Tomorrow when the Ottawa Senators take American Airline Center Ice against the Stars, Dallas will complete it's 18 games against the Eastern Conference. They should be pretty glad to see that particular part of their schedule over, if the following is any indication.
Radio types (and blog types) are always talking about how every NHL team should visit every NHL barn. If that means increasing the number of games against the East from 18 to 30 (it was 10 two years ago) then count me out, because the Stars are the Western Conference's worst team against the other conference.
| Team | Record vs East | Points % |
| Los Angeles | 13-4-0 | .765 |
| Calgary | 10-3-2 | .733 |
| Vancouver | 13-5-0 | .722 |
| San Jose | 12-4-2 | .722 |
| Nashville | 11-4-2 | .706 |
| Colorado | 12-5-1 | .694 |
| Chicago | 10-5-2 | .647 |
| Minnesota | 9-4-4 | .647 |
| Phoenix | 11-6-1 | .639 |
| Detroit | 8-5-3 | .594 |
| Colorado | 7-5-2 | .571 |
| St. Louis | 8-7-2 | .529 |
| Anaheim | 8-7-2 | .529 |
| Edmonton | 7-9-2 | .444 |
| Dallas | 6-9-2 | .411 |
By my count, that's 145-82-27 against the East overall. That's quite a mark for the Western Conference, and they did it all with barely any help from the Stars at all.
Follow the jump for more Friday notes, and starting netminder for tomorrow...
You have to go back to the 2003-2004 season for the last time the Stars had a sub-.500 record against the Eastern conference (6-8-4). This is another one of the many observations we'll continue making about this thing as we start to autopsy another broken season. It's painful to kick over the rock and look at what's squished underneath, but we have to do it.
- In the mean time, Marc Crawford said after practice this morning that Kari Letonen will start his 3rd consecutive game tomorrow against the Senators. He wasn't exactly clear after that but one would think that we'll see Marty Turco on Sunday, certainly when you consider how well he played against them in February before the break.
- Check out Razor's Blog, where he mentions that the Stars lead the league in appendectomies. OK, I guess his stat is more fun than mine...
- Brandon Worley and I were at practice this morning and we asked Mark Stepneski about the paperwork difficulties facing Stars prospect Andrej Roman. He followed up in blog form, but Art was quick to point out that our AHL correspondent Stephen also answered that question on our Defending Big D Live podcast on Wednesday night. So thank to everyone all around on that one.
- The Stars have reportedly signed forward Mathieu Tousignant to a three year entry level deal. He's currently with the Texas Stars.