PREVIEW 9:00 AM CDT
With five games left in the 2011-12 regular season, there is good news and bad news for the Dallas Stars (42-30-5). The good news is that the first-place team completely controls its own fate in the simultaneous battles for the Pacific Division championship (and guaranteed third seed in the Western Conference Playoffs) and, failing that, for either the seventh or eighth playoff berth.
The bad news: No team in the NHL has a tougher remaining schedule than Dallas, and the Stars enter tonight's game with no margin for error. First up is the team's fourth meeting in just over a month with the Northwest Division leading Vancouver Canucks (48-20-9). Then Dallas has to travel to San Jose tomorrow -- we won't even get into the Stars' record in the second half of back-to-back games -- for the road half of a home-and-home set with what figures to be a desperate (and better rested) Sharks team.
After that, the Stars have to the go on the road to play Nashville and then finish up the regular season with a home game against the NHL leading St. Louis Blues. Thus, the "take 'em one game at a time" cliche has never been truer than it is right now.
There are two factors that work in the Stars' favor the rest of the way. First, they have plenty to play for while three of the four remaining opponents -- with the huge exception of
San Jose -- already know they're in the playoffs. The Blues will be the number one seed, Vancouver will be the second seed. Nashville is playing for home ice against Detroit, but knows it will be either the fourth or fifth seed.
Secondly, if the Stars' fate should come down to a tiebreaker for the Pacific Division title or one of the last two playoff spots, they hold a three regulation/OT win advantage over both Phoenix and Los Angeles and a four ROW edge over San Jose.
But none of this is likely to mean a thing if the Stars fair poorly in their remaining games. Tonight's game in Vancouver starts at 9 p.m. CDT and will be broadcast nationally on NBC Sports Network.
This is the fourth and final meeting of the season between the Stars and Canucks, all of which have taken place after Feb. 25. Dallas has won two of the first three meetings. On Feb. 26, they waged a late third period and comeback and went on to win in overtime, 3-2. The Stars traveled to Vancouver on March 6 and elevated their collective games to skate off with a 5-2 win. On March 22, the Stars were unable to find a third-period equalizer in a 2-1 loss at the American Airlines Center.
The Stars have been getting fabulous goaltending from Kari Lehtonen over the last six weeks. He will be in goal tonight, and may also start the rest of the games given how desperately the team needs to collect points.
The team has also been getting clutch performances from Michael Ryder, Mike Ribeiro, Loui Eriksson and Jamie Benn. They all need to keep it up. Dallas remains without third-line wingers Eric Nystrom (leg) andRadek Dvorak (ankle), as well as defenseman Mark Fistric (abdominal strain).
Vancouver, which is without Daniel Sedin (concussion), has won four in a row in posting a 6-3-1 mark over its last 10 games. There is an outside chance of beating out St. Louis for the first overall seed, but it's not worth expending all of their energy to attempt to attain.
At this point, the Canucks' real goal is just trying to stay sharp and as healthy as possible before it takes on the seventh seed -- which could potentially be the Stars -- in the first round of the playoffs. Chris Higgins has tallied three goals in the last three games, and they have all been game-winners.
Apart from Daniel Sedin, the Canucks are without defenseman Aaron Rome (sprained knee). Cory Schneider started in goal last game, so the Stars will probably face Roberto Luongo tonight. Vancouver enters this game with a 23-10-4 record at home.
********
KINDLE USERS: Please subscribe to Stars Buzz; a one-stop feed for all things Dallas Stars-related at HockeyBuzz. Content is automatically updated whenever a new blog is published. For more information,
click here.
Dallas Stars Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»