After a long road stretch, the Dallas Stars are back on home ice for most of the next six weeks. They start the stretch off tonight against a red-hot Calgary Flames team as they attempt to stamp out their own losing skid.
Dallas Stars center Tyler Seguin summed it up best when asked about tonight’s game against the Calgary Flames:
“Being at home will help a lot, too. We’ve been on the road for the last, it feels like three months. It was a lot on the road and I think everyone is happy to be back home and hopefully get this win tonight.”
The estimation of time might be a little bit off (considering the Stars have only been playing for two and a half months), but it all the more wraps up the main point: Dallas is back home after a long stretch on the road.
For 17 of their past 24 games, the Stars have been playing away from home. Considering they have only played 33 total contests, this recent stretch has take up a large chunk of their 2018-19 regular season so far.
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Going on the road is never an easy task, especially when missing a handful of starters due to injury. And yet, the Stars found a way to make it somewhat work.
Dallas turned in an 11-10-3 record throughout the long stretch, keeping themselves in the playoff hunt and trying to salvage points while their top players recovered from various ailments on their way to returning to the lineup. And for much of that stretch, things looked to be going incredibly well.
But, in the past week, that promise seemed to instantly fade. The Dallas Stars wrapped up a four-game road trip along the west coast on Saturday night and came up empty-handed. Though they were involved in some close bouts with Vegas, Anaheim, San Jose, and Colorado, they couldn’t pull a single point from the trip. That hurt both their confidence and their position in the standings.
“Obviously when you have a losing streak, it’s never great for the group and never great for the confidence,” said Martin Hanzal. “You have to make sure we play desperate hockey and do the basic stuff like going hard to the net. Like a simple play; don’t try and make cute plays. Just basic stuff and outwork the other team. That’s the bottom line.”
Now that the road stretch is over, however, it’s finally time for Dallas to make their return to the American Airlines Center. And it came not a moment too soon.
Going into Tuesday night’s game, the Stars sit in 11th place in the Western Conference. They are four points out of the final wild card spot with only one game in hand and have the Minnesota Wild and Vancouver Canucks sitting between them and the playoff wall. With that being said, a quick turnaround is needed. What better way to start the turnaround than on home ice?
But, this turnaround will not start out on an easy note. Their first contest comes tonight against a red-hot Calgary Flames team.
Flame for Thought
The Dallas Stars bested the Flames in overtime to close out their November slate and did it on the second night of a back-to-back. It was an impressive win, but it did little in halting the Flames’ current streak.
Calgary has won seven of their last eight contests. They have ascended from outside of the playoff picture to the top spot in the Pacific division with a record of 22-10-2. While they have risen up the rankings, the Stars have slipped.
“We have to take good angles and make sure we keep in front of them,” said Stars head coach Jim Montgomery. “They’re really good at beating you up ice; it doesn’t matter. You look at the St. Louis game alone, but they’re 9-1-1 in the last 11 for a reason.”
The Flames are known for their puck-moving defenders and quick transition game, and it is leading to a lot of success on offense and defense. At the moment, they sit fifth in the NHL in goals for per game at 3.59 and third in goals against per game at 2.71. They own the ninth-best power play and 16th-best penalty kill. Everything is starting to click for the Flames as they continue trying to create space in the Pacific.
“Their d-core runs their engine for their forwards,” said Montgomery. “Because they’re so good at passing the puck and drawing a forecheck or a neutral-zone forecheck to them before they move it to forwards, then they have time and space and their forwards are moving. I really like the way they play. They play a good brand of hockey.”
“We know how well they are with the puck with their [defense] and the forwards,” said Devin Shore. “So, when they have the puck, just making sure that we bunker down on our team defense and then just make great decisions and manage the puck well when we have it. Just take care of the puck.”
After four consecutive losses, the Dallas Stars will be rolling with a new look. That includes Denis Gurianov getting a spot on the top line alongside Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin.
“I want him to play to his strengths,” Montgomery said of Gurianov. “He’s got great power, he’s got speed, quickness, his release is really good, and he has hockey sense. I just told him that he has to make sure that he does what he did in Colorado and win a lot of battles and pressure pucks for us.”
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In addition, Devin Shore will take the second line center spot to fill in for Jason Spezza, who will miss the game due to strep throat. With Shore being moved into the dot, Radek Faksa will shift out to the wing alongside Martin Hanzal and Tyler Pitlick.
“I think Hanzal is a little bit of a role model to Faksa,” Montgomery said. “And also, I really liked Faksa on the wing yesterday in practice. He seemed to be a little more creative offensively. To me, Faksa’s strength is he’s a great forechecker and as a winger, you get on top of the forecheck even more often. We tried to just play him to his strengths there. It’s just trying something else to try and generate a little more offense for us and balance on the lines.”
On defense, Julius Honka will serve as the scratch after starting in the past two games. He will be replaced by Joel Hanley, who cleared waivers on Tuesday morning and will likely play in his last game with Dallas tonight before being reassigned to the Texas Stars. That leaves the Dallas defense looking like this ahead of Tuesday’s game:
Gavin Bayreuther – Roman Polak
Joel Hanley – Taylor Fedun
“As a coaching staff, we were just more comfortable with what we were getting consistently from that six and that’s what we were winning with,” Montgomery said.
It’s a long road back to rally from a four-game losing streak, but that’s not daunting to the Stars in the least. All it takes is one step at a time.
“It starts with one game,” Shore said. “You can’t get eight points in one night, so you just have to focus on the Calgary Flames tonight and start to rebuild.”
“We got home from a long trip,” said Hanzal. “This is the first game playing home, so we have to make sure we start strong, go after them, and play desperate hockey. Be very responsible defensively and the chances will come.”
Ben Bishop will get the start between the pipes as the Dallas Stars square off with a streaking Calgary Flames team. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.
Step one in the road back is tonight.