| Texas Stars 27-27-1-2, 57 pts, 0.500 #7 Pacific Division | v. | Iowa Wild 27-23-6-2, 62 pts, 0.534 #4 Central Division |
March 10th at 7:30 PM
H-E-B Center at Cedar Park, Cedar Park, TX
The Iowa Wild visit town for the only time this season this weekend. The Wild are in the middle of a six-game road trip, which could honestly be considered a ten-game trip if you really look at the schedule. After this current six-game stint, Iowa returns home for a single game against Milwaukee and then hits the road again for four more.
Iowa has been a pretty traditionally downtrodden team since moving from Houston. They've never made the playoffs and finished last in their division every year. Things have turned around for the Wild this season. Where they've really improved has been in net. The Wild are ranked 28th in goals for this season but rank 6th in goals against at 2.67 GA/game. A large portion of that can be placed on the shoulders of Alex Stalock, who has a 17-12-7 record and a nice .920 save percentage. Not far behind is their backup, Steve Michalek with a 10-11-1 record but a .918 save percentage. Stalock is taking the lion's share of the starts.
The Stars had a great confidence boost on Wednesday night with the win against Grand Rapids. They beat a solid goaltender, which is what they will need to do this weekend to earn more points.
To make the playoffs, Texas still needs to achieve a record of 12-6-1 the rest of the season. They obviously won a game, but also, Bakersfield lost. That dropped the required point threshold to 82.
Stars injury/call up report:
Elie (call up)
Wild Web Resources:
Website: iowawild.com
Blog (Official): I Wild Blog
Twitter: @IAWild
Twitter: @IowaWildFish (former Stars PBP Josh Fisher)
I remember Stalock from the Sharks' system. He's had a fair bit of NHL time for a backup. .920 with 36 games played is a great SVP with a decent sample size. Given Texas' playoff standings push this has the makings for a great game.
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