After two “lackluster” periods of their first preseason game, the Dallas Stars will look to be crisper when they take on the Minnesota Wild tonight.
Dallas will bring a lineup that does not include their biggest offensive forwards as they look to evaluate forwards for the bottom six on opening night. Gemel Smith, Jason Dickinson, Remi Elie, and Devin Shore are all in that conversation and will be played in a lot of the preseason exhibition games in order to allow for the new coaching staff to evaluate them.
After Valeri Nichushkin, Roope Hintz, and Denis Gurianov had strong training camp showings, all will see action tonight. Marc Methot gets his first preseason game in after not playing in the intra-squad scrimmage or first preseason game; his playing time will likely be managed closely in the preseason after his knee injury last season.
Dallas Lineup
Valeri Nichushkin – Radek Faksa – Blake Comeau
Gemel Smith – Jason Dickinson – Remi Elie
Devin Shore – Roope Hintz – Tyler Pitlick
Denis Gurianov – Justin Dowling – Erik Condra
Marc Methot – Miro Heiskanen
Dillon Heatherington – Julius Honka
Gavin Bayreuther – Reece Scarlett
Anton Khudobin and Colton Point will split the game much like Ben Bishop and Landon Bow did in the first preseason game on Tuesday night.
Minnesota Lineup
The Minnesota Wild lost 3-2 to the St. Louis Blues last night in their second preseason game this campaign.
Head coach Bruce Boudreau said of the effort, “They outshot us 6-0. The next 40 minutes, I think we outshot them 22-6, and we were really good. We should have had maybe three or four goals. But in the last 10 minutes, I don’t think we played extremely well.”
They’re still looking for a win, as they lost to the Winnipeg Jets 2-1 on Monday night. That, combined with the fact that this will be the first preseason game played at Xcel Energy Center, should mean a motivated squad for Dallas to take on.
Since the team played last night, the Wild did not have any pregame skate to base lines off of. Here is who will be playing in front of the Wild’s home crowd tonight:
Forwards
Charlie Coyle
Mikko Koivu
Zach Parise
Matt Hendricks
Jordan Kloos
Nino Niederreiter
Mike Liambas
Kyle Rau
Sam Anas
J.T. Brown
Gerry Fitzgerald
Defensemen
Greg Pateryn
Nick Seeler
Nate Prosser
Matt Bartkowski
Jared Spurgeon
Carson Soucy
Devan Dubnyk and Andrew Hammond will get the split-net duties, similar to Dallas’ tandem.
Storyline Of Note
Hey look, it’s Greg Pateryn! This will be the first glimpse Stars fans can get at how Pateryn looks in a different system after leaving the friendly confines of Ken Hitchcock’s system. How will he look tonight?
How To Watch
The game is being streamed on FSNorth, where the Wild’s games are usually streamed, and are likely to be limited to the Minnesota television footprint. KFAN1003 in Minnesota will also have a radio broadcast. If we find a legitimate, legal way to watch here in Dallas, we’ll let you know in the comments here or on our Twitter page.
Puck drop is at 7 PM CDT, and this will serve as our game thread for it much like we’ll do during the rest of the preseason.