Yahoo Sports Pregame Notes (42): Dallas Stars Aim to Overcome Losing History in Ottawa
The Dallas Stars look to tie the franchise record and win their eighth straight game Sunday when taking on the Ottawa Senators. It's the second leg of a back-to-back for the Stars after they took down the Montreal Canadiens 2-1 for a shootout victory on Saturday.
The win extended the Stars current point streak to nine games in which they have an 8-0-1 record. They will look to stay hot against a Sens team that will be relying on reserves as they also played on Saturday when they took down the Pittsburgh Penguins in a 5-0 rout on the road.
Ottawa will return home and should be favored in this matchup as they've won seven straight versus the Stars at home and have a 10-4-1 record in their last 15 matchups. The Senators have a 10-7-1 home record, including a recent hot streak of wins in five of their last seven games at Canadian Tire Centre.
The Senators hot streak stretches back to early December, where they've since gone 10-6-1 and have a 2.24 goals against average. However, this may be starting to fall apart as they've dropped four of their last five games.
It's been an underwhelming season for Ottawa as they have playoff aspirations but have struggled to find consistency while staying healthy and aggressive in the play. They've experienced absences from star goaltender Linus Ullmark and key forwards like Shane Pinto, Noah Gregor and Ridley Greig. This has held them back from finding consistency with their style of play.
Their physicality as well as playing tight defensively is what helped the Sens earn surprising wins like their dominant 3-0 shutout win over the Toronto Maple Leafs in early November. They played an impressive game where they played up to their opponent yet, when it came to carrying over the momentum and beating up on someone other than their rivals, they crumbled for a 5-4 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers just two days later.
The Stars have seen their fair share of bumps on the road this season too but have since honed into their proven structure put in place by bench boss Peter DeBoer.
They have hit another gear since early November with a 19-8-1 record and a top four offence and defence with a 3.36 goals per game average and a 2.46 goals against average in their last 28 games.
What to watch for:
The Senators will look to string together two wins for the first time since before Christmas when they won six games in a row. They will attempt to do so by establishing their physical style of play as they rank fifth with 1,091 hits this season. They've landed 29 or more hits in their last three straight matchups versus the Stars.
Both teams will likely start their backup netminders which means we get a rare matchup between Dallas's Casey DeSmith and Ottawa's Anton Forsberg. The Stars hold a significant advantage in this category as DeSmith has a winning record at 6-4-0 and a solid 2.24 goals against average while Forsberg has a 4-8-1 record with a 3.10 average that isn't bad but isn't as impressive as DeSmith.
The Stars offence scored just one regulation goal on Saturday which means they will need players to step up. Logan Stankoven saw his opportunities with seven shots on net but couldn't find the back of the net and snap his 24-game goal drought.
Jason Robertson was red hot heading into Montreal but couldn't muster up a goal until putting away the game winner in the shootout. He'll look to get back on the board against Forsberg, who has a ten goals against across his last three starts versus the Stars since joining Ottawa.
Robertson-Hintz-Dadonov
Benn-Duchene-Johnston
Steel-Bourque-Stankoven
Back-Blumel-Blackwell
-
Heiskanen-Lyubushkin
Lindell-Lundkvist
Harley-Dumba
-
DeSmith
Oettinger
It should make for a thrilling matchup that will be closer than people expect. If you want to check out the game at 4:00 CT on ESPN+ or Victory+ and you can also listen along on Sportsradio 96.7 and 1310 The Ticket. If you are in the Ottawa area, tickets for Stars versus the Sens are very reasonable with the lowest pair being sold for roughly $45CAD.
