Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
So they meet again.
In what has become an annual May tradition, the Texas Stars find themselves matching up with the Milwaukee Admirals in the Calder Cup Playoffs. The two Central Division powers will stage a postseason meeting for the third consecutive year, and the fifth time overall. Texas hosts Game 1 of the best-of-five series tonight and Game 2 on Sunday before the rest of the series moves to Milwaukee.
The Stars owe the Admirals some payback after Milwaukee eliminated them the last two years. In 2023, the teams alternated wins before the Admirals took the deciding Game 5 on Texas’ home ice. In 2024, the Stars captured the opening two contests before Milwaukee took three consecutive home wins.
The ties between the clubs run deep. Admirals head coach Karl Taylor spent four years as an assistant coach with the Stars, helping them to the 2018 Calder Cup Finals. His assistant, Greg Rallo, played five seasons in three separate stints with Texas. Goaltender Matt Murray was on the losing side of the rivalry in 2023; he joined the Nashville organization last summer and earned a spot on the AHL Second All-Star Team. They know each other very well, having played 34 games head-to-head since the start of the 2022-23 season.
They have won the last three Central Division titles, Texas finishing in first place in 2022-23 and Milwaukee doing the honors each of the last two seasons. The Admirals edged the Stars by two points this year, with two victories in Cedar Park on Apr. 5-6 helping make that happen.
Both teams are also perennial postseason participants. The Admirals, who migrated to the AHL in 2001, won the Calder Cup in 2004 and went back to the Finals two years later. They are coming off back-to-back trips to the Western Conference Finals. The Stars made the Finals in their inaugural 2009-10 season, won the Cup in 2014 and got all the way to Game 7 of the championship round in 2018.
Head coach Neil Graham has long-standing ties to the Dallas Stars organization. He joined their ECHL affiliate Idaho in 2012 as an assistant coach, became a head coach there, and advanced to Texas to become an assistant before taking over the top job early in the 2019-20 season.
These teams also enjoy long-standing and productive NHL affiliations, have strong fan support, and run successful operations on and off the ice. Both teams have sent one wave of talent after another to their respective parent teams. There is a strong philosophical adherence to a tradition of development blended inside of a winning environment.
“I have a lot of respect for that organization,” Murray said.
Stars defenseman Trey Taylor joined the team late in the season out of Clarkson University, but has become very acquainted with the rivalry.
“You hear a lot about Milwaukee,” Taylor said. “They’re obviously super-fast. They’re heavy. They play well in their own end. They’ve got a really good goalie, some really good forwards, and really good D. It’s going to be a really good test for us, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to play, see, and be part of two great teams going at it head-to-head.”
In short, it is everything that is so likable about the Calder Cup Playoffs.
“We’re honored and privileged to be one of eight teams out of 32 still playing,” Karl Taylor said. “We want to take advantage of that opportunity.”
Texas took care of the Grand Rapids Griffins in a three-game sweep in their division semifinal match-up, though it required some third-period and double-overtime drama in Game 3. The Stars dug out of a 4-1 hole, scoring three times late to even the game before winning it in the second OT period.
Graham knows that the path will only be tougher this round.
“It’s a challenge,” the Stars’ coach said. “They’re a very good hockey club. There’s no secret to that. So, for us, we embrace it. We’re going to have to be at our best, but frankly so [will] they. So that’s the beauty of this time of year. It brings out the best in yourself, your competitor.”
For the Admirals, they nearly missed out on this rematch. They were in trouble after losing the first two games at home to the Rockford IceHogs, but they pushed back, taking wins on the road in Games 3 and 4 before surviving a back-and-forth Game 5 at home and taking the series on Fedor Svechkov’s overtime goal.
Seven of Milwaukee’s last 10 playoff series have gone the limit. They have won the last six of those seven.
“We’ve had a lot of these elimination games over the years, and you’ve just got to keep playing,” coach Taylor stated. “It’s hockey. It’s playoffs. It’s supposed to be really difficult.”
The affable Svechkov quipped after the win of the Admirals’ penchant for taking series the distance: “Seems like a tradition. I think [past experience] helped because we didn’t panic at all. We just didn’t feel that we [could] lose.”
Svechkov has brought some levity with him in his post-game repertoire. Last year he had 12 points (six goals, six assists) in 15 playoff games. He picked up five more points (three goals, two assists) in five games in this past series against the IceHogs.
“I had been smiling because we’re just playing for these feelings,” Svechkov recounted. “I’ve been in the same spot in my PlayStation career, [and] I just wanted to feel it in real life.”
The real thing is even better.
“Just the best feelings in the world,” said Svechkov.
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.
