Looking for their sixth straight win on home ice and having broken a three-game losing streak last game on the heels of a winless east coast road trip, Lindy Ruff's Dallas Stars (21-11-8) play host to Mike Yeo's Minnesota Wild (21-11-8) on Saturday night. Game time at the American Airlines Center is 7:00 p.m. CT. The game will be televised on Fox Sports Southwest.
This is the fourth of five meetings between the teams this season and the second and final game in Dallas. The season series concludes on Feb. 9 in St. Paul.
The Stars have won all three games against the Wild to date, although two came in overtime. On Dec. 21, the visiting Stars earned a 6-3 victory at the Xcel Energy Center.
After giving up 12 goals in the final two games of their eastern road trip, the Stars returned home on Thursday to skate off with a 2-1 win via shootout against the Winnipeg Jets.
Separated temporarily from regular linemate Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin provided Dallas' lone regulation goal and both Seguin and Patrick Sharp converted their shootout attempts to enable Dallas to earn a bonus point for the skills competition victory.
In goal, Kari Lehtonen made 32 saves and came just a second-period goal through traffic by Mathieu Perreault from recording a shutout. The big Finn denied two of three attempts in the shootout, with the final attempt by Bryan Little hitting the crossbar.
Minnesota enters this game coming off a 4-3 overtime home loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday. The Wild are 1-1-2 since the calendar flipped to 2016 and are 3-2-2 since the Christmas break.
The Wild never led in Thursday's game but battled back to erase deficits of 1-0 and 3-1. Minnesota dominated the third period and controlled most of overtime before Philadelphia pulled out the win in the final minute on a gorgeous tic-tac-toe passing sequence from Claude Giroux to Jakub Voracek to goal-scorer Michael Del Zotto. Devan Dubnyk was solid in goal despite yielding four tallies, as he stopped 32 of 36 Flyers' shots and had little to no chance to stop any of the ones that got past him. Two of the goals were scored off the rush, one came from an uncontested shooter in point-blank range and the other was a rebound goal.
On the injury front, winger Ales Hemsky (foot) remains on IR for the Stars while defenseman Jordie Benn (lower body) is doubtful. Darcy Kuemper (concussion) and Nate Prosser (undisclosed) are day-to-day for the Wild.
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NILL SIGNS FIVE-YEAR EXTENSION
The Stars announced on Friday that general manager Jim Nill has signed a five-year contract extension. Along with Tom Gagliardi's purchase of the franchise, the return of Jim Lites to the organization as CEO and the hiring of Lindy Ruff as head coach Nill has been instrumental in turning around what had become a troubled franchise. To date, the Stars have posted a 110-72-25 record in the regular season since Nill became the general manager. This season, the club leads the Western Conference and is challenging for the President's Trophy.