Stars injury/call up report:
McKenzie, Jokipakka (callup)
Ritchie, Henderson, Rynnas (illness)
After last night's performance in Dallas, I'm going to remove John Klingberg from the callup report. He's never coming back.
Website: sarampage.com
Blog (unofficial): Rampage with Tony U.
Blog (unofficial): Runnin' With The Herd
Twitter: @SARampage
Twitter: @DanWeissPBP (play-by-play for SA)
I do hope Dalhuisen plays this game.
ReplyDeleteWe really need his big bad defensive style. He finishes his checks, he has a nice shot from the blue line, and he gets in between Campbell and the opposition, actively pushing them out of the way. He's not afraid to be a big presence on the ice and show the other team who's boss.
We need that right now.