After their latest stretch of games, the Dallas Stars find themselves in the thick of the wild card hunt in the Western Conference. Dallas is 6-3-1 in their last 10 games and sit one point out of the second wild card behind the Vegas Golden Knights.
Thanks to the slide the Minnesota Wild are on, the Stars are only four points behind them for third place in the Central Division standings. The Wild are 3-7 in their last 10 and have lost four games in a row.
None of that matters tonight though. The Stars find themselves against a team that has been playing a little better than Dallas recently. The Los Angeles Kings come in to the American Airlines Center having won seven of their last 10 (7-2-1 to be exact).
Dallas will need to continue what the started against the Buffalo Sabres on Sunday. They need to score and keep the pressure up. Of course it helps that Jake Oettinger is playing really well too.
Tonight’s Possible Lines for Dallas
Jason Robertson (21) – Roope Hintz (24) – Joe Pavelski (16)
Jamie Benn (14) – Tyler Seguin (91) – Denis Gurianov (34)
Michael Raffl (18) – Radek Faksa (12) – Luke Glendening (11)
Rile Tufte (27) – Jacob Peterson (40) – Alexander Radulov (47)
Ryan Suter (20) – Miro Heiskanen (4)
Esa Lindell (23) – John Klingberg (3)
Thomas Harley (55) – Jani Hakanpaa (2)
Jake Oettinger (29)
Braden Holtby (70)
The LA Kings
As mentioned earlier, the Kings are playing great hockey right now. Led by the goal scoring of Adrian Kempe, the Kings offense has been clicking. Kempe has 25 goals to lead the club. Although he’s the only 20+ goal scorer they have, he’s not the only firepower. Four other players have at least 14 goals for LA.
They have four players with at least 20 assists as well, led by Anze Kopitar’s 35. Both goalies are putting up similar numbers. Jonathan Quick has a 2.67 goals against average and a .909 save percentage while Cal Petersen has 2.68 and .899, respectively.
Tonight’s possible lines for the Kings
Alex Lafallo (19) – Anze Kopitar (11) – Adrian Kempe (9)
Trevor Moore (12) – Phillip Danault (24) – Viktor Arvidsson (33)
Carl Grundestrom (91) – Quinton Byfield (55) – Dustin Brown (23)
Brendan Lemieux (48) – Blake Lizotte (46) – Arthur Kaliyev (34)
Michael Anderson (44) – Drew Doughty (8)
Olli Maatta (6) – Matt Roy (50)
Tobias Bjornfot (7) – Sean Durzi (50)
Jonathan Quick (32)
Cal Petersen (40)