Gameday Preview: Texas Stars v. San Jose Barracuda

Texas Stars 4-2-1-1, 10 pts #3 Central Division

v.

San Jose Barracuda 6-1-0-1, 13 pts #1 Pacific Division

October 27th at 7:00 PM

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

UPDATE: Ondrej Vala has been recalled from Idaho ahead of tonight's game.

After last night's close 4-3 loss, the Stars aren't down on themselves in the slightest.

"We played a good game, had a good finish, we just couldn’t get it done," said Travis Morin. "We’ll look at some video and clean a few things up."

(Credit: Texas Stars)

With a huge bright spots like the Gurianov-Hintz-Mersch line totalling seven points and Gurianov extending his goal streak to six games, Texas should be able to simply take their effort from last night and copy-paste it onto this evening.

Tonight's opponent is similarly strong as last night's. San Jose leads the Pacific Division with six wins in eight games. The Barracuda are scoring just fine with 29 goals to their name this season, same as Texas. Francis Perron leads the way with 5-5=10, and rookie Jayden Halbgewachs is just behind at 4-4=8.

The real difference, however, has been the play of goaltenders Antoine Bibeau and rookie Josef Korenar. They've split starts evenly with near identical stats. In four games for each, they've both allowed eight goals. Thanks to an OT game, Bibeau's GAA floated down to 1.93 while Korenar's is at 2.01. Bibeau was a free agent pickup from Toronto and Korenar was an undrafted free agent himself.

Note that Texas's power play, which had been a sore spot, is now creeping up the standings. The Stars are in 6th in the league with 25.8%.

Stars injury/call up report:
Scarlett (season-ending ACL injury)
Dowling (call up)