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Stars Gameday: 2/12/13 @ Oilers

February 12, 2013, 7:53 AM ET [4 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Dallas Stars Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
UPDATE 2:30 PM CST

Veteran forward Ryan Smyth and defenseman Ryan Whitney will be healthy scratches for the Oilers tonight.


PREVIEW 6:30 AM CST

Looking for their fourth consecutive victory, the Dallas Stars (6-5-1) make their second trip to Edmonton within a week. Last week, the Stars skated off with a 3-2 overtime win. Tonight, the Oilers (5-4-3) will seek their revenge. The game starts at 8:30 p.m. CST and will be televised on Fox Sports Southwest.

Last week in Edmonton, the Stars got regulation goals from Jamie Benn and Derek Roy (power play) before Jaromir Jagr won the game in overtime. Following that game, Dallas made a brief return home, where they downed the Anaheim Ducks by a 3-1 count. The Oilers enter this game coming off a 3-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday.

The Oilers were without Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in the first game against the Stars. He's back now, but the team is still depleted at center without Shawn Horcoff (broken knuckle) and Anton Lander (foot). However, Eric Belanger (toe) should be ready to go tonight. The Stars remain without Ray Whitney (foot) for the next few weeks.

Although the Stars have won three straight and taken seven of a possible eight points in their last four games, there a number of areas that need to be cleaned up. First and foremost, the team needs to avoid the penalty-filled, defensively shaky second periods that have plagued them of late. The team did a good job of shutting down Anaheim in the third period, but in general has had some difficulty building on and closing out games in which they've led at some point.

Tonight's game marks the start of a three-game western Canada road trip for the Stars. They will also play in Calgary and Vancouver before returning home to the American Airlines Center.


PROJECTED LINEUPS -- (Subject to change)

STARS

10 Brenden Morrow - 14 Jamie Benn - 68 Jaromir Jagr
21 Loui Eriksson - 11 Derek Roy - 73 Michael Ryder
18 Reilly Smith- 20 Cody Eakin - 81 Tomas Vincour
24 Eric Nystrom - 38 Vernon Fiddler - 23 Tom Wandell/40 Ryan Garbutt

4 Brenden Dillon - 3 Stephane Rebids
43 Jamie Oleksiak - 33 Alex Goligoski
36 Aaron Rome - 6 Trevor Daley

32 Kari Lehtonen
[31 Richard Bachman]


OILERS

64 Nail Yakupov - 93 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - 14 Jordan Eberle
4 Taylor Hall - 89 Sam Gagner - 83 Ales Hemsky
55 Ben Eager - 94 Ryan Smyth - 37 Lennart Petrell
91 Magnus Paajarvi - 20 Eric Belanger - 56 Teemu Hartakainen

5 Ladislav Smid - 44 Corey Potter
15 Nick Schultz - 19 Justin Schultz
45 Mark Fistric - 2 Jeff Petry

40 Devyn Dubnyk
[35 Nikolai Khabibulin]

*******

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