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Stars Start A Four-Game Homestand Against The Kraken

I guess it goes without saying, right? The Dallas Stars had the worst road trip imaginable. Not only did you walk away zero out of a possible six points, you got outscored 11-6 in the three games. Oh, not to mention ZERO out of a possible SIX points. What’s worse is they really had no chance other than the Calgary Flames game.

So that disastrous road trip makes for a very interesting final week of the season. Four home games left. All four teams are currently out of the playoffs. Two of the teams (Seattle Kraken and Arizona Coyotes) are the two worst teams in the Western Conference.

However, there is a huge game coming up on Tuesday night. The Stars will host the Vegas Golden Knights. You know, that team Dallas is trying to hold off in the standings. With four games to play, only two points separate them. Yeah, that team.

Which brings me to tonight’s game. Dallas is hosting one of those Western Conference bottom-dwellers tonight. Although everything points to the fact that the Stars should beat the Kraken, the NHL is a weird scene at times. Especially if one of the teams is looking towards another game on the schedule – like the next game against the Knights.

Can the Stars keep their heads on straight and stop this three-game losing streak? We find out tonight at 7 p.m. on Bally Sports. The good thing is that the next four games for Dallas are home games. The Stars are 24-10-3 at the American Airlines Center this season.

Dallas potential lines

Jason Robertson (21) – Roope Hintz (24) – Joe Pavelski (16)

Michael Raffl (18) – Jamie Benn (14) – Tyler Seguin (91)

Marian Studenic (43) – Radek Faksa (12) – Joel Kiviranta (25)

Fredrik Karlstrom (51) – Jacob Peterson (40) – Luke Glendening (11)

Ryan Suter (20) – Miro Heiskanen (4)

Esa Lindell (23) – John Klingberg (3)

Thomas Harley (55) – Jani Hakanpaa (2)

Jake Oettinger (29)

Scott Wedgewood (41)

The Seattle Kraken

For the expansion Kraken, things haven’t gone like they had hoped. Especially when you look at what the Knights did a couple of years ago during their expansion season.

Seattle finds themselves with only 58 points on the season. That’s 14 fewer than the next team in the standings (San Jose Sharks). Like I said earlier, only the Arizona Coyotes have a worse record in the Western Conference. Montreal is the only Eastern Conference Team with a worse point total.

The Kraken only have one guy with 20 or more goals. Jared McCann has 26. Yanni Gourde and Jordan Eberle each have 19. Those three are also the only players with at least 40 points on the season.

Goaltending hasn’t been much better. Philipp Grubauer has played in 54 games. He has a goals-against-average of 3.14 and a save percentage of .890. On paper, the Stars should get two points in this game tonight.

Seattle Potential Lines

Jared McCann (16) – Yanni Gourde (37) – Karson Kuhlman (25)

Ryan Donato (9) – Matthew Beniers (10) – Jordan Eberle (7)

Victor Rask (49) – Alexander Wennberg (21) – Kole Lind (73)

Daniel Sprong (91) – Rile Sheahan (15) – Joonas Donskoi (72)

Vince Dunn (29) – Adam Larsson (6)

Jamie Oleksiak (24) – William Bergen (3)

Carson Soucy (28) – Cale Fleury (8)

Philipp Grubauer (31)

Chris Driedger (60)

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