Denton's sports bars will be full on Oct. 2 for reasons that have nothing to do with college calendars.
The Dallas Stars open the 2026-27 regular season at home against the St. Louis Blues on Friday, Oct. 2, the club announced in its July 16 schedule release on NHL.com. Yahoo Sports reported the puck drop as 7:00 p.m. CT at American Airlines Center.
The same schedule release listed the next night as a road game at Nashville - the first of 13 back-to-back sets Dallas will play.
That is not a soft handshake with the Central Division. It is a two-night bill that asks for freshness, special teams, and goaltending depth before October is a week old.
Why St. Louis first matters
Yahoo's schedule story noted the clubs also met in the preseason and that Oct. 2 is their first season-opening matchup since 2023, when Dallas won 2-1 in a shootout. Recent regular-season history, the same account said, favored the Stars. History does not clear the schedule tax of playing Nashville roughly 24 hours later.
NHL.com's Tracey Myers preview framed the season-wide challenge as breaking through after deep runs in 2023, 2024, and 2025 that stopped short of a Cup, then a first-round exit last spring. Opening against a division rival does not wait for narrative padding.
Gulutzan's second-year checklist
Myers identified Jake Oettinger's consistency, Tyler Seguin's health, and a penalty kill that ranked 13th at 80.3% as levers. She also recited last season's strengths: 2.71 goals against per game (second), 3.33 goals for (ninth), 28.6% on the power play (second). Glen Gulutzan enters his second season behind the bench with a group Myers described as largely unchanged after quiet free agency.
Jim Nill's comments in NHL.com's 32-in-32 piece stressed keeping Jason Robertson on a one-year, $12 million deal and accepting the loss of Mavrik Bourque to the cap. The roster is "pretty well set," Nill said in that July interview.
