DALLAS – The Vancouver Canucks (10-7-4) open their longest road trip of the season tonight when they take on the Dallas Stars (11-8-2) at American Airlines Center in a battle of two teams tied with 24 points. It’s a six-game odyssey that will also see the team makes stops in Nashville, Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Edmonton. Five of those opponents sit in the top half of the National Hockey League standings.
The Canucks are coming off a 5-4 overtime loss to Colorado on Saturday. Adam Gaudette had the first two-goal game of his career while Alex Edler and Brock Boeser scored late goals to force OT. Gaudette has three goals in his past three games while Boeser now leads the Canucks with nine goals on the season.
Prior to the loss to the Avs, the Canucks fell 4-2 to Dallas last Thursday night so the club is out to snap a two-game losing skid tonight. Overall, the Canucks are 1-4-2 in their past seven games and 2-4-3 in nine games in November.
The Canucks will get Jay Beagle back tonight after he missed the past three games with a lower body injury. He replaces Tyler Graovac at centre on the fourth line and gives Travis Green a match-up option down the middle. In Beagle’s absence, Bo Horvat logged a career-high 27:06 against Nashville last Tuesday and 25:55 on Saturday against Colorado. Horvat is still searching for his first goal of the month. The captain has gone nine games without scoring and has just one goal in his last 12 games (in Los Angeles on October 30th).
Jacob Markstrom playing his 200th game as a Vancouver Canuck tonight (189th start). Is 0-3-2 in his last 5 starts. The second of his three NHL shutouts came in Dallas on February 11, 2018.
Five on five offense has been had to come by for Horvat and every other Canuck this month. The team scored just three 5-on-5 goals during its recent four-game homestand – (Elias Pettersson vs Nashville & Troy Stecher/Jake Virtanen vs Dallas). Six of the 12 goals on the homestand came on the power play including both of Gaudette’s goals against Colorado. The Canucks PP is 6/15 (40%) over the past four games.
The Canucks have won their past three visits to Dallas. Last season, Tim Schaller scored both Vancouver goals in a 3-2 shootout victory.
The Stars carry a three game win streak into action tonight. After beating the Canucks last Thursday, they moved on to Edmonton where they rallied from a 4-2 third period deficit to defeat the Oilers 5-4 in overtime. Jamie Benn scored the winner. It was just his second goal of the season and his first since October 10th.
Tyler Seguin had the winner and an assist against the Canucks last week at Rogers Arena and followed that up with 1+2=3 in Edmonton. Veteran Blake Comeau has scored in back to back games.
Ben Bishop got the hook after giving up three goals on 15 shots, but will get the start in goal tonight. He was the back-up against the Canucks last week in Vancouver.
Dallas is 7-0-1 in its past eight games and 10-1-1 in its past dozen games since a 1-7-1 start to the season. The 21 standings points the Stars have collected since October 19th are second only to Washington’s 24 over that span.
The Stars are stingy giving up the 5th fewest goals in the NHL this season. In fact, Saturday in Edmonton was the first time since October 18th that Dallas surrendered more than three goals in a game.
Radek Faksa has 3+4=7 on a six-game point streak.
Dallas is still without Roope Hintz who leads the team with nine goals this season. John Klingberg is also out of the line-up.
POSSIBLE CANUCKS LINE-UP
Miller-Pettersson-Boeser
Pearson-Horvat-Virtanen
Baertschi-Gaudette-Leivo
Schaller-Beagle-Eriksson
Edler-Myers
Hughes-Tanev
Benn-Stecher
Markstrom
POSSIBLE STARS LINE-UP
Benn-Dowling-Seguin
Gurianov-Pavelski-Radulov
Caamano-Dickinson-Perry
Cogliano-Faksa-Comeau
Oleksiak-Heiskanen
Lindell-Fedun
Sekera-Polak
Bishop