Gameday Preview: Stars at Oklahoma City Barons

Texas Stars
33-13-4-4, 74 pts
#1 Western Conference
atOklahoma City Barons
24-20-2-5, 55 pts
#12 Western Conference
Feburary 26th at 7:00 PM
Cox Convention Center, Oklahoma City, OK

The Oklahoma City Barons are not pushovers, and the Stars would do well to remember that going into tonight's contest beaten and bruised from injuries and callups. Half of the players the Stars will have on defense this evening weren't even with the team the last time that these two clubs played only ten days ago.

After the last set with Texas, OKC played and split two games with the Aeros last weekend with Yann Danis starting both contests. Texas comes into Oklahoma with a chance to tie their franchise best win streak at six, which was set this season on January 13th also in Oklahoma City. Anything resembling that 3-0 contest would be a solid outing for a Stars team that wants to keep ahead of the always looming Charlotte Checkers in the standings.

Also notable are the Stars' seven game point streak and the recent contributions of Jack Campbell. Campbell has started each game in the streak and allowed fewer than two goals per game (nine total) and tallied a .933 SV%. Campbell has talked about the difficulty of riding the bench and the difference in being the starter versus the backup. It's pretty clear why Campbell has never been a backup in his career given his play over the past month.

The biggest thing to watch for will be what the Stars coaching staff can do with the defense. Looking at the defensive lines, only Carl Sneep started his season in the AHL this year. If Doug Lidster and Willie Desjardins can continue to work their magic with this group and get another win, this stretch has to put Desjardins in the discussion for AHL Coach of the Year.

Stars injury/call up report:
R. Smith, Roussel, Nilstorp, Fraser, Benn, Oleksiak (call up)
Glennie, Nemeth, Sloan, Morin, Chiasson, Fortunus (injured)

Website: okcbarons.com
Blog (unofficial): NewsOK's Barons Hockey
Twitter: @OKCBaronsHockey

Comments

  1. Coach of the year would be awesome, earned and deserved. It's been an absolutely fantastic year!

    ReplyDelete

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