The Dallas Stars battle Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals Thursday night.
Fresh off of sweeping a three game homestand, the Dallas Stars head on the road for one game to battle the Washington Capitals in the nation's capital.
The games are coming thick and fast for Dallas to start the season with the built-in break before and after the team's trip to Finland at the beginning of November. The Stars just finished a stretch of three games in four nights, but Dallas was able to get off to an undefeated start despite not playing their best hockey quite yet.
Tuesday was a battle against the San Jose Sharks, who were the worst team in hockey last season. The Stars never led, but still came out with a shootout victory. Jason Robertson, Matt Duchene and Wyatt Johnston went 3-for-3 in the skills competition after the two teams remained deadlocked after the overtime period.
Now, Dallas must quickly turn their attention to the second road game of the season and second Eastern Conference opponent of the year. After shutting out the Islanders on Saturday night, Dallas makes their first trip to the eastern time zone for an early start against Washington.
The Capitals got off to a late start to the season, only playing their first game of the season Saturday, a 5-3 home loss to the Devils. Their only other game of the year came Tuesday at home once again against Vegas, a rematch of the Stanley Cup Final series that Washington won 4-1. The Caps got their first win of the season with former Vegas goaltender Logan Thompson helping beat his former team 4-2. Thompson started the first five games of the first round of last season's playoffs against the Stars before Vegas turned to Adin Hill for the last two games.
This offseason, Capitals starter Charlie Lindgren fully took the number one role from Darcy Kuemper, who moved on to the Los Angeles Kings. Lindgren is expected to start against the Stars.
What to watch for:
- Dallas has eight different goal scorers this season in four games. Mason Marchment, Tyler Seguin and Roope Hintz have two goals on the year.
- The lines looked a little different on Tuesday with the absence of Seguin. Evgenii Dadonov fit in seamlessly with Duchene and Marchment on the second line, and that line once again looked consistently dangerous against San Jose. Johnston moved up to the top line with Hintz and Robertson, which proved to be a dangerous combination when put together last season. Jamie Benn skated with youngsters Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Borque, who made his season debut.
- The fourth line seems to be gelling well early in the season. An unexpected addition to the starting lineup, Oskar Back has not looked out of place at all next to Sam Steel and Colin Blackwell. Blackwell has looked dangerous and has been trusted as the only forward on the ice in some 5-on-3 penalty kill situations. The versatile forward is proving to be a good signing from Chicago in the offseason.
- At this point, it is anyone's guess on the timeline for Matt Dumba to return, so Brendan Smith has been forced to step in the past two games. Smith has played the fewest minutes of any defenseman in both games, but plays penalty kill minutes and can bring a physical element that the Stars somewhat lack up and down the lineup. Alexander Petrovic is now a right-shot option available to slot in after getting called up Tuesday.
- Alexander Ovechkin recorded two assists on Tuesday to reach the 700 assist milestone in his career. He becomes the sixth player in NHL history to record both 700 goals and 700 assists, and is still chasing Wayne Gretzky's goal record, only 41 away from tying his 894 goals.
Projected lines:
Robertson-Hintz-Johnston
Marchment-Duchene-Dadonov
Benn-Borque-Stankoven
Steel-Back-Blackwell
Harley-Heiskanen
Lindell-Lundkvist
Smith-Lybushkin
DeSmith
Oettinger
Puck drop is at 6 p.m. CDT and can be seen exclusively on Victory+ locally and out of market on ESPN+.
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