Game Preview: Stars Return Home For One Game Stand Against The Winnipeg Jets

The Stars are coming off a disappointing 3-1 loss at the hands of the Arizona Coyotes. They had won the first two games of the road trip and should have secured all six points. Instead, they went 2-1-0, beating the best team in the league in the Colorado Avalanche and losing to the 31st place Yotes.

Now, they return home to face the Winnipeg Jets before traveling to Nashville for a match-up with the Preds tomorrow night.

“For the most part, it has been good,” Bowness said about the team’s overall intensity. “It certainly wasn’t there on Sunday [against Arizona] for two periods. Chicago was good, the game in Colorado, they are a good team. We are three points out of a playoff spot, these games are huge coming up.”

The Stars and Jets met 12 days ago at the AAC, with Dallas taking the victory in overtime 4-3. Since then, the Stars are 2-2-0 while the Jets have gone 3-3-0. Both teams currently sit on the outside of the playoff picture, looking in.

“They played really well in Calgary and they played well against us,” Bowness said. “They are a good team. They are well balanced, they’ve got a great goalie, they are big and heavy on the forecheck, and they’ve got four good lines.”

Jake Oettinger will get the start tonight against Winnipeg. This will be his eighth start in the last nine games overall.

Oettinger has been the story for Dallas lately. He went 2-1-0 on the road trip with a stellar 0.98 goals-against average and .972 save percentage. He stopped 104 of 107 shots faced, including a 46-save performance against Colorado and his second career shutout in Chicago, earning him the NHL’s Third Star of the Week honors.

“The team, they have a lot of confidence in Jake right now, he is playing really well,” Bowness said. “Like any pro, you get out there and you are playing well and you want to keep playing. He is playing really well, he is feeling really good about himself, and when that happens you let them play.”

For the Jets, their success goes as far as Kyle Connor takes them. The lone All-Star representative has 54 points in 50 games this season, including four points in the last four contests. Mark Scheifele has also had success as of late, scoring seven goals over five games including a hat trick against the Minnesota Wild on Feb. 16.

It is Pride Night at the American Airlines Center featuring a ceremonial puck drop by local figure skating pair Timothy LeDuc and Ashley Cain-Gribble, who recently competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics. The game is also an early start, beginning at 6:30 CST.

Lineup Updates

• Andrej Sekera remains day-to-day with an injury

He Said It

“You focus on doing the right things out there,” Klingberg said. “For me personally, if I feel like I am engaged in the game, winning my 1-on-1 battles, a big part of my game is breaking the puck out, I feel like the rest is going to take care of itself. There’s nothing new for us here. Every game has been very important for us all year so we keep dealing with it and take it game by game.”

Projected Lines

Robertson-Hintz-Pavelski

Benn-Seguin-Gurianov

Kiviranta-Peterson-Radulov

Raffl-Faksa-Glendening

Suter-Heiskanen

Harley-Klingberg

Lindell-Hakanpaa

Oettinger

Holtby