The Dallas Stars season is in full swing. We’re over 10% gone on the year, and while that’s a small percentage, the games start to really ramp up this month. By the end of November, the Stars will have finished 29% of their season. The team has games nearly every other day, with a few two day stretches between games in the month but not more than that.
Looking forward, the Stars have a very Western Conference heavy stretch of games this month. They’re not going to have any easy matches this next 30 days, facing two top-ten power plays (Arizona, San Jose) and three top-ten penalty kills (Chicago, Minnesota, Colorado). They also face four of the top-ten stingiest defenses in goals against averages (Nashville, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Chicago).
Here’s a look at November by the numbers.
1 – The number of Eastern Conference teams the Stars will play.
The lone Eastern team the Stars will face is the Carolina Hurricanes when Carolina travels to Dallas on November 18th for their one and only trip to the American Airlines Center this season. That leaves 13 games against Western Conference foes in the month.
2 – The number of teams in the West without a regulation loss on home ice.
The two teams? Dallas (1-0-3) and Minnesota (4-0-0).
3 – The number of times the Stars play the Minnesota Wild in a back-to-back situation.
The Wild, whom many believe Dallas will compete with for either the third spot in the West or as a wild card team, is involved in three games in a back-to-back situation for the Stars. The first, Saturday November 1st, is on the latter half of the set. The second instance the Wild travel to Dallas on November 15th before Dallas heads to Chicago to face the Blackhawks the next day. The third comes when the Wild come to Dallas again on November 28th, the day after Thanksgiving, before Dallas heads out to Colorado to take on the Avalanche.
The good news — if you want to look at it that way — is that the Stars will only see the Wild two more times for the rest of the season after November is over (January 3, February 22).
5 – The longest home stretch of the season; the Stars will play five at home from November 18-28.
This is the heaviest home game month for the Stars this season, with only five games on the road. That means there are nine games on home ice, where the Stars sport a 62.5% points percentage and only one win so far this season.
6 – The number of Central Division opponents Dallas faces.
Half of these are against the Wild. The other three Central teams the Stars will face are: Chicago, Nashville, and Colorado.
34.1 – Average shots on goal per game by all teams Dallas faces in November.
On average, Dallas is putting 29.1 shots on goal per game and allowing 32.1 shots against per game.
Marquee matchup this month: Tuesday, November 4 versus the Los Angeles Kings
This will be the first game of the season versus the defending Stanley Cup champions, and it comes on home ice for the Stars. Last year, Dallas beat the Kings two out of their three matchups, with one win each on home ice and at Staples Center.
Trap game watch: Tuesday, November 18 versus the Carolina Hurricanes
The Hurricanes are admittedly a mess this season. They are last in the Metropolitan division. They’ve scored only 15 total goals in their eight games so far this year, and have allowed 31 goals against. With the Carolina game coming between a road game in Chicago and a home game versus the Coyotes, it’d be easy to overlook this team which is why I’m naming it my trap game of the month candidate.