In the second match of a five-game road trip, the first game of an Alberta back-to-back and middle segment of a three-in-four, Ken Hitchcock's Dallas Stars (5-4-0) will face Todd McLellan's Edmonton Oilers (2-5-1) on Thursday night. Game time is 8 p.m. CDT. The game will be televised on Fox Sports Southwest Plus.
This is the first of three meetings between the team's this season. Last season, the Stars went 1-2-0 against the Oilers.
Entering Thursday with a 1-3-0 road record (Edmonton comes with the same unenviable early home mark), the Stars saw their overall four-game winning streak come to and on Tuesday with a 5-3 loss in Denver to the Colorado Avalanche.
Ben Bishop, pulled early in the second period of Tuesday's game, complained about it to the media afterwards. He will be back in net to start this game. Defenseman Stephen Johns suffered an upper-body injury (suspected to be a concussion) in Tuesday's game after a hit from Matt Duchene. One or both among Jamie Oleksiak and Greg Pateryn could be back in the Dallas lineup.
Edmonton comes into this game off an unsuccessful trip to Pennsylvania that saw the team absorb a hard-fought 2-1 regulation loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday afternoon and a 2-1 overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday. The Oilers were at least able to secure one point in the latter game because Connor McDavid knotted the match at 1-1 late in the third period. Another positive development: both Leon Draisaitl and Drake Caggiula are back in the Oilers lineup after stints on injured reserve. Defenseman Andrej Sekera (knee) remains on IR.