(Credit: Andy Nietupsk/Texas Stars)
The Texas Stars slid out onto the ice in brand new black sweaters. After tonight, they may never grace the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park ever again.
Tonight’s game featured two of the AHL’s worst teams, still in search of their first win of the season. Entering the contest, the Iowa Wild had found the back of the net for six goals and were just one of two teams in the league to have allowed 20 goals.
Iowa skated off the ice with three on the board, surrendering just one goal late in the game for a dominant 3-1 victory over the Stars Friday night.
Texas opens the season up 0-4-1 and is winless through five to open up the season for the first time in franchise history.
“We're struggling to generate offense… it starts on both ends of the ice,” head coach Toby Petersen said. “We're not doing enough in the offensive zone when we get there to get pucks to the net.”
As one of the better special teams units last season, Texas has struggled to find a rhythm to open this season, having yet to score a power play goal or put together a solid penalty kill.
The Stars' penalty kill stumbled once again — Iowa, the 28th worst powerplay unit, was able to capitalize on two of its three extra man opportunities. Their third came within the final three minutes of the game when the Wild were already up by two.
“[Iowa] stuck to their structure,” Petersen said. “There's certainly things that we can do better to combat that, I think our support needs to be a little quicker, we got to dig in a little bit more.”
Texas’ offense was almost nonexistent for the first 40 minutes. Helped by the two powerplays in the second, the Wild was in their offensive zone for the majority of the frame, outshooting Texas 18-3.
Iowa goaltender Samual Hlavaj did not see much action on his side of the ice, outside of a couple rushes in the final period. Stars forward Trey Taylor was able to finally score Texas’ first and only goal of the game early in the third.
Despite being one of the most penalized teams this season with 76 minutes, Iowa did not register a single penalty tonight, leaving the Stars without a chance for a powerplay.
“It's frustrating… we didn't put the refs in a tough position, because [Iowa] had the puck more than we had,” Petersen said. “I don't think we were dangerous enough, so they didn't force them to take penalties.”
Texas will wrap up its series against Iowa tomorrow at 7 PM at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park in Cedar Park, Texas.
Tonight’s Lines
Stranges-Shlaine-Lind
Hanas-Hughes-Seminoff
Martino-Scott-McKenize
Ertel-Becker-Hemming
Taylor-Capobianco
Kolyachonok-White
Bertucci-Karow
Kraws
Injuries, scratches and notes
Hyry, Kyrou, Chisholm, Looft (scratch)
Tonight’s attendance was 5 838.
AHL Gamesheet - Texas v. Iowa - October 24 2025
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