Gameday Preview: Stars at Houston Aeros

Texas Stars 46-26-3-4, 99 pts #2 West Division

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Houston Aeros 33-33-7-5, 78 pts #7 West Division

April 10th at 7:35 PM

Toyota Center, Houston, TX

Tonight, Texas closes out the regular season in Houston with an eye on next week. The Stars and Aeros have had a rather one sided relationship, with Texas going 8-2-0-1 in the season series.

The Aeros have two games remaining on the schedule but have been eliminated from the playoffs since mid-March. A win against San Antonio on Thursday night brought them back to a ".500" record. A few of Houston's top guys will be in Minnesota tonight facing off against Dallas in what could be Mike Modano's last game. Max Noreau and Robbie Earl have both been called up, along with Wade Dubielewicz, who could get the start for the Wild.

Texas will, once again, be resting a lot of guys. As I said might happen, Krahn didn't even dress for last night's game. Texas is preparing him for the playoffs which start next Friday against Rockford. I would not take the outcome of this game tonight or the game last night too seriously when considering Texas's chances in the playoffs. We had a lot of guys out on rest and our #1 goalie was not in net.

For Houston, Anton Khudobin is back in town. He has a 13-18-4 record with 2.45 GAA and .904 SV% in his rookie season. Also back in the pipes for Houston is Barry Brust, who is 6-6-0 with a 2.46 GAA and .908 SV%. Finally, Darcy Kuemper, who got the win against Texas last time we played, is 2-1-0 with a 2.41 GAA and .886 SV% in just four games played.

This just in from the strange news dept. Houston has better home penalty killing than the Stars at 87.7%. However, the Houston power play is the worst in the league at 11.5%. Texas is mid-pack on the road power play but is #5 in road penalty killing with a 85.1% mark.

Special thanks to Houston Aeros blog The Third Intermission for being so darn awesome throughout the whole season. You should give them a read!

Stars injury/call up report:
McCulloch, Sawada, Lindgren, Beaudoin, Rallo (injured)
Benn (call-up)

Website: aeros.com
Blog (unofficial): The Third Intermission
Twitter: @Houston_Aeros