Dallas Stars left wing Jason Robertson (21) celebrated with center Roope Hintz (24) and right wing Mikko Rantanen (96) after scoring the game-winning goal with one minute left, winning 3-2 against the St. Louis Blues at the American Airlines Center on Jan. 23, 2026.
Smiley N. Pool/Staff Photographer
Hockey and Texas might seem like an unusual combination, but the Dallas Stars have made it seem as natural as peanut butter and jelly.
The Stars have rarely been out of contention for long, making the playoffs more than 20 times since their move to North Texas in 1993. They won the Stanley Cup in 1999 and made it to the Stanley Cup Final twice more (2000 and 2020). In recent years, they’ve been a playoff mainstay led by a homegrown core featuring stars like Jason Robertson, Miro Heiskanen and Wyatt Johnston.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Dallas Stars:
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The Dallas Stars gathered around the Stanley Cup after the team defeated the Buffalo Sabres 2-1 in triple overtime in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals in Buffalo, N.Y., on June 20, 1999. Dallas won the series 4-2.
RYAN REMIORZ/AP
History
The franchise that is now the Dallas Stars started as the Minnesota North Stars, an NHL expansion team in 1967. The team won two division titles (1981-82 and 1983-84) and made two Stanley Cup Finals (1981 and 1991), losing each time.
The team moved to Dallas ahead of the 1993-94 season and adopted the Dallas Stars moniker. The team made it to the playoffs in its first season in North Texas, led by legendary forward Mike Modano’s 50-goal season.
The team underwent two big changes during the 1995-96 season when Rangers owner Tom Hicks bought the Stars and Ken Hitchcock was hired as head coach. The Stars quickly became one of the best teams in the NHL in the late 1990s. The run of success culminated in the franchise’s first (and only) Stanley Cup Trophy in 1999. Center Joe Nieuwendyk won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the playoffs.
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All told, the Stars won five consecutive division titles and made two Stanley Cup final appearances under Hitchcock. Those teams featured a bevy of franchise legends including Modano, Nieuwendyk, Sergei Zubov, Jere Lehtinen and Ed Belfour.
The Stars moved to the American Airlines Center for the 2001-02 season, but got off to a mediocre start that cost Hitchcock his job midway through the season. The team went on to miss the playoffs that year. Nonetheless, the Stars remained a playoff mainstay throughout much of the 2000s under head coach Dave Tippett, with several key pieces of the Cup-winning core still in place. They made the postseason five consecutive seasons between 2002 and 2003 and 2007 and 2008, but missed the playoffs in 2009 for only the third time since the team moved to Dallas.
That largely marked the end of an era for the Stars, with Tippett and Zubov leaving after the 2008-09 season and Lehtinen and Modano exiting the following year. Soon after, the team encountered severe financial woes and filed for bankruptcy in 2011 before being sold to Tom Gaglardi.
The team continued to struggle in the first few seasons under new ownership, but the hiring of general manager Jim Nill in 2013 helped turn things around. He quickly traded for rising young forward Tyler Seguin and paired him with Dallas’ own promising young player and newly appointed captain Jamie Benn. He also brought in head coach Lindy Ruff.
The major changes worked. Dallas snapped its postseason drought the following year. The 2013-14 season was also the team’s first after a major rebrand which brought in the team’s current Victory Green color scheme and a new logo.
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The team made sporadic playoff appearances throughout the 2010s and even won a division title in 2015-16, but didn’t make a deep playoff run again until the COVID-19-impacted 2019-20 season. Led by coach Rick Bowness, the Stars made it back to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2000, propelled by the young Finnish trio of Heiskanen, Roope Hintz and Esa Lindell.
Bowness would get Dallas back to the postseason in 2022, but stepped down after a first round exit. The arrival of head coach Pete DeBoer would usher in a new era of success for Dallas as the team went three consecutive seasons reaching the Western Conference Finals. But in all three cases, the Stars were unable to advance and came up short in their quest to make the Stanley Cup Finals.
Homegrown talent has largely driven Dallas success. Heiskanen, Hintz and Lindell were joined by players like Robertson, Johnston, Jake Oettinger and Thomas Harley. One major exception to that theme is star forward Mikko Rantanen, who joined the team as a major trade deadline acquisition in 2025.
Dallas Stars center Wyatt Johnston (53) was on the ice in Game 1 of a first-round NHL Stanley Cup playoff series between the Dallas Stars and the Minnesota Wild on April 18, 2026, in Dallas.
Julio Cortez/AP
Key players
Here are some key players to know on the 2026 team:
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Mikko Rantanen: 2022 Stanley Cup Champion, two-time NHL All-Star Game, 2022 NHL Second All-Star Team
Wyatt Johnston: 2023 NHL All-Rookie Team, single-season franchise record holder for power play goals (27 in 2025-26)
Jason Robertson: 2023 NHL All-Star Game, 2023 NHL First All-Star Team, 2021 All-Rookie Team
Jake Oettinger: 2024 NHL All-Star Game, 2026 Olympic gold medalist
Miro Heiskanen: 2019 NHL All-Star Game, 2019 NHL All-Rookie Team, 2022 Olympic gold medalist and 2026 Olympic bronze medalist
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Honorable mentions: Matt Duchene, Esa Lindell, Thomas Harley, Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin
Notable personnel
Owner/governor: Tom Gaglardi
Team president/CEO: Brad Alberts
General manager: Jim Nill
Head coach: Glen Gulutzan
Arena
The Stars have played their home games at the American Airlines Center (AAC) in Victory Park since 2001. That might be changing in a few years.
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The team signed a nonbinding letter of intent in June 2026 to build a hockey-only arena and wider entertainment district on the site of the Shops at Willow Bend shopping center in Plano. The move would come when the team’s AAC lease expires in 2031.
Related: How Dallas lost the Stars: ‘Our plan … always was to stay there’
This is a rendering of the proposed new development for the planned Dallas Stars arena and entertainment complex.
Courtesy of Centennial
Rivalries
The Stars have rivalries with a number of Central Division opponents, including the Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues. The Avalanche and Stars in particular have met in the playoffs seven times — three alone since 2020.
Outside the division, the Stars have historic rivalries with the Edmonton Oilers and Vegas Golden Knights. Similarly to the Avs, these teams have faced Dallas numerous times in the postseason.
The Stars have faced the Oilers eight times since moving to Dallas, including six times between 1997 and 2003. Edmonton also beat Dallas in the Western Conference Finals in both 2024 and 2025. Dallas and Vegas have met three times in the playoffs since 2020, including two high stakes series in the Western Conference Finals in 2020 and 2023.
Legends
The Dallas Stars Hall of Fame includes eight players and seven builders (team executives, coaches and broadcasters. Here is the full list:
Position, Name, Tenure with Stars
C Mike Modano, 1989-93 (Minnesota North Stars), 1993-2010
D Sergei Zubov, 1996-2009
RW Jere Lehtinen, 1995-2010
C Neal Broten, 1980-93 (Minnesota North Stars), 1993-1995
D Derian Hatcher, 1991-93 (Minnesota North Stars), 1993-2003
G Ed Belfour, 1997-2002
LW Brenden Morrow, 1999-2013
C Joe Nieuwendyk, 1995-2002
Owner/Governor Norman Green, 1991-1995
Owner/Governor Tom Hicks, 1996-2011
Owner/Governor Tom Gaglardi, 2011-present
Head coach/general manager Bob Gainey, 1990-2002
Head coach Ken Hitchcock, 1995-2001, 2017-2018
President/CEO Jim Lites, 2011-2017
Play-by-play broadcaster Ralph Strangis, 1995-2017