The Stars head into Wednesday night in Denver still trying to settle in, and the schedule isn’t giving them much breathing room. Dallas will face the Avalanche at Ball Arena at 7:30 p.m. in the second of four meetings between the teams this season, and it also opens one of the league’s more familiar wrinkles for the Stars: the first of seven stretches this year where they’ll see the same opponent in back-to-back games. This is also the second of Dallas’ 12 back-to-back sets on the season, with the teams set to meet again Jan. 22 in Dallas and Jan. 24 in Colorado.
Colorado comes in at 4-2-0, while Dallas is 2-3-1. The Avs hold the edge in the standings and on special teams so far, but the Stars have had success in this building lately.
Dallas has earned points in seven of its last 11 games at Ball Arena, going 6-4-1 there since Nov. 1, 2019.
One place the Stars have leaned heavily is in goal. Their 1.67 goals against average leads the league, and that’s been a major reason Dallas has stayed competitive on the road and on the second night of back-to-backs. Jake Oettinger and Casey DeSmith have driven that edge, and Tyler Seguin was direct about what it means for the group.
“It’s huge,” said forward Seguin. “We’ve got great goaltending and that means we’re in every game. That’s a great feeling, because you know it’s going to be there.”
Oettinger earned NHL Second Star of the Week honors after posting two shutouts last week, and he gave the credit back to the players in front of him.
“It’s a team effort,” he said. “It feels great when you see your guys working so hard for you. It helps a lot.”
Stars coach Glen Gulutzan pointed to Oettinger’s puck tracking and calm through traffic as a major factor in his game.
“Just the way he’s seeing the puck,” Gulutzan said before Tuesday’s game. “Finding pucks through traffic.
I think when he’s at his best, even last year when I saw him, I made a comment to Reeser [goaltending coach Jeff Reese]: Just reading the play, especially when there’s traffic, and finding those pucks. I think he’s done a great job with that.”
Oettinger said the feel has been there, too.
“It’s awesome, it’s like a flow, like not thinking about anything,” Oettinger said. “For me, I always find I feel like a little kid.
I’m having fun. I feel like I’m playing outside on an outdoor rink, and you’re just battling and having a blast.”
DeSmith described his own approach in similarly simple terms.
“I think if you just follow your program and prepare, the rest takes care of itself,” he said. “As a backup, I have to be ready for anything, so it helps to just live day-to-day. That’s really been the key for me.”
Dallas will have to manage without Wyatt Johnston again. The center was scratched Tuesday because of illness, which snapped his run of 333 consecutive games dating back to his NHL debut in October 2022. He will also miss Wednesday’s game and is not traveling with the team.
“He’s sick,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. “He had morning skate and then came here also. He won’t be traveling with us tonight, so he’ll be out tomorrow.”
There are a few individual matchups worth watching. On the Dallas side, Jason Robertson enters with a three-game point streak, having collected four points (2-2-4) and a plus-5 rating during that span.
He is also one point away from passing Tim Young (494) for 12th on the franchise points list among forwards. Through 461 games, Robertson has 215 goals and 494 points, and he leads all 2017 draftees in career goals.
Against Colorado, he has 21 points (10-11-21) in 18 games, including eight points (5-3-8) in his last six meetings with the Avalanche.
Colorado’s Cale Makar has been just as dangerous. He has four points (2-2-4) over his last two games and has seven points (3-4-7) in five games this season.
He averages 21:30 of ice time, which leads Avalanche skaters, and his seven points are second on the team behind Nathan MacKinnon’s 10. Makar’s 514 career points are the most by an Avalanche defenseman in franchise history, and he has 23 points (7-16-23) in 21 career games against Dallas.
The history between the teams tilts toward Colorado overall, with Dallas going 71-69-23 all-time against the Avalanche, including 28-45-9 on the road. Jamie Benn, though, has been a steady producer in the matchup.
He has seven points (3-4-7) in his last seven games against Colorado and 51 career points against the Avalanche, the most among active Stars skaters and the third-most among all active NHL players. Miro Heiskanen has also been productive in the series, piling up 11 points (2-9-11) in 25 career games while averaging 24:52 of ice time per game, the seventh-highest average against one opponent among active NHL skaters.
There’s also one more scheduling note working against Dallas’ legs. The Stars went 8-3-1 on the second night of back-to-backs last season and lost their first such game this year, leaving them 8-4-1 in their last 13. On the road, they were 24-9-8 last season, the second-best mark in the NHL, and are 1-1-1 away from home so far this year.
Mikko Rantanen put it plainly when asked about Dallas creating cleaner chances.
“I think it’s individual. You’ve got to find composure on the ice, you’ve got to feel confident every time you go out there and know sometimes you’re not feeling it or whatever but you think the NHL is really fast, and it is, but there’s always more time than we think offensively. So, we’ve got to relax a little bit.”
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Oskar Backs situation adds another layer to the picture. He left last nights win over Colorado with an upper-body injury, and Dallas has not confirmed his status for Saturday, leaving the Stars with at least one lineup spot very much up in the air. For a team trying to settle in after a tight stretch, the timing of Johnstons return and Backs availability could matter just as much as anything happening behind the bench in Denver. [Read more 🡒]
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Emil Hemming was always going to be watched closely, and so far the early returns have been quiet. The top prospect is still looking for his first point of the season, and the blank slate has now stretched into a longer scoreless run at the pro level. For a farm team trying to find consistency, that leaves one of the organizations most important young forwards stuck in the middle of an uncomfortable early question about when the production is going to arrive. [Read more 🡒]