My DREAM Dallas Stars Lineup for Opening Night!

My DREAM Dallas Stars Lineup for Opening Night!

With the 202526 season right around the corner, I’ve been thinking about the ideal Dallas Stars lineup on opening night. From topline combos to sleeper picks to chemistry on the blue line. So, let’s get into it. My dream Dallas Stars lineup on opening night. Your Locked On Stars, your daily podcast on the Dallas Stars, part of the Locked On Network. your team every day. Howdy Stars fans. I’m Joey Ericson, former producer 105 Through the Fan. Please be sure to subscribe. We are free and available wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. And as always, thank you so much for making us a part of your day and making us your first listen. Happy Wednesday, Stars fans, and welcome back to another episode of Locked On Stars, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every single day. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner. Visit the FanDuel app today and start planning your futures bets now. And hockey season is right around the corner as well. That is why today we’re going to go through my dream 202526 opening night lineup for the Dallas Stars with the help of Puckpedia. By the way, you can go to puckpedia.com, go to puckgm and then you can go through the depth chart, do your forward trios, your defensive pairings and all that good stuff. So, I’m going to share those with you today with the help of a little presentation for those of you watching on YouTube. Of course, I will explain for all you audio only listeners as well. But, we’re going to have some fun today and we’re going to start off with the four trios. I think this is going to be a lot of fun and maybe some of uh you disagree with me. So, please let me know in the comments below. Give me your depth chart. give me your trios, your pairings, and I want to read them and compare as well. So, we’ll uh start off, of course, with that top line. I’m going to show you all four lines and my 13th forward as well. I had a discrepancy towards the the bottom of the lineup, but up front, I’m going with Rope Hints to center, Wyatt Johnston, and Mo Rantin. I I guess I I didn’t realize Miko Rantin was a left shot. So you can play him on the left side. You can move Wyatt from center up to the right wing and he can play alongside Roe Hence. And Wyatt had a bit of a disappointing playoff run, but a really solid regular season in 2024 25. uh again was very productive although he went through long stretches of struggling to to find the the back of the net and I would love to have Robo on this top line but we saw that for about a month and a half last year and it just never seemed to gel. Maybe with a full training camp and a full off season, they’ll be able to to hit the ground running. But I’m going to move Wyatt up because I want to stack the the top six is sort of where I’m coming from on this perspective. So Johnson moves to the right wing, although I think he’s always better a at center. And to be honest, this could be uh an option for Gulitson to move rope to to wing as well and then have Wyatt play down the middle and then you could move Rope to the left side, put Mo on the right. I think you could almost flop Roe and Wyatt if you wanted to have Wyatt play center. Rope, it’s still another year uh under his belt. Uh his his speed, his step. He’s going to continue to to lose some as he continues to to gain experience and just play more games on his body. Uh we all know he plays with that lightning speed. Um and he can be a real real presence. Maybe giving Johnston some more minutes down the middle allows Rope to conserve some energy a as well. And you still get Wyatt and that that two-way uh play that you get with Roe, but I think that could be a really intriguing line. And then you have Duchain down the middle with Jason Robertson and Tyler Sean. Another reason I was using this thought process is well this can move Jamie Ben down the lineup. Can move him down to the bottom six because we’ve talked about where the Stars are lacking some firepower and that’s on the left side. I I don’t think that’s um much of a surprise uh to any of you listening right now. Just the left wing. There’s a lot to be desired there. So Robo, you can drop him down. He plays with Matthew Shane and Tyler Sean. So Sean still on your right side. I I think Sean still has a chance to have a really good year. We saw the start he had. Um again, is he going to be fully healthy all the time? No, unfortunately. That’s just the territory he’s in now at 33 years of age. And Duchain like it was great. He had 82 points last season. Is he going to be able to do that again? I don’t know. But he’s looked really good. He still seems to skate well for for his age. He still has some juice, more so than some others, which is a bit troubling at times it felt like last season. Uh but Robo gives that line a scoring option. Zigan is really that F1. Duchaine is kind of a workhorse. Plays a responsible center ice. He’s not a great defender. We we know that, but he’s responsible, works hard. Satan could be that facilitator slashgoalcorer slashforch checker and then Robo can be that guy that can just score, right? Um, and we we got to give him some props too on his ability to go after the puck, win battles, and I think that could just be a really intriguing line with Duchain sort of that facilitator. Robo and Sean are on the flanks and they’re firing pucks. And then we get to the the bottom six. Now, this is where I think a lot of us will differ, or maybe we differ up and and down the lineup here on today’s episode, but I have Steel jumping up to that third line center. I I just love Steel’s game. He he he plays uh a a strong center ice. I think he’s a much better uh center than maybe a wing just because of his work rate. We we know what he can do on the penalty kill as well and it may give him an opportunity to to score a bit more because he’s I have him slotted with Jamie Ben and Maverick Bourc. Uh Bourke maybe starts the season on the wing doesn’t have the responsibility down the middle. In fairness and all likelihood or I guess best case scenario towards the end of the year, let’s just say December, we hope to see a lot out of Bourke and maybe Bourc is a viable option for for center. But maybe starts on the wing, he plays with Ben, he plays with steel and that can be a pseudo checking line, but hopefully can give you some pop offensively. Uh I I think that could be rather intriguing. steel bort their their skaters. Ben can just sort of play his his style of game and what maybe his role is going to be this year. Sort of a checker checking line forward and um I think that could be um a line the stars could trot out there. Now the fourth line um I think it’s safe to say Radic Foxa is is going to be there. Maybe I should have said my prediction for the opening night roster. I I don’t know if Radic Fox would be on my dream opening night roster, but I think it’s safe to say he’s going to be down the middle on that fourth line. I’ve called Blackwell and leftwing. And this sort of goes back to the conversation we had on maybe Monday’s episode or maybe it was last week. What is Oscar Beck’s role on on the Stars team now? I I don’t know if we get a I I don’t see him I don’t see him playing regularly at the wing. I just I don’t see that as an option for him. And Blackwell is 32. Uh but we get a consistent game out of him. Uh was really strong on the PK last year. Was just excellent really every time he was in the lineup. He’s just an Energizer Bunny and the Stars needed him at certain points in certain stretches during last season. So, I have Blackwell on that fourth line playing left wing and then I have Nathan Bastion up uh up on the right wing and this is just again gives them some size, right? And this is your checking line. Bastion Fox to Blackwell. You hope they just spend more time in the offensive zone away from their own net more than anything. And Bastion sort of that bruiser that you play alongside Blackwell and Fox and this is your your just pseudo fourthline checking role. I have back as your 13 Ford. I really thought hard about throwing Ritzcovian up there just because I think at this current state of what Dallas is, I feel like Ritzcoian would be a better fit in a lot of ways potentially just because he’s a wing. I I don’t know if that’s Beck’s future in the NHL. Um at least from what we heard about the coaching staff or heard reports about him going into this last season, right? He’s a Ratic Foxa. So, it makes me think like he’s playing down the middle. I I don’t know if he’s going to be valuable on the wink and and maybe I’m completely off basis on that and we have to see it. But I I think Beck is going to be your your your kind of 13th Ford and maybe he can play when like they’re going to have to get Blackwell rest even Foxa maybe. Um I know he’s only 31 but Beck will kind of rotate um in and out of the lineup I think more regularly than Ritzcovian would. So that’s why I have Beck as that sort of safety valve as a 13th forward for for Dallas. So down the middle you have Hints, Duchain, Steel, Fox, that’s one through four. On the left wing, Rantin, Robo, Ben, Blackwell, and on the right wing, Johnston, Sean, Bourke, Bastion. That uh would be the trios I would throw out there and head into opening night for the 202526 season. Let me know where you differ um from me on that. Would love to hear it. I just think there’s so many different combinations now. And Johnston Johnson I feel like is going to be the the key X factor in all like where is he going to play? Um it’d be awesome to have him on the third line. Maybe they they want Johnston with Bourc and Ben. You put Robo back up there, but then that kind of moves Ben back up. Or or maybe you uh maybe you uh advance Steel in the lineup, play him alongside Duchain and Sean, right? we can get into a a rabbit hole of different uh of different combinations, but let’s move over to the defensive pairings. These are maybe a bit more cut and dry along with our goalenders, which we know uh are already cut and dry, but we’ll do that in just a moment. Today’s episode of Locked On Stars is brought to you by FanDuel. August 26th is the official FanDuel Futures Day, a brand new holiday for football fans who live for bold predictions and pre-season hunches. For just 24 hours, FanDuel is giving you deals on NFL season predictions. So whether you’re calling your MVP, eyeing a longot division winner, or ready to crown your Super Bowl champ before week one even kicks off, this is your moment. You can take a flyer on the MVP race. There’s always some interesting candidates out there. Maybe Jaden Daniels in year two or is it going to be a sophomore slump? Parlay your division winner with a dark horse. Visit the FanDuel app today. Start planning your futures bets now. Football season is right around the corner. Cannot wait to consume all the Dallas Cowboys games and be disappointed like the rest of my 25 years of life. Visit the FanDuel app today because futures day is one day and one day only. August 26th. FanDuel play your game. So, we move on to the defensive pairings for the Dallas Stars. My ideal pairings for the 202526 opening night roster. And I don’t have a bombshell for you. I I I apologize. This is something I’ve I’ve talked about quite a bit over the the summer. Nothing new here. Nothing funky. I I just think this is something the Stars can can certainly do heading in to uh the next couple of months. You got Lindell with Miro. So Miro still plays on his right side. I think that’s a pairing that could be interesting. We saw it a bit last season. Then Miro got injured. If he did not, maybe we get a bit more uh a bit more time with uh those two together. then Harley Labouchkin, which was a pairing that played the most uh last season uh defensively for uh the Stars. And then it’s the Bishel, it’s the Lungquist uh number five and number six. sort of you got the the big Bronny Bishell and then a little bit more mobile Lquist which I think could actually be a bit of a fire and ice combination and uh be a strong pairing for for Dallas. And there’s a few reasons uh for for this as well. Lindell and Hastkin uh had an expected goals percentage at at five on five 54.1%. That was actually third most um among uh among pairings that played at least 100 in 50 minutes and they they cut the puck out of the back of their net uh as well which is no surprising. That’s that’s sort of your shutdown pairing and hopefully Miro can add some offense as well but Mero and Lindell essentially is just that that shutdown pairing. and it gives Lindell a partner like Mero who he hasn’t had in the past enough and that’s a mobile defenseman that can move the puck. He’s always been with a Cody Cece like we saw in the spring, a hawk andpaw uh just playing really with a similar style and archetype to him and I don’t think that brings out the best of Lindell. Miro would bring that out of him. Harley Labouchkin, they’re familiar with each other. They played in high leverage moments last season and they were rather strong to together at at certain points. They played a lot of minutes. Does it leave something to be desired? Yes. But I think you’re going to just going to have to make sacrifices with the Stars blue line. That’s just the nature of where they’re at right now with the personnel. Bishel Lungquist is sort of your young just tried it out pairing for the first month. Maybe this is a sleeper pairing that turns out to just hit the ground running and be fantastic for you, but you have some safety nets. You have Petravvic that you can bring in to play either with Lungquist or even Bishel if one needs to stay in the press box a couple nights in a row. Remember, Bishel’s still really young. He’s only 21. I know he looked great. He may need some nights where he needs a night off or uh maybe he’s not playing so well. There’s a stretch where he struggles, maybe finds himself in the box a little too much. Golitin wants to send the point. Who knows? Petravic can check in and I have Petravic as that seventh defenseman who is uh waiting um in in the wing. Now, just to play hypothetical and and get a bit more intriguing with it, um I could potentially see Harley Lindell, Miro Labouchkin if they wanted to get Miro on a strong side. Uh Miro Labouchkin um could be a potential option. I don’t know if they played very much or at all last season. I’m curious. And those numbers I gave you were from Money Puck. I just want to give a a quick look to see if we got I don’t I mean I’m sure they played together at some point but there was not a lot of minutes of Labouchkin Hastin and I’m going to see if I can find it. You think they’d had to play at some point Hasten and Labouchkin they played uh oh 28 minutes maybe I was mistaken for some for some reason I didn’t think they played that much that was quite a bit in all top 10 in in terms of minutes played. Hastin and Labouchkin. That that’s an interesting call as well. It gets of course Meir on his strong side. Um and then Lindell Harley. It would kind of solve that. It would solve that issue too where you get Lindell with a guy like Harley and then Lindell. Uh the only thing was Lindell’s not going to play on a strong side. But we’ve seen him play that before um and be fine. Um and if it’s anybody that could probably play on a strong side, be fine. It’s Lindell just because he’s stay-at-home defenseman. Um, uses his angles. He’ll be fine if he had to do that. You keep Bishial and Lquist together. So, that’s another option. If you’re really if you’re really chomping at the bit to get Mirror on his left side, which I would love to do, I just don’t think this is the ideal lineup to do that right now. And that’s why I’d have him with Lindell and keep Labushkin and Harley there just because there’s some chemistry, there’s some familiarity. Um, and I think could uh could hit the ground running because Dallas, let’s face it, off the hot schedule is it’s not going to be easy. I feel like off the jump, you just you need some stability right off the the bat with a new coach, a new system, the the the lines up front for the most part. Who knows? Although, you hope they should be able to score no matter what combinations they put together. My goodness, they have too much talent, especially in the top six. They should be fine there. Have some stability on the back end. Allow them to to kind of kind of walk their way in kind of cautiously into the into the season and maybe make some decisions, you know, a couple weeks in if if something’s not working. But I think that’s how I would roll with it right off the bat. And of course, you got into Smith as your one-two punch in between the pipes. So there you go. There’s my pairings. Lindell Hastkin, Harley Labushkin, Bishel Lungquist Petravvic, your seventh defenseman and of course will be your number one to Smith your number two and and to Smith I don’t know if we gave him enough credit. I tried to throughout the season and in the offseason but he he was excellent for for Dallas this past year. just really really steady. Exactly what you’re hoping for out of a uh a backup net minder and uh outplayed some nights. I mean quite a few nights at points um and they needed him. So if um if he can uh be that safety net and be that be that person again for Dallas, Stars will be um in in great hands of course in between the pipes. So there you go. There’s my ideal lineup for the 2025 2016. Let me know if I’m off my rocker. Maybe we differ completely. Maybe we’re on a a similar page. I would love to see your um your answers in the comments uh below. Let me know. Hit the subscribe button as well. I want to thank you as always for uh watching and uh supporting uh this content. Really appreciate it. Here on Locked on Stars, we’re going to talk about the the promotional schedule. We got some time to discuss something else. Uh the promotional schedule’s now out. Want to give you some highlights there and uh some important nights uh to to keep uh to keep in your dire keep in that schedule here upcoming this season and we’ll do that in just a moment. Today’s episode of Locked On Stars is brought to you by Indeed. You just realized your business needed to hire somebody yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on the other sites. Indeed sponsor jobs put your post at the top of the page and help you reach right candidates faster. I found my last couple of jobs on Indeed. I love Indeed. It makes it so much easier. And for those business owners out there, you don’t have time to spend time and time looking through hundreds of résumés and spending trying to find right candidates. That’s where Indeed comes in. It gives you a great feature where you get your job posting and you get the right candidates that match your job requirements with the resume. Now you can speed up that process. That’s what it’s all about. Speeding up with a $75 sponsor job credit. Just go to indeed.com/lockdon right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. The Dallas Stars released their promotional nights for next season. and they have a lot of promotional nights. The the schedule is quite extensive. We’re not going to go through all of them, but I I do want to hit on some of the the key nights. Um just uh so some of you are aware and prepared for this uh up uh coming season. The home opener, by the way, always a fun one. October 14th, we’re almost uh two months exactly away from the home opener. This will be going out on August 13th, so almost two months exactly. There’ll be a schedule magnet giveaway along on that night as the Stars take on the Minnesota Wild. Uh pickle ball night, it’s all the rave, of course. You get a a branded Stars pickle ball paddle. I know the Rangers did one of those this summer, October 23rd against the Los Angeles Kings. You got Halloween on October 28th. Oh yes, this is the one everybody wants to go to. Mo Bobblehead night, November 4th. That’s right after my birthday. Unfortunately, I may not be able to to make it out to that on a Tuesday. We’ll see. Uh I know we have the weekend off uh with the ice race. So, maybe I can stretch out a long weekend for my my birthday. Um and uh and maybe stick around for Mo Bobblehead night against the Oilers. So, a little bit of a rematch there from the Western Conference final last two seasons. Uh it says guests are or guests are limited to one per fan. Not a big surprise there. Doesn’t say the numbers, so uh just get there early. The doors open at 5:30 on November 4th for Mo Bobblehead night. Um, Dallas Stars Hall of Fame celebration committer poster giveaway. That’s November 15th. You got Ralph Strangest and Joe Newendike that night. November 15th. November 18th, you got Razer, Daryl Razer, Ray Hockey Hall of Fame uh, celebration. That’s November 18th. So, November’s cooking up some some good stuff. Um, retro nights. Um, those are going to be rather interesting. I wonder if the stars are going to break out the new uniforms on those nights, too. November 28th, November 30th, and January 23rd is uh the retro nights. Uh hockey fights cancer, December 5th. That’s always a huge night against the Sharks. So, that’s uh when hockey fights cancer night is. I’m sorry, just rattling off a lot of these, but uh wanted to to make sure all of you get those. A Texas Rangers night co-branded baseball jersey. Those are always fun. January 20th um against the Bruins. So, that’ll be in 2026. Um, there’s some other good stuff. Country restaurant night video game night on March 6th. Uh, that’s that’s awesome. Uh, the the country wrestler night’s February 25th. There’s going to be a special giveaway. Uh, doesn’t look like they say what it is yet, so that will be exciting. No, a Mexicanana night, a rep a replica football jersey. That will be awesome. So, uh, get a Mexican heritage night on March 10th. That’s a bit later on. um in the season will be uh a lot of fun as well. Got an alumni game, fan appreciation night of course towards the end of the season as well. But wanted to highlight some of those because those are always fun especially Mo bobblehead nights. I I imagine that’s going to be really really popular and cool that Miko’s what played what two dozen games if you don’t clue the playoffs and he’s already getting a bobblehead but he deserves it. um single-handedly got the Stars to uh to the second round this uh past season. So, that will be awesome. Would have loved for them to do that uh against the the ABS. That would have been quite the the dig to to make it work and and play them against the ABS uh that or have the bobblehead against the ABS um on that. But, um some some fun fun night scheduled for the promotional uh events uh throughout uh the season. So, there you go. I wanted to to highlight some of those for you on today’s show. And uh yeah, that’s that’s really all I have today on a Wednesday edition of Locked on Stars. A lot of good stuff here. Again, please let me know your ideal lineup. Would uh love to to hear uh your your take on what Stars should do. It’s it’s going to be um fun and fascinating um for for a lot of ways and it’s different just from a couple years that I’ve been doing this podcast just because Dbor’s gone now. So, we’re going through this transition and I just think it’s going to be it’s going to be it’s going to be refreshing in some ways and maybe maybe not on the ice. Look, this could just blow up in their face. Uh although I don’t think it’s going to happen. And I think the Stars are just I think they got too too good of a roster for it to to be a Nashville situation from last season. Let’s just just put it that way. But there’s just a fresh perspective and almost it’s it’s the excitement of not really knowing what this this coaching staff is kind of kind of throw out there. You got Neil Graham too on the B. It’s just a little of excitement there. Whereas the last couple years we just we felt like we knew what was going on. we understood the deal. Like last season, I mean, from day one, we were talking about, okay, let’s just get through the the regular season and there’s an element to that for this upcoming year, but it was just like, let’s just get through the the year and the playoffs are the real test. And then that’s where it kind of got exciting and of course a trade deadline. There’s fun things throughout the season, but there we didn’t have as many question marks about Dallas in some ways. We just we knew the roster. we understood what we were going to get and it was like okay like let’s just once I get through the regular season 82 it’s boom now here we go this is where we’re going to find out what the team is made of sort of thing and uh and then and then we’re we’re we’re done. Um, I think there’s a bit new freshness to to this year which um I I think is going to be exciting and we’re going to have a bit more to talk about just throughout the season with Glenn and whether it’s working, maybe it’s not and that that can um that can lead us to some interesting takeaways from the first month of the season and just discussions throughout the year. So looking forward to to that. But that’s going to do it for today’s episode of Locked On Stars. I’m starting to get the background all kind of figured out. I picked up this this piece, this little ice ray, which looks pretty cool. Somebody painted. Have no idea who it is. Um would love to give credit, but it’s it’s pretty cool. So, threw that out. We’re going to get the background going as I get settled in here um in Corpus Christie for the the next uh season. So, um and our season starts next month. So, um are starting to kind of hit the ground, get the feet wet, which is uh fun to be back. Fun to be back, that’s for sure. Anyway, Stars fans, enough rambling for me. Have a great rest of your day and we’ll see you on Friday to kick you off into your weekend. So long, Stars fans.

On today’s episode of Locked On Stars, Joey Erickson gives his dream opening night lineup for the Dallas Stars! The 2025-26 season is right around the corner and with new Head Coach Glen Gulutzan anything is possible. So, Joey gives the forward trios and defensive pairings he would roll out if he was coach to start the year. Do you agree or disagree? To finish the show Joey highlights the Stars promotional schedule for next season including a Mikko Rantanan bobble head night!

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