Dallas Stars: Hudler, Oduya Could Make Large Impacts With Return

The Dallas Stars are in Chicago for a showdown with the Blackhawks tonight, and they don’t necessarily have a lot of momentum pushing them along. Hopefully two familiar faces will help with that in their return to the lineup.

Just 24 hours ago, the Dallas Stars were in the middle of a heated battle against the Philadelphia Flyers at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA.

In five short hours, they will be right back at it, only this time it will be against the Chicago Blackhawks in the Windy City for a divisional matchup.

And you can be assured that the Dallas Stars definitely need a win.

After finishing up a two-game home stand in impressive fashion on Thursday by beating the Nashville Predators 5-2, the Stars took to the road once again for a weekend trip up North. They started things off in Philadelphia yesterday against the Flyers.

With their eyes set on just their second winning streak of the season, Dallas played a gritty and confident game for the first 50 minutes. They were holding on to a 2-1 lead late in the game, but a couple of costly penalties near the end of the game caused them to fall victim to the hottest team in the NHL.

So here they are at another loss. They are 11-12-6 on the season with 28 points, and are quickly losing games out of hand to other teams near them in the standings. Not to mention that they are sitting outside a playoff spot at the moment.

Now that they are have been on the outside looking in for a while, they are realizing that things are starting to get tight around the league. The games are starting to mean more, and teams are starting to hunker down. If a team is in the playoff standings, they are playing consistently to stay there. If a team is on the outside of the standings, they are starting to play more desperate in an attempt to pick up two points.

The Stars have yet to hit either of these positions, but they are quickly slipping into the desperation zone. Tonight’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks is not going to make it any easier either. The Hawks are coming off of a frustrating overtime loss and need to get back in the win column to pad their position at the top of the Central Division.

So the odds aren’t necessarily stacked in the Stars’ favor tonight. They can’t string together two well-rounded performances and cannot seem to adjust to the difficulty and speed of their schedule.

But could a few friendly faces help out in turning the ship around?

Earlier this week, F Jiri Hudler and D Johnny Oduya joined the team for practice and were medically cleared to once again join the Stars in-game. They were both on the trip and ready to play yesterday in Philadelphia, but head coach Lindy Ruff held both of them out.

Hudler has not played since November 1 when the Stars fell to the Columbus Blue Jackets in overtime. He’s only played four games this year and has not tallied a point yet in his first season with Dallas.