Gameday Preview: Texas Stars v. Iowa Wild

Texas Stars 30-21-5-3, 68 pts, 0.576 #5 Pacific Division

v.

Iowa Wild 27-12-8-4, 66 pts, 0.589 #3 Central Division

March 5th at 7:30 PM

H-E-B Center at Cedar Park, Cedar Park, TX

The Texas Stars close out their season series with the Iowa Wild this evening in Cedar Park. Texas is 2-1 against the Wild this season with an OT win at home and a split in Iowa last month.

Depth will be the challenge of the night. Texas catches a break in that Roope Hintz was not needed on his emergency recall last night and will be with the team this evening. However, depending on injury recovery timelines, Justin Dowling, Brian Flynn and Curtis McKenzie could all still be out of the lineup.

Sheldon Dries (Credit: Texas Stars)

The good news for Texas is that their depth forwards have had success against Iowa this year. Sheldon Dries, Greg Rallo and Matt Mangene all have three points in the season series. Dries has a quarter of the Stars' goals in the season series with three.

Another interesting stat here for the matchup is that it's a good bet whatever the score is after two periods will tell us the final result. Iowa is 18-0-6-2 when leading after two periods and 1-16-1-0 when trailing after two periods.

With Mike McKenna in Dallas, it's a good time to drop Philippe Desrosiers into the starting role. Landon Bow is 0-4-1 in his last five. At some point, Bow will break out of his funk, but why wouldn't you give Desrosiers a shot now?

Stars injury/call up report:
McKenna, Hintz, Dickinson (call up)
McKenzie, Dowling, Flynn (injury, day-to-day)

Wild Web Resources:
Website: iowawild.com
Blog (Official): I Wild Blog
Twitter: @IAWild