Dallas Stars Set To Melt Penguins' Ice

After flying high through Philadelphia, the Dallas Stars look to finish off their four-game road trip with a perfect record, showcasing vast improvements in all aspects of their play.

The Penguins aim to finish their five-game home stand on a good note after winning 3 of 4, but the Stars will be coming in hot to the CONSOL Energy Center tonight, giving Sidney Crosby and company a run for their money.

You can listen to tonight’s game on Fox Sports Southwest (FSSW), and it will also be broadcasted on 1310AM/96.7FM The Ticket. Puck drop is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. at CONSOL Energy Center.

Records And Scores

The Dallas Stars are coming off a hot streak (5-1-0), their most recent victory at the expense of the Flyers on Tuesday. Undefeated on their four-game road trip, the Stars have pulled ahead early in the season in points and scoring; Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin are tied for most points in the league (10 each), while last season’s Art Ross Champion shows no signs of backing down with 6 goals scored on the season, the most out of any player so far.

The Pittsburgh Penguins (3-3-0) have been trying to exploit the home team advantage, winning 3 out of 4 in a five-game home stand. Surprisingly, Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby currently has 3 points on the season (all earned in the Penguins’ most recent tilt against the Panthers), which is interestingly on par with the points earned by Kari Lehtonen and Antti Niemi.

Storylines

The Two-Headed Finnish Monster

Antti Niemi absolutely stunned in Dallas’ home opener against the Penguins, and will get the start in net again tonight. After an iffy-at-best performance against Colorado (which remains the Stars’ only loss of the season), Lehtonen took a spin in the crease and demonstrated his competence and drastic improvement from last season in a 3 game winning streak.

Niemi continued the success against the Flyers and earned the starting position against the Penguins. If goaltending continues to shine for the Stars, it’ll continue to be a toss-up as to which big Finn will grace us with their presence in goal.

Role Reversal

While the Penguins’ big names like Crosby and Malkin have struggled to produce, even with the addition of Phil Kessel, the Stars prove that depth and quality 2^nd-4^th lines can propel a team on to victory. The Stars’ most noted players, such as Benn and Seguin, started the season somewhat quietly, allowing players on bottom lines to shine and chip in to push the Stars past their opponents.

Injury report

The Dallas Stars are currently plagued with injury. They will be without Curtis McKenzie (lower body), Patrick Eaves (lower body), and most recently Travis Moen (upper body).

The Penguins are having some personnel issues of their own, and will be playing without Pascal Dupuis (lower body), Eric Fehr (elbow), and Beau Bennett (undisclosed). Kevin Porter, who did not practice Wednesday due to an undisclosed injury, is also questionable for tonight’s game along with rookie Daniel Sprong.

Projected lines

Dallas Stars

Jamie Benn– Tyler Seguin –Patrick Sharp

Vernon Fiddler–Jason Spezza–Valeri Nichushkin

Mattias Janmark–Cody Eakin–Ales Hemsky

Antoine Roussel–Radek Faksa–Colton Sceviour

Alex Goligoski–John Klingberg

Johnny Oduya–Jason Demers

Jyrki Jokipakka–Jordie Benn

Antti Niemi

Pittsburgh Penguins

Chris Kunitz– Sidney Crosby – Phil Kessel

David Perron– Evgeni Malkin– Patric Hornqvist

Sergei Plotnikov– Nick Bonino– Bryan Rust/ Bobby Farnham

Eric Fehr?-Matt Cullen– Pascal Dupuis?

Ian Cole– Kris Letang

Brian Dumoulin– Ben Lovejoy

Olli Maatta– Rob Scuderi

Marc-Andre Fleury

Predictions

Amped up and ready to close out their home stand with a win, the Penguins will strike and score first on home ice, but the Stars’ inventive and sometimes sneaky offense will come back to bite them and leave the Pens out in the cold, 4-2.

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