A busy preseason rolls on for the Dallas Stars tonight in Colorado for round two with the Avalanche. Dallas defeated a pretty veteran laden St. Louis team last night 3-2 at home to run their preseason record to 3-0 and are looking for a fourth win Sunday with Richard Bachman getting the start in net.
Bachman is expected to be the number one guy in Cedar Park for the Texas Stars once again this year, backed up by Tyler Beskorowany, as he will be tonight. Glen Gulutzan said that Bachman should get the majority of this game, but Beskorowany could play as well depending on the situation.
With the Texas Stars reporting for physicals on Monday and camp starting in Cedar Park on Tuesday, this is expected to be the last chance for many of these guys to shine in preseason before being sent down, and as such the lineup is a predominately young one.
Steve Ott-Tom Wandell-Tomas Vincour
Toby Petersen-Travis Morin-Francis Wathier
Krys Barch-Jake Dowell-Raymond Sawada
Mathieu Tousignant-Ryan Garbutt-Stephen Schultz
Tom Wandell will get a chance to show something on the top line and on the power play, and Tomas Vincour should have big minutes and a big opportunity to continue stating his case, but none of the club's offensive Stars are on the roster tonight, so it will be interesting to see how a group like that responds
**Tonight's game should be on the Avs radio stream online, so we'll have a gameday thread and congregate here. Please stop by at 7:00pm CDT.**
The defensive pairings and the Colorado lineup after the jump...
That Barch/Dowell/Sawada trio should be a pretty gritty bunch. On defense the lineup looks a little more familiar...
Nicklas Grossman-Trevor Daley
Sheldon Souray-Philip Larsen
Dan Spang-Mark Fistric
Nick Grossman and Trevor Daley is obviously a pairing we could see in the regular season, particularly if Goligoski and Robidas are paired together as many expect that they might be, so it will be interesting to (hear) how that pair does.
Dan Span is expected to be a big part of the Texas Stars defense along with Philip Larsen, of course.
The Avalanche
The big story for the Avs today is the loss of two NHL regulars for what might be the start of the regular season. Mile High Hockey has the details...
Brandon Yip has suffered a broken forearm and will be out for quite some time. Yip broke his forearm while blocking a shot in the St-Louis game. But the injuries don't end there, Jan Hejda is also injured. The Avalanche said they do not know when Hejda injured his knee, he didn't play in the game against St-Louis.
Hejda will miss two to four weeks due to a knee injury. There was no timetable given for Yip's recovery, only that they would know more about it today, as we hear more, we will let you know. Unfortunately for Yip, I would imagine that a broken forearm takes quite some time to heal, and so he will a chunk of time.
The Colorado lineup tonight, via their website, is expected to be this:
31 G Trevor Cann
35 G J.S. Giguere
5 D Shane O’Brien
6 D Erik Johnson
9 C Matt Duchene
12 C Kevin Porter
22 D Matt Hunwick
26 C Paul Stastny
27 D Kyle Quincey
28 C Joakim Lindstrom
29 C Ryan Stoa
34 LW Daniel Winnik
36 D Jonas Holos
37 C Ryan O’Reilly
39 LW T.J. Galiardi
42 C Brad Malone
46 D Stefan Elliott
58 LW Patrick Bordeleau
88 C Peter Mueller
92 LW Gabriel Landeskog