Dallas Stars @ New York Islanders – Game Preview

The Dallas Stars will look to feed off of their motivational win against the New Jersey Devils last night when they complete their road trip in New York tonight when they take on the Islanders. This game marks the first of two meetings between the Stars and Islanders, with the second one scheduled for March 3 at the American Airlines Center. The Stars went 0-2-0 against the Islanders last year and will look to break the trend tonight. The game can be seen on FSSW or you can listen to it on 1310AM/96.7FM The Ticket. Puck drop is scheduled for 6:00 CST.

Records and Scores

The Dallas Stars currently sit at 4-1-2, and are currently hoisting their best record to start the season since 2011-2012 when they started off at 6-1-0. If they win tonight, they will match the point total of that season. The Stars are on quite the hot streak, after losing in a shootout to the Blackhawks and being dominated by Nashville to start the season, they have an active 6-game point streak, and will look to add on to it tonight. They are 2-0-1 in their last three. Their most recent win came off of another Metropolitan Division team, the New Jersey Devils, last night when they won in a shootout. Lindy Ruff called it their most impressive win of the season. The Stars are 3-0-1 against Eastern Conference teams, all coming from the Metropolitan Division. The Stars will finish their first back-to-back of the season tonight. They currently sit in 2nd place in the Central Division with 10 points, just outside the top where Nashville sits with 12.

The New York Islanders have proved all of the doubters and critics wrong this year, currently sitting with a record of 5-2-0. They made a few moves in the offseason that went under the radar but ended up making a big splash in their depth. They are most recently coming off of a 3-2 win against the Bruins in Boston. They are 1-2-0 in their last three. They are in first place in the Metropolitan Division with 10 points.

Storylines

Stars line shuffling is working like a charm

The Dallas Stars have seen an arsenal of different line combinations so far this year. But this most recent shuffle has produced a plethora of bountiful results. The Stars are currently 2-0-0 with the new lines that consist of Jason Spezza on the top with Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin, and Erik Cole and Shawn Horcoff manning the fourth line. The Stars have outscored their opponents 9-5 in the past two games and will look to continue their trend. In those last two games, the top line in itself has tallied eight points.

Line shuffling will be present in the crease tonight as well. Anders Lindback is set to make his second start as a Dallas Star tonight. He is 0-1-0 on the year with his one loss being a 4-1 defeat against his former team, the Nashville Predators. He currently holds a .906 save percentage and a 3.05 GAA. He gave three away to the Predators, but his numbers do not back up his performance. Against the Predators, he played great but sadly his defense left him out to dry in the third period. Lindback will look to take redemption tonight against one of the league’s best teams.

Islanders mirroring the Stars’ form of play

The New York Islanders love the offensive side of the puck, and cannot seem to find an answer on the defensive side. Both teams sit in the top five in goals for and both have given away 22 goals through seven games this season. The Islanders have a very fast-paced offense that can be hard to stop, and the Stars defense needs to be ready. The Isles rank last in the league in penalty kills and the Stars rank seventh on the power play, so if they can take the man advantage over NYI tonight, they could be able to tack on a few goals.

Injury report

Sergei Gonchar (ankle) and Valeri Nichushkin (hip/groin) have made great strides over the past week in recovering, but both are still on the IR for tonight. Patrik Nemeth remains on IR for the rest of the regular season with an arm laceration. Rich Peverley (heart) remains on the LTIR.

The Islanders will be missing Josh Bailey (hand), Matt Carkner (back), Michael Grabner (lower-body), and Travis Hamonic (upper-body). Mikhail Grabovski will be a game-time decision.

Projected lines

Dallas Stars

Jamie Benn – Jason Spezza – Tyler Seguin
Antoine Roussel – Cody Eakin – Ryan Garbutt
Patrick Eaves – Vernon Fiddler – Ales Hemsky
Erik Cole – Shawn Horcoff – Colton Sceviour

Alex Goligoski – Trevor Daley
Jordie Benn – Brenden Dillon
Jyrki Jokipakka – Jamie Oleksiak

Anders Lindback
Kari Lehtonen

Kevin Connauton and Curtis McKenzie will serve as the healthy scratches for the Stars.

New York Islanders

Cory Conacher – John Tavares – Kyle Okposo
Mikhail Grabovski – Frans Nielsen – Nikolay Kulemin
Anders Lee – Brock Nelson – Ryan Strome
Matt Martin – Casey Cizikas – Cal Clutterbuck

Nick Leddy – Johnny Boychuk
Thomas Hickey – Lubomir Visnovsky
Calvin de Haan – Brian Strait

Chad Johnson
Jaroslav Halak

Prediction

It’s a top tier battle tonight between two of the league’s hottest teams at the moment. The Islanders hold the slight advantage because of the Stars traveling and back-to-back schedule. Either way, the Stars definitely look like the hungrier team over the last 3-5 games, so I have them winning it 2-1 in OT. Lindback stops 29-30 and the Stars improve to 5-1-2.