For two periods last night versus the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Dallas Stars seemed to be getting it together.
They limited the Penguins in the first period, taking a 0-0 game through 20 minutes. On the road, that’s not a bad start. Then Roope Hintz did Roope Hintz things as Jamie Benn hit him on a breakaway and he struck the puck home to open the scoring for Dallas. It was just the third time in the first nine games of the season in which Dallas had scored first. The middle frame would end 1-1 with scoring chances in the period even between the two teams too.
The third period saw the team give up two goals, deflating them once again and leading to yet another one-goal loss. While John Klingberg finally got off his schneid in the goalscoring department, it was just not enough to get the team a point in a game in which they’d put together more consistent effort than most games this season.
Antoin Khudobin put the game — and season — succinctly into perspective last night. “What else can you say? We just got another L. Fucking, I don’t know. We just have to keep going and do something.”
They can “do something” tonight when they face the Philadelphia Flyers. They Flyers have had their own string of issues to start the season. The only team that might be equal to the Stars in Starsing is the Flyers Flyering.
That means this could end up being a 1-0 shootout win or a 5-4 slug fest thanks to questionable defense. Anything is possible with these two teams. Hopefully Dallas finds a way to end up on the winning side — they desperately need it.
Dallas Stars Lineup
With the team not having morning skate as is tradition on the second half of a back-to-back set, we’ll have to wait for word on potential changes Jim Montgomery may make tonight. Heres’ what the Stars rolled with last night in Pittsburgh.
Jason Dickinson – Tyler Seguin – Alexander Radulov
Jamie Benn – Roope Hintz – Corey Perry
Mattias Janmark – Radek Faksa – Joe Pavelski
Andrew Cogliano – Justin Dowling – Denis Gurianov
Esa Lindell – John Klingberg
Andrej Sekera – Miro Heiskanen
Jamie Oleksiak – Taylor Fedun
With Antoin Khudobin starting last night, Ben Bishop should go in net tonight.
Flyers Lineup
Claude Giroux – Sean Couturier – Travis Konecny
Oskar Lindblom – Kevin Hayes – Jakub Voracek
James van Riemsdyk – Scott Laughton – Tyler Pitlick
Carsen Twarynski – Michael Raffl – Christ Stewart
Ivan Provorov – Matt Niskanen
Travis Sanheim – Justin Braun
Robert Hagg – Shayne Gostisbehere
Carter Hart
If you want to hear more about the Flyers and Stars matchup, including the player Flyers fans should know from the Stars that they might not know today and a prediction on the outcome, you can listen to an interview I did with Broad Street Hockey yesterday here.