Texas Stars Fall to 0-4 after Losing to Milwaukee Admirals 5-3

 

(Photo Credit: Milwaukee Admirals)

 

The Texas Stars entered the third period Saturday night needing just 20 minutes to defend their 3-2 lead and secure their first win of the 2025-26 season. It wasn’t enough, as the Admirals scored three unanswered goals to send the Stars back to Texas with a 5-3 loss Saturday night at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.

It was a night of firsts for a few Stars as Artem Shlaine scored his first ever professional goal, while defenseman Trey Taylor scored his first professional goal of the regular-season, but a series of bad penalties in the third period sunk the Stars. 

Shlaine opened the scoring on an excellent breakout play started by Tristan Bertucci. The first-year defenseman collected the puck in the defensive zone and fired a point perfect pass to Cameron Hughes in the neutral zone that kick started a 2-on-1 that ended in Shlaine firing from the slot to make it 1-0. 

Ryder Rolston quickly answered for the Admirals, but Taylor put the Stars back up 2-1 when he fired a shot from the point that got past former Stars netminder Matt Murray. 

Milwaukee would answer again at 16:03 of the second period thanks to Matthew Wood, but Kyle Capobianco scored at 17:34 to send the Stars into the third period up 3-2. 

Though Capobianco scored what was the go-ahead goal, his cross-checking penalty halfway through the third period set up Zach L’Heureux to tie the game once again for the Admirals. Milwaukee would not look back, as Daniel Carr and Kyle Marino put them up for good. 

Special teams has been the biggest alarm bell in the early season for Texas, and it sent them packing Saturday night as Milwaukee scored twice on their three opportunities. The Stars PK now sits at 69.2% after four games, good for 11th overall in the Western Conference. 

More concerning has been the power play that has not registered a goal in 13 opportunities. Those 13 drawn penalties are tied for the fourth most in the Western Conference and sixth most in the AHL. While the ability to draw that many penalties has been positive trend, but the Stars’ current inability to convert those chances has left their offense lagging so far into new head coach Toby Petersen's tenure. 

The Stars will get another shot at getting the ball rolling next Friday back home at the H-E-B Center when they face another division rival in the Iowa Wild who will also be looking for their first win of the season. They will see who blinks first. 
 

Tonight’s Lines

Stranges-Hyry-Lind
Hanas-Shlaine-Hughes
McKenzie-Scott-Seminoff
Ertel-Becker-Chisholm

Capobianco-Taylor
Kolyachonok-Bertucci
Kyrou-Karow

Poirier 

Injuries, scratches and notes
Berticcui, White, Looft, MacDonell, Hemming (scratch)

Tonight’s attendance was 5,945.