The Dallas Stars begin their second-round playoff series as they host the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night.
Dallas advanced past the first round for the first time since reaching the Stanley Cup Finals in 2020 by eliminating the Minnesota Wild in six games, but the Stars were hardly in control at the beginning of the series.
“We started slow,” Head Coach Peter DeBoer said as he met with the media on Tuesday. “Game one against Minnesota — lost in double overtime — then really it took us to Game 5 to kind of get the series back in our control.”
The Stars took their first lead of that series in Game 5 and closed the deal in Game 6. They are hoping for a better start this round as the upset-minded Kraken comes to town.
“You want a quick start,” he continued. “You want to grab the series as quickly as you can, and that’s something we want to fix this time around.”
Seattle upset the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche in the first round to earn its first-ever playoff series win. While some may argue that is good news for the Stars, Dallas is not taking its opponent lightly.
“If you read what Nathan MacKinnon and [Mikko] Rantanen and some of those guys said about the Seattle series — how tough it was, how good they were, how fast they were, how much pressure they put on them — I think our guys are aware that you don’t go through a Stanley Cup champion unless you’ve got a real good game,” DeBoer explained.
The Stars and Kraken played three times in the regular season, with the Stars winning twice and the Kraken pulling out an overtime win. Even with the winning record, Dallas knows Seattle could be a challenge.
“They played really well against Colorado, and they were good in the regular season, too,” forward Roope Hintz told the media Tuesday. “I think they were one of the best four or five teams in the league. We’ve got to be ready from the first game.”
“They forecheck hard, they play hard, and I think we’ve got to match their speed and play smart,” Hintz added.
Despite the challenges, DeBoer sees similarities that can help his team.
“Whether we’re playing Colorado or Seattle, we’re not a big matchup team,” he remarked. “We want to get our game going. We want to get our fourth line in rhythm. It’s a little bit easier because Seattle plays a similar game. … It’s probably a little easier to get into that against a team like that.”
The Stars begin their second-round series against the Kraken at 8:30 p.m. CT Tuesday.
