Don’t look now, but the Dallas Stars have a winning streak. And they are regulation wins at that. I know what you’re thinking. It’s only two games, Greg. And I know this. But, lets be honest here, the way this team has started the season we will take any winning streak we can.
Perhaps the more impressive number to come from the two games is ten. As in ten goals scored by this offense. That is a little refreshing coming from a team that has been near the bottom of the league in goals scored per game. Until recently the Stars have been in the bottom three in goal production. They are slowly inching up in that department. They currently sit 26th at 2.57 goals per game.
After tonight’s game the Stars will return back home for Thanksgiving week where they will play a series of games at the American Airlines Center. Tonight’s opponent, the Minnesota Wild is a team Dallas is chasing in the standings. The Wild have played one more game than Dallas but have six more points; having won 10 games and only losing five.
Potential Lines for Dallas
Jason Robertson (21) – Roope Hintz (24) – Joe Pavelski (16)
Jacob Peterson (40) – Tyler Seguin (91) – Alexander Radulov (47)
Michael Raffl (18) – Jamie Benn (14) – Denis Gurianov (34)
Riley Tufte (27) – Radek Faisal (12) – Luke Glendening (11)
Ryan Suter (20) – John Klingberg (3)
Esa Lindell (23) – Miro Heiskanen (4)
Andrej Sekera (5) – Jani Hakanpaa (2)
Anton Khudobin (35)
Jake Oettinger (29)
The Minnesota Wild
After taking a year off from each other, the Wild and Stars find themselves back in the same division this year. Unlike the Stars, the Wild are no strangers to winning streaks this year. Minnesota opened the season winning their first four games of the year. They had another four game winning streak that was halted last Thursday by the Vegas Golden Knights.
Minnesota’s leading goal scorer this year is Ryan Hartman with seven. Hartman is tied with Kirill Kaprizov with 11 points to lead the team. Minnesota is getting goal production from a lot of different places, though. The Wild already have goals from 18 different players this year.
Offensively as a team, the Wild are averaging over three goals a game. On the other side, Minnesota is giving up just under three goals per game. Perhaps the new found offense of the Stars can take advantage of the Wild defense.
Potential Lines for Minnesota
Marcus Foligno (17) – Joel Eriksson Ek (14) – Kevin Fiala (22)
Kirill Kaprizov (97) – Frederick Gaudreau (89) – Mats Zuccarello (36)
Jordan Greenway (18) – Ryan Hartman (38) – Rem Pitlick (16)
Brandon Duhaime (21) – Nico Sturm (7) – Nick Bjustad (27)
Alex Goligoski (47) – Jared Spurgeon (46)
Jonas Brodie (25) – Matt Dumba (24)
Jon Merrill (4) – Dmitry Kulikov (29)
Cam Talbot (33)
Kaapo Kahkonen (34)