Welcome back to the regular season, Stars fans! The Dallas Stars will kick off the 2022-23 season with three games in a row against division rivals, starting with a home-and-home against the Nashville Predators, the first of which will be on the road in Tennessee.
With different leadership and different systems last season, the Stars went 14-8-4 against division rivals. These first three games won’t make or break the season, but they’re going to be important ones, which makes for a tough start.
This will be Pete DeBoer’s first regular season game as the new head coach of the Stars after 12 seasons head coaching the Florida Panthers, New Jersey Devils, San Jose Sharks, and Vegas Golden Knights. His preseason with the Stars had a lot of hits and misses with only 4 wins out of 11 games but as is generally known, preseason points don’t matter.
Dallas Stars
Mason Marchment, signed as a free agent after playing with the Florida Panthers the last two seasons, was the preseason star of the game with three goals in four games played. He did not practice Tuesday after an injury to his wrist in Saturday’s game against Minnesota, but should be on the roster tonight.
Expected lineup based on morning skate:
Jason Robertson – Roope Hintz – Joe Pavelski
Mason Marchment – Tyler Seguin – Ty Dellandrea
Jamie Benn – Wyatt Johnston – Denis Gurianov
Joel Kiviranta – Radek Faksa – Luke Glendening
Miro Heiskanen – Colin Miller
Esa Lindell – Nils Lundkvist
Ryan Suter – Jani Hakanpaa
Jake Oettinger
Scott Wedgewood
Jacob Peterson and Joel Hanley are the expected scratches.
Nashville Predators
The Predators returned early this week from the 2022 NHL Global Series where they took four points off the San Jose Sharks in two games in Prague. Nino Niederreiter, who returns to the central division after four seasons with the Carolina Hurricanes, scored three goals in those two games. Defenseman Ryan McDonagh, two time Stanley Cup champ with the Tampa Bay Lightning who signed with the Predators over the off season, returns home with two points.
Other off season moves that do nothing but help out the Predators for quite some time: Filip Forsberg signed a massive 8 year contract and will be a thorn in the side of the Stars for some time to come.
Expected lineup based on morning skate:
Filip Forsberg – Mikael Granlund – Matt Duchene
Nino Niederreiter – Ryan Johansen – Eeli Tolvanen
Luke Trenin – Colton Sissons – Tanner Jeannot
Cole Smith – Cody Glass – Kiefer Sherwood
Roman Josi – Alexandre Carrier
Ryan McDonagh – Mattias Ekholm
Mark Borowiecki – Dante Fabbro
Juuse Saros
Kevin Lankinen
What Came Before
The record between the Stars and the Predators has always been pretty evenly spread at 46 wins, 48 losses for the Stars, but the home team has a heavy advantage in that record. Last season, the Stars won one out of their four matchups.
Where to Watch
Puck drop will be at 7:30 on ESPN+/Hulu with Leah Hextall and Ryan Callahan and available to listen on The Ticket 96.7 FM with Josh Bogorad and Daryl Reaugh.