Gameday Preview: Stars v. Peoria Rivermen

Texas Stars
3-2-0-0, 6 pts
#7 West Division
v.Peoria Rivermen
7-2-0-0, 14 pts
#1 West Division
October 26th at 7:30 PM
Cedar Park Center, Cedar Park, TX

This seems familiar and for the Texas Stars, it's for all the wrong reasons. Texas faces Peoria for the 3rd time in the first 6 games of the season tonight in Cedar Park. Peoria is pacing the league with their 14 points, but finally did manage to lose to someone on this Texas road trip, falling to San Antonio on Sunday by a final of 4-1. Peoria goaltender Ben Bishop started for the Rivermen on Sunday, holds the league lead in wins with five on the season.

Peoria's skaters are among the tops in the league with Graham Mink (4-8-12) and Nicholas Drazenovic (6-3-9) both in the top 10 of scoring for the league. Texas, meanwhile, does not appear on any of the individual leaderboards on the season in the AHL. However, that is more Texas's way. The Stars did not have a huge standout skater last year until Jamie Benn came down from Dallas in the post season. Texas's character is to get it done with a team effort. Texas managed to slow down the game on Saturday against Peoria and keep the game manageable against the high-powered offense, but Peoria still came out on top.

Coach Gulutzan points to the Texas power play as a point of difficulty in the loss. The man-advantage, which went 0 for 5 on the game, has to get better for Texas to win. The home power play has been hot on the season, going 4/20 overall, but not against Peoria (1/8 on the season).

After all of these early games against the Rivermen, Texas will not face them against until January 15th in Peoria. Tonight's game will be the last game for Peoria in Cedar Park on the season already. The remaining games in the series (Jan 15, Feb 23, Apr 6) will all be in Peoria.

Stars injury/call up report:
Sawada (injury)

Website: rivermen.net
Blog (unofficial): Cleve's World
Twitter: @peoria_rivermen

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