Dallas Stars Take on Colorado Avalanche: Official Preview
Happy Valentine’s Day Stars Fans! Dallas is coming into play after beating the Florida Panthers last night and they’ll look to continue the momentum tonight as they take on the Colorado Avalanche at Pepsi Center. The game is set to start at 8PM CT and can be seen on Fox Sports Southwest.
Records and Scores
The Stars (26-21-8) got a shutout performance from Kari Lehtonen last night en route to a 2-0 win and the earning of another two valuable points. Jamie Benn scored his nineteenth goal of the season shorthanded and Jason Spezza added a beautiful spin-move goal to lead Dallas to the victory. The win put the Stars three points out of the second wildcard playoff spot in the West and five points ahead of the Avalanche. Dallas will aim to make it a seven-point advantage with a win tonight.
The Avalanche (22-22-11) are losers of four straight, most recently dropping a game against the New York Rangers last Thursday. The Avalanche are also in the mix for the wildcard positions in the Western Conference, but are falling out of it due to their poor play of late and lack of regulation/overtime wins. Colorado will look to close the gap tonight against the Stars.
Story Lines
Costly Win
Last night’s game saw three Dallas Stars leave due to injury and all of them are potentially serious. During the first period Ales Hemsky suffered a lower-body injury and didn’t return, then Florida’s Dmitry Kulikov hit Tyler Seguin in a dirty play that caused him to leave the game as well. The injuries weren’t done yet, as only a few minutes later Patrick Eaves was struck in the head by a slap shot from Stars’ defenseman John Klingberg.
All three players are not expected to be in the line-up for the game tonight and the extent of their injuries are unknown at this time. Lindy Ruff did say that both Hemsky and Seguin will miss “some time” and both players were placed on injured reserve this morning, while Eaves went to the hospital after the game to be checked out. The absence of these three forwards, half of the top six on the team, will force Dallas’ call-ups to fill very large shoes.
Roster Changes
Injuries aside, tonight’s game will be the first for goalie Jhonas Enroth as a Dallas Star. Enroth was acquired in a trade earlier this week with the Buffalo Sabres in which the Stars gave up Anders Lindback and a conditional third round pick in 2016. He is (13-21-2) through the thirty-seven appearances he made for the Sabres this season, giving him all but three of Buffalo’s sixteen wins on the year. In Dallas he will hopefully be the elite back-up goaltender the Stars have been looking for the last couple of seasons and he’ll aim to best the Avalanche in his season-debut for the Stars tonight.
Wildcard Race
As with years past, the race for the final spots in the Western Conference Stanley Cup Playoffs is close. There are six teams in serious competition for the two positions with fewer than ten points separating them and both teams playing tonight are in the mix. The standings as of last night are:
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The Winnipeg Jets and Calgary Flames are the two teams currently holding the coveted wild card positions, but a win tonight would give Dallas 62 points (27-21-8) and put them only a point out of contention. That doesn’t, however, account for the fact that the other four teams are also playing tonight. Regardless, the small gap separating these teams makes every point and every win unbelievably valuable.
Injury Report
The Dallas Stars lost Hemsky (lower-body), Seguin (lower-body), and Eaves (concussion) in the game last night, while Valeri Nichushkin (hip) and Rich Peverley (heart) are still sidelined. Seguin and Eaves were both placed on IR this morning. Defenseman Patrik Nemeth, who has missed the majority of the season with an arm laceration, is doing a conditioning stint with the Texas Stars and should be returning to the line-up soon.
Dallas’ Antoine Roussel will serve the second and final game of his two-game suspension tonight for his crosscheck to the head of Boston’s Adam McQuaid.
The Colorado Avalanche will be without Jesse Winchester (concussion), Jamie McGinn (back), Ryan Wilson (shoulder), Borna Rendulic (broken leg), Patrick Bordeleau (knee), and Erik Johnson (knee).
Projected Lines
Dallas Stars*
Jamie Benn – Jason Spezza – Erik Cole
Cody Eakin – Vernon Fiddler – Ryan Garbutt
Travis Moen – Shawn Horcoff – Colton Sceviour
Brett Ritchie – Travis Morin – Curtis McKenzie
*The forward line combinations are a best guess due to the injuries from last night’s game. With the call-ups and scratches from previous games this line-up merely has every forward in it. Actual lines will be tweeted via @BlackoutDallas before or during the game.
Alex Goligoski – John Klingberg
Jyrki Jokipakka – Trevor Daley
Jordie Benn – Jason Demers
Jhonas Enroth (expected starter)
Kari Lehtonen
Colorado Avalanche
Gabriel Landeskog – Ryan O’Reilly – Nathan Mackinnon
Alex Tanguay – Matt Duchene – Jarome Iginla
Cody McLeod – John Mitchell – Dennis Everberg
Max Talbot – Marc-Andre Cliche – Danny Briere
Nate Guenin – Tyson Barrie
Jan Hejda – Zach Redmond
Brad Stuart – Nick Holden
Semyon Varlamov (expected starter)
Reto Berra
Prediction
The Stars will overcome the adversity they are facing with injuries and earn Enroth’s first win as a Dallas Stars when they beat the Colorado Avalanche 4-3 in regulation.
Thanks for reading! Be sure to check back after the conclusion of the match-up for post-game analysis.