How (on Earth) to Watch the 2024-25 Dallas Stars in the Playoffs: The Only Guide You'll Need

This question wasn't nearly as complicated a few weeks ago

But it’s taking all that I got
Not to run back to you
And it’s hurting my heart—
I’m no longer your muse
I’m a little less over you
Than I was before

***

Just to be clear, this is not search-engine click bait. You know when the games are going to be, and you know how to watch them. We’re here for different reasons than logistical answers today.

But just in case, here you go:

If you can believe it, that’s actually better than last year’s first-round schedule, which included some truly wonderful local start times for Dallas fans, with Game 6 also starting at 10:00pm ET.

Last year’s first-round schedule was even worse

For the record, the Minnesota Wild are also getting some late starts in their series against Vegas this year, with one game in Vegas starting at 8:00pm Pacific Time, which will mean Minnesota viewers won’t see puck drop until something like 10:20pm local time. Which is, to be clear, bad!

As for the TV/Radio part, the same rule as always applies in the first round: if you could watch Stars games on Victory+ during the season, you can keep doing that in the first round. From the second round onward, all games are exclusively national broadcasts, so you’ll need either TNT or ESPN (and their family of channels) if you want to keep watching.

---

That’s not why we’re here, though. We’re here to talk about how you can watch this team in the playoffs against the Colorado Avalanche. And that is a question that has become increasingly difficult over the last couple of months, and almost impossibly so in the last seven games.

The Stars haven’t won a Game 1 of a playoff series since the 2020 Stanley Cup Final. That’s seven Game 1’s with seven losses in the last three years, which means Saturday night will bring a Very Special Episode of this unfortunate show: the chance to go for eight straight in two different categories at once. (And hey, you can be there to see it up close!)

Six years ago, I wrote about playoff anxiety and some of the ways you can deal with it. Given the issues with this team’s play and injuries to Heiskanen and potentially Robertson, I’m seeing a whole lot of pessimism, understandably. Here’s what I wrote about that sort of “expect the worst” approach back before the 2019 playoffs:

This is less of a defense mechanism than it is an outright choice to experience the game in the way that seems least risky to them. After all, children have been born and given their first used Corolla since the Stars last hung a Stanley Cup banner; why expose precious hopes to the (they think) certitude of destruction? Nay, they say! Far better to expect the worst and guard our own emotions while simultaneously piling up a good heap o’ told-ya-so with which to bludgeon other crestfallen fans when everything inevitably falls apart.

And really, is this year much different? Despite Dallas finishing 5th or 6th in the NHL and getting home ice in the first round against a loaded Central Division, the Stars have gotten rid of all accumulated good will in the most efficient means imaginable.

Their top goal-scorer got injured in their very last game, and their best defenseman won’t be ready for the first one of the playoffs. The defense has been as solid as a bounce house full of Kindergarterners at Halloween, and the power play has scored one goal in its last 14 chances. And you’re supposed to block out a Saturday night and even later weeknights after that to watch every bit of that?

You could understand if someone chose to wait for the box score in the paper the next morning, if for no other reason than to spare themselves the pain of first-hand experience.

But here’s the deal, folks: you can’t do that. I am the arbiter of Dallas Stars Watching Rules, and I have decreed that everyone must watch every game of the Stars and Avalanche series that begins on Saturday. This is not an option.

Sure, it feels like tyranny, but the playoffs are an anxiety factory no matter how well your team goes into the playoffs. As Seguin mentioned last night, the Stars tripped over their own shoelaces against a fearsome Vegas team last year after tearing the rest of the West apart in the final quarter of the season. The Boston Bruins lost in the first round two years ago after setting numerous NHL records for their incredible season. Nothing, nothing is guaranteed in the playoffs.

Last year, that was bad news for Dallas, who felt (rightly) like their brilliant regular season earned them nothing but three Conference Finals in a row. But this year, that is just about the best succor a Stars fan could ask for: no matter what happened in the last 82 games, something good could happen in the next four to twenty-eight of them.

Sure, you could choose cynicism, because it’s the easiest choice. That’s because it’s the coward’s way out of caring, the faked detachment that is really fear of being hurt.

Cynicism leads to nowhere; it is nothing but the ladder back down from the top of the waterslide, leading you back to where you came.

That’s why Stars fans don’t really have a choice here, if they want to be able to reap the rewards of any magical playoff run (and they are all that). You have to watch the games. You have to be willing to experience the agony or ecstasy, with all the dread and uncertainty they bring. That’s life, man. That’s every game. The possibility of losing is why we watch. If you wanted to see someone get it right every time, you’d go sit at the bank and watch tellers do their job.

This Stars team can bring you those moments, in case you forgot. Even if you’re only focused on results, the Stars brought good ones far more often than not this year, even after Heiskanen went down. But we don’t really watch sports just for results, but for the story arc. We want to see the journey, to watch the ride. And you will miss out on a whole lot of the highs if you refuse to even risk the lowest lows.