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Dallas Stars Daily Links: Everything’s Clicking

The top line is rolling, the goalies are solid — sounds like a recipe for success. Plus, Murray and Kane open up about their AHL demotions, trade rumors heat up, and more.

When the Dallas Stars were floundering earlier this season, there were two major issues that stood out.

The first was a lack of scoring from the team’s top forwards, due to a slumping Roope Hintz injured Jason Robertson. But now? The top line is bulldozing opponents:

“Well, [Robertson], he sees the ice and is very calm and patient. He’s a great playmaker,” Bowness said. “Roope knows how to get in the open with his speed, and [Joe Pavelski] knows how to just read off the other two and get in the right spot at the right time. Pavs is so good around the net, but he’s spent his whole career working around the net, finding openings, finding pucks, and deflecting pucks, and knowing where the play is going to be.”

The other issue was subpar goaltending, as Braden Holtby cooled down considerably after a hot start and Anton Khudobin struggled. But then Jake Oettinger was called up and has been fantastic, and Holtby seems to be bouncing back:

“He’s such a competitive guy. Like, there is no way he’ll ever quit on a shot. He won’t quit on a shot in practice,” Bowness said, describing Holtby’s flurry of saves late in the game. “He tries everything to stop every shot in practice, and that’s what you love about the guy and that’s why he’s had the tremendous career that he has.”

You can read more from Mike Heika here.

Stars Stories

Saad Yousuf breaks down the performance from the tantalizing trio:

As a reminder, this was Rick Bowness’ 2,500th NHL game coached:

Holtby also secured the record for most wins in a goalie’s first 500 games in NHL history:

And Roope Hintz scored his first career hat trick:

Around the League

It was a good night for the Central:

  • It took a shootout, but the St. Louis Blues squeaked by the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3. [St. Louis Gametime]
  • Meanwhile Filip Forsberg scored four goals as the Nashville Predators thrashed the Stars’ next opponent, the Columbus Blue Jackets, 6-0. [On the Forecheck]
  • Finally the Minnesota Wild also laid a beatdown on the Arizona Coyotes, winning 5-2. [Hockey Wilderness]/

Recently demoted to the AHL, Matt Murray opens up:

Evander Kane also spoke about his AHL assignment:

Brendan Lemieux has earned five games for his biting incident:

The New Jersey Devils signed 2019 1st overall pick Jack Hughes to an 8x$8M contract extension:

I’m just gonna leave this here:

Finally, now that December has rolled around, can we expect to see some more trades?

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