{"id":489081,"date":"2026-03-06T13:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T13:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/489081\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T13:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T13:02:11","slug":"glen-gulutzan-says-stars-have-had-fridays-bout-with-avalanche-circled-all-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/489081\/","title":{"rendered":"Glen Gulutzan says Stars have had Friday\u2019s bout with Avalanche circled all season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The good times are rolling for the Dallas Stars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dallas has won 10 games in a row, a new franchise record, and appears to be rounding into form during the home stretch of the regular season. On top of the team\u2019s recent heater, GM Jim Nill brought in some reinforcements at the trade deadline with the additions of defenseman Tyler Myers<\/a> and left winger Michael Bunting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan joined \u201cThe Hardline\u201d on Sportsradio 96.7 FM\/1310 The Ticket (KTCK-AM)<\/a> and broke down the ingedients to Dallas\u2019 recent success, which players have stepped up and how he plans to integrate the team\u2019s trade acquisitions.<\/p>\n

See the highlights of the conversation below, edited lightly for clarity.<\/p>\n

Sports Roundup<\/p>\n

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After a couple of big trades for the team and the Stars on a franchise-record 10-game winning streak<\/a>, things are looking rosy. How do you get the team to stay on track and keep its focus?<\/p>\n

Glen Gulutzan: We\u2019ve added a couple guys here in the last 48 hours. And it\u2019s great, two quality people, two quality players. But you know what? We got a good thing going, and we just gotta integrate these guys into our game and our culture, and then try to keep this thing going as long as we can.<\/p>\n

What do you like about your team\u2019s game right now?<\/p>\n

Gulutzan: It\u2019s just such a complete game that we\u2019re playing, and it\u2019s not a one-off, it\u2019s not a couple games, we\u2019ve put together probably eight of our last 10 wins, eight in a row have been real solid performances from the goaltending to the back end to the forward group. I know we\u2019re playing the way we want to play. And I think the guys are having a lot of fun doing it too. We\u2019ve amped up some of the physicality here that we needed to amp up, just our details in our game. And you know what? One thing that\u2019s probably overlooked a little bit, we\u2019ve asked these guys to play with structure, but we also asked them to play with instinct, and we\u2019re running that balance really well.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve expressed your desire for this team to become more difficult to play against and now it\u2019s becoming more obvious. It looks like a process there. It doesn\u2019t happen overnight and it isn\u2019t a light switch is it?<\/p>\n

Gulutzan: No, it\u2019s not. It\u2019s got to almost come in, almost by osmosis and slowly, and you try to keep working on it until it becomes part of the fabric of your game. And the biggest thing that we have going on right now is that we\u2019ve added this layer and and then we had a tough stretch coming out after Christmas and we all talked about growth and adversity, and how that\u2019s cliche-ish, but that adversity there made us do some soul-searching and looking around and what we\u2019ve added to our game since then. And then the best part of this is that the players could feel it, and the players can see tangible results. And now it is becoming second nature, because it\u2019s almost one of those things you try it, and now you can\u2019t live without it.<\/p>\n

What do you see out of guys that come in after a trade that are excited to join a contender?<\/p>\n

Gulutzan: You gotta be careful. Because sometimes those guys are happy to be here. They add energy. It kind of energizes the group. We\u2019ve got to bring them in the right way too, especially when you have a team that\u2019s going as good as we have too, because remember, they\u2019re going to end up displacing somebody in a way, shape or form. So you run that balance of bringing them in stages, the right way, just like you would any guy that\u2019s coming off injury or has been out for a prong period of time. That way you can get them in. They can get used to the way you want to play. And it\u2019s almost the least disruption that it can become, because they can come in and play their game within what your group is doing,<\/p>\n

The win streak has been impressive, but what\u2019s most impressive is post-Olympic break, you\u2019re doing it with your depth.<\/p>\n

Gulutzan: We got some bad news out of the break, obviously, with [Mikko Rantanen] and [Radek Faksa]. But certainly our depth players have showed up and they\u2019ve been waiting for probably a better opportunity most of the year. They prepared for their opportunity when it came. That\u2019s what you\u2019re selling as a coach, just be ready when your number\u2019s called, and they\u2019ve responded in a massive way. And it goes to show the character of those young men and the character of our group.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s been really impressive is the guys who are not a part of the Olympics come back ready to help and rested, and you come out of the break and here\u2019s Matt Duchene, Wyatt Johnston and Jason Robertson and it looks like that\u2019s exactly what happened.<\/p>\n

Gulutzan: They were right and ready to go. Listen, we had three and possibly even four players that could have been on some of those teams, star players, and they didn\u2019t get to go. And the beauty of it is when they came back, is we had some star players kind of rested up and they responded in such a tremendous way. It\u2019s a big part of the winning streak as well.<\/p>\n

Matt Duchene came out of the gates pretty slowly but he\u2019s looked like himself so far in 2026. Is there anything to that story that the average viewer doesn\u2019t notice?<\/p>\n

Gulutzan: It was turning right before the break, but that injury that he had was very significant<\/a>, and it\u2019s not something you can just come back in. First of all, the league is heated up by the 30-40-game mark. Now you\u2019re getting on a moving train. You\u2019re not 100% healthy. I mean, you\u2019re cleared, you\u2019re healthy, but you\u2019re not completely up to speed. It\u2019s a significant injury, and it took him a while to get back on that moving train. And right before the break, he was doing it. And then I was hoping right when we did get the break, that was his catch-up time. He was getting up to speed before it, but now it put him on an equal platform. And he\u2019s one of those guys I was speaking about is, he\u2019s a star player who\u2019s rested, 100% healthy. Now he\u2019s joining the league on equal footing and you can see what he\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

The Avalanche come to town and it\u2019s a wonderful rivalry, what does that mean to your group right now?<\/p>\n

Gulutzan: It means a lot because we had a game in there to start the season, maybe the second game of the year, I believe. We won the game, but [goalie Jake Oettinger] won the game, and we weren\u2019t happy about the way we played. We marked that date on the calendar and said: \u201cHey, by the time we play them in March, we need to be better.\u201d They kind of dominated us. And so it\u2019s kind of been a standard we\u2019ve kind of looked at, at least in the coaching room, that let\u2019s put in the work because March 6, we want to be better when we play them. Hey, they\u2019re the class of the league right now. They really are. They\u2019ve only lost 10 times. And we\u2019re on a 10-game winning streak, so it\u2019s going to be one heck of a game. But I\u2019m as excited as anybody else to see it.<\/p>\n

3 things to know about Stars-Avalanche: A Central Division battle between the NHL\u2019s best<\/a>Friday\u2019s TV\/Radio listings (March 6)<\/a><\/p>\n

Find more Stars coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The good times are rolling for the Dallas Stars. Dallas has won 10 games in a row, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,147,3490,5,4,43,197],"class_list":["post-489081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-avalanche","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-dallas-stars","tag-glen-gulutzan","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-stars"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116182369383871007","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}