Dallas Stars Daily Links: Stars Get Another Shot at an Unbeaten Team

The Sharks are really good. But you know, the Sharks were really good last season, and Dallas wound up with a 3-1-0 record against them. So there's that.

San Jose will be rolling into town after a 6-2 demolishing of the St Louis Blues on Tuesday. It wasn't the prettiest of games though, marred early on by an ugly hit by Maxime Lapierre on Dan Boyle that led to a line brawl, heaps of penalty minutes, a special teams heavy game, and sort of a grinding night overall. Boyle was briefly unconscious after the hit, stretchered off, and has since returned home to San Jose. And Lapierre is pleading his non-existent case in New York.

That's some background for you. But you wanna know what's scary about San Jose, besides the Tom, Dick, and Hairy line? They lead the league in shots per game, averaging 41.8. That's mildly obscene. Wanna know what else is scary? They're second in shots against, with 23.5 per game. But hey, small sample size. I tell myself.

And anyway, the Stars just played a game where they put up remarkably similar numbers to those. A game to take confidence from, if nothing else.

"There were some good learning games and there are some things we know as a team that we can fix. At the same time we had some highs," said Stars defenseman Brenden Dillon. "We go into Colorado and put 41 shots on, which is something we really wanted to focus on. I think that was a good bounce back and end to the road trip. We can't be satisfied with it though because we didn't get the two points. It's a building block in the right direction." [Stars Inside Edge]

That's right, the Sharks aren't the only ones who can put up 41 shots in a game.

It's possible we'll see a slightly different lineup tonight, particularly for the defense, after Lindy Ruff's comments before the Colorado game. But regardless, let's hope the Stars can match the effort of Tuesday night, only change the result.

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Game previews? Be patient. These are just the early birds. There'll be more up today. [Stars Inside Edge] [CBS Sports]

A look at what's coming up for the Stars this week. [On the Radar]

It's quite possible that I was the only one in the dark as to the origin of the 'Dan Ellis Problems' hashtag on Twitter. Well in light of him taking the reins as starting goaltender, for this week anyway, let's just bring it back shall we? [National Post]

Early returns on the Seguin/Erikkson (and other people) trade? [Sporting News]

And in honor of Virginian Star and Bayouboy and this morning's discussion, SB Nation has an article up on shot differential vs shooting percentage. Read it slowly though. It made my head hurt. [SB Nation]

The New York Rangers ended their slide last night. Thank goodness, as it was getting embarrassing. [NHL.com]

And, since traditional power rankings are useless this early in the season, I instead present you Power Rankings, Puck Daddy style.