PREVIEW: STARS VS. PENGUINS
As the curtain rises on the 2015-16 regular season, Lindy Ruff's Dallas Stars get a tough challenge right away as Mike Johnston's Pittsburgh Penguins pay an opening-night visit to Big D on Thursday night.
Game time at the American Airlines Center is 7:30 p.m. CT. The game will be televised locally on Fox Sports Southwest. The Stars new broadcast team of Dave Strader (replacing longtime play-by-play man Ralph Strangis) and color analyst Darryl Reaugh will call the action.
This is the first of two meetings between the inter-conference teams this season, and the Penguins' lone trip to Dallas. The clubs will rematch in Pittsburgh on Oct. 22. Last season, the Stars won both games of the season series as they captured a 3-2 victory in Pittsburgh and a 2-1 home win.
After this game, the Stars will head to Denver to play the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night. Thereafter, the team has two nights off before hosting the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday. The Pens are in Arizona on Saturday to play the Coyotes and then return to Pittsburgh for their home opener against the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday.
STARS OUTLOOK
The Stars missed the playoffs last year for the sixth time in the last seven seasons. The squad was deadly offensively, ranking second in the NHL averaging 3.13 goals per game. However, the club struggled defensively and received inconsistent goaltending, ranking tied for 26th in the NHL with a team 3.13 goals against average.
During the off-season, the Stars added longtime Chicago Blackhawks standout Patrick Sharp as well as reliable defenseman Johnny Oduya. Lastly, the club signed former Vezina Trophy finalist Antti Niemi to compete with a fellow Finn, veteran Kari Lehtonen, for playing time.
Things did not go well for the Stars in the preseason. The club finished with a 1-6-0 mark with no improvement on the defensive side of the puck and continued issues in net. Niemi had a so-so preseason, while Lehtonen struggled badly. However, the slate is wiped clean on opening night and there is no doubt the Stars have plenty of potent weapons. The challenge will be to get everyone on the same page on both sides of the puck.
Team captain Jamie Benn forms a deadly 1-2 punch with linemate Tyler Seguin. Benn, who underwent surgery on both hips shortly after last season, closed with a flourish last season to capture the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's leading scorer. Based on reports from the Stars' practice on Wednesday, it appears that Benn (left wing) and Seguin (right wing) will play alongside two-way center Cody Eakin on opening night. At some point, Ruff may opt to move Seguin back to center and put Sharp on the right side.
Beyond Benn and Seguin, veteran Jason Spezza will be counted on to continue to provide offensive depth on the second line. Last year, Spezza at times joined the two on the top line at even strength or else helped form a dangerous front line on the power play.
A rookie standout in 2013-14, Stars' 2013 first-round pick Valeri Nichushkin saw most of his sophomore NHL season lost to a hip injury. He is now healthy and slated to join Sharp and Spezza on the opening-night second line.
Apart from goaltending -- Ruff declined to name his starter for the opener ahead of time but it would not be surprising if Niemi gets the nod -- the Stars' biggest question mark is the blueline.
John Klingberg is coming off a stellar rookie season but still has things to learn in his own end of the ice. Oduya is a capable player but not a true shutdown defender against opposing top lines. Offensive minded Alex Goligoski and puck-mover Jason Demers are back, as is Jordie Benn. At some point this year, the Stars hope young defensemen Patrik Nemeth (who lost most of last season due to a grisly forearm laceration suffered early in the season) and former first-round pick Jamie Oleksiak make strong pushes to secure regular starting jobs. The towering Oleksiak has shown good promise at the NHL level but struggled in each of his NHL trials thus far.
PENGUINS OUTLOOK
The superstar duo of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin was supplemented in the offseason by the trade addition of all-star forward Phil Kessel. Veteran two-way forward and team leadership group stalwart Pascal Dupuis is expected to miss four to five weeks with a lower-body injury; unfortunately for the Pens, the team has become accustomed in recent years to missing Dupuis from the lineup.
Even without Dupuis, the Penguins still have some capable forwards to support the three stars who will be expected to be the club's offensive catalysts. A healthy year from Kris Letang is crucial to the top end of a Pittsburgh blueline that is probably the team's biggest question mark.
In the meantime, goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury has been on the NHL's upper-echelon regular season goalies for years and, despite past playoff struggles, was not the reason for the team's postseason exits the last few years. Actually, when push has come to shove in the last couple playoff years, it was ultimately the Penguins' offense that let the team down. That was the impetus for trading to acquire Kessel.
In place of Dupuis, it appears that Beau Bennett will skate on the opening-night third line. He will be joined by Nick Bonino and David Perron. The Penguins hope that Russian import Sergei Plotnikov forms an effective tandem with Malkin and Patric Hörnqvist. Additionally, 2015 second-round pick Daniel Sprong made the team's opening night roster.
In a move that puzzled some who did not understand the machinations, the Penguins sent defenseman Olli Mà¤à¤ttठto the AHL's Wilkes Barre/ Scranton Penguins before submitting its opening night roster. The team recalled forward Oskar Sundqvist. In reality, this set of moves was done solely for salary cap reasons in order to maximize long-term injured reserve space with Dupuis and Eric Fehr (elbow surgery, slated to return in November) out of the lineup. Mà¤à¤ttठis still expected to be a key player on the Pittsburgh blueline this season.
The Penguins went 3-5-0 during the preseason.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (Subject to change)
STARS
14 Jamie Benn – 20 Cody Eakin – 91 Tyler Seguin 43 Valeri Nichushkin – 90 Jason Spezza – 10 Patrick Sharp 21 Antoine Roussel – 13 Mattias Janmark – 83 Ales Hemsky 27 Travis Moen – Vernon Fiddler – 18 Patrick Eaves
33 Alex Goligoski – 3 John Klingberg 47 Johnny Oduya – 4 Jason Demers 2 Jyrki Jokipakka – 24 Jordie Benn
31 Antti Niemi / 32 Kari Lehtonen
Scratches: Colton Sceviour (healthy), Patrik Nemeth (healthy), Jamie Oleksiak (healthy), Brett Ritchie (IR, wrist surgery).
PENGUINS
14 Chris Kunitz - 87 Sidney Crosby - 81 Phil Kessel 61 Sergei Plotnikov - 71 Evgeni Malkin - 72 Patric Hörnqvist 19 Beau Bennett - 13 Nick Bonino - 39 David Perron 34 Bobby Farnham - 7 Matt Cullen - 41 Daniel Sprong
28 Ian Cole - 58 Kris Letang 3 Olli Mà¤à¤ta - 12 Ben Lovejoy 4 Rob Scuderi - 8 Brian Dumoulin
29 Marc-Andre Fleury [37 Jeff Zatkoff]
Scratches: Pascal Dupuis (LTIR, lower-body), Eric Fehr (LTIR, wrist surgery), Oskar Sundqvist (healthy), Adam Clendening (healthy).