Texas Stars’ Rocky Start Forged the Confidence They’ll Need Against Chicago

(Credit: Texas Stars)

As rough as it was to be a fan of the Texas Stars in October and November, the players, coaches and support staff were feeling it just as badly. At media day earlier this week, it was clear that Texas has not forgotten what it felt like to be that team and firmly believes that what happened in the fall will fuel their spring success.

“I think looking back on it, it’s probably a good thing it happened," said AHL Second-Team All-Star and leading scorer Cameron Hughes. "It made us raise our level, and it led us to the season we had."

Head coach Toby Petersen, who is in his first season as a head coach at any level, echoed the sentiment, "“It’s built the fabric of our team a little bit... For me, the biggest thing is just firm belief that every night, any given night, we can win a hockey game, whether we're down 2-0, down 2-1, whatever it is.”

AHL guys stepping up and chipping in

The team now sits perched in the third seed in the Central, getting a week of rest before facing Chicago in the first round. The roster that Texas entered into the 2025 playoffs with is nowhere near the same one that Texas has now. With so many top guys gone through either free agency or callups to Dallas, it was time for the guys who were in bottom six roles or rookies to step up. And step up they did.

Matthew Seminoff has a career year, picking up 50 points and leading the team in goals while taking top line minutes. His linemate on that top group, Artem Shlaine, is an AHL-contracted college free agent pickup who was fourth on the team in points and had an electric stick at several points in the year to score big goals at just the right moment. Hughes noted, "Another guy on an AHL deal stepped into a number one center role, and he’s done a lot of things that go unnoticed, but not to his teammates."

Jack Becker, another AHL-contracted player, had 40 points. Pressed into service at times as a second-line center, Becker was incredible efficient with his time and was able to both be a big, physical presence and put pucks in nets. AHL contracted Cross Hanas had a similar story of finding his game and setting new personal bests on goals, assists and points.

In case you're keeping track, that's three players in the top five of scoring who are not on an NHL deal.

“We asked the individuals to take ownership of their own development," said Petersen. "There’s been a lot of reasons that our team has made vast improvements this year, and I think our depth is one of them."

Curtis McKenzie, who has seen a fair number of coaches in his career, specifically called out the growth of the head coach from the start of the season to the end as well, "You love seeing the development of everybody, and that’s not just players, it’s coaches, trainers, everyone that goes into it at this level.”

"[Toby found] the confidence of himself and how to lead a group at this level.”

REM-VP

There are so many good things to say about Remi Poirier's game, but the most impactful words are often those of his peers on the ice. Curtis McKenzie had a heck of a quote on the French-Canadian tender:

We've had a lot of great goalies come through here that I've played with, and I've never seen a goalie make an impact as much as he has towards a single team.

"He's been incredible, like you said, when we were a 5-10 team, we probably could have been a 1-14 team. So he carried us through the early starts of the year, just keeping us in the fight, and then we weren't too far out of it.

"He's been the life and backbone of our team. He's been so good, so hopefully he can take this to the next level himself at some point here."

Enough said from the captain!

Texas tamed the Wolves this year, but...

Texas' record against Chicago in the regular season was 7-1. But is anyone going to use that to guarantee anything in the playoffs against the Wolves?

"It beats the alternative," said Petersen. "Having success against them in the regular season certainly beats the alternative... It’s a new chapter. They’re going to be a different team. They’re going to throw different looks at us, just like we are.”

On prep, Petersen added that he's just looking at Game 1 first and then they'll make adjustments. "There’s not gonna be a whole lot of curve balls thrown, I’m guessing, but certainly we’ll be ready for anything that does come our way. The big picture is really the little picture, which is Game 1.”

That Game 1 in Tuesday in Cedar Park.

Other practice notes

• Dallas draft pick Cameron Schmidt and free agent signing Jaxon Fuder are practicing with the team this week but neither will sign an ATO to play with Texas this postseason.
• Kole Lind was the only player practicing with a red no-contact jersey. He appeared to be a full participant despite the jersey. Texas is calling it an upper body injury and all signs point to him playing Game 1.