Weekend Preview: Huge Homestand Starts Tonight Against San Antonio

(Credit: Texas Stars)

Coming off a 2-4 road trip, Texas heads home for a significant home stand. Nine of the next ten are at H-E-B Center. The first two come against San Antonio tonight and Saturday.

Texas really can’t complain about any road trips right now given their competition tonight. The Rampage are on their final Rodeo Road Trip, a sequence that sends them away from San Antonio for ten games and spans the entire month of February. They played Texas on January 31st at AT&T Center and won’t return until the penultimate day of the month against Grand Rapids. So far on the trip, the Rampage are 1-2-1 with all but one of those losses coming by just one goal.

It’s dark days in the Alamo City overall. With last week’s news that the franchise had been sold and would relocate to Nevada, we are nearing the end of the Stars longest standing rivalry. The Rampage are whooping up on the Stars this season with a 5-0-0-1 record.

This weekend’s contests across the division can help to start breaking the logjam for the 3rd and 4th place slots in the standings… or they could make it worse. Milwaukee plays Manitoba, Chicago plays Grand Rapids and everyone else is playing out of division.

What does success look like for Texas this weekend and on the homestand? I think three points would be a good outcome this weekend and a total of ten would be pretty good for the homestand. That breaks down to three this weekend, two against a tough Iowa club, three against Rockford, and something north of two for the final pair against GRG and Milwaukee. That’s a .625 points percentage, which is admittedly below what you aim for at home (.750), but Texas also hosts the best teams in the division 3 times in the stretch and without some top offensive talent after Robertson’s recall and injuries to Djuse and Caamano.

Injuries and callups
Kiviranta, Robertson (callup)
Mascherin, Caamano, Djuse (injured)