Calgary Flames (27-22-8, 62 pts) @ Dallas Stars (28-25-3, 59 pts)

7:30 PM CT, February 16, 2012

American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas

Four points. That's all that separates the Stars from a playoff spot right now but with the losses slowly starting to pile up, those four points are starting to look like 14 points. Dallas gets a chance to right that ship tonight against the Calgary Flames, a team that is sitting one point out of the playoffs as of today. Somehow, Dallas has gone this entire season without playing the Flames (or the Vancover Canucks for that matter). This game and the remaining three games in this series will have a huge hand in deciding the fate of the Stars.

Dallas was on the wrong end of history in their last game, a 3-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings and their stupid home winning streak. The first twenty minutes were all the difference in that game. Detroit came out possessed and Dallas allowed the Wings to bullly them around. That led to two goals for the Wings in the first ten minutes and a lead that Dallas couldn't overcome.

The Stars actually played pretty well the rest of the game, but they were always pressing in an attempt to make up those two goals. Dallas spent nearly the entire first six minutes of the third period in the Wings zone (offensive pressure, amazing how much that helps to prevent goals).

The message of effort has been said over and over again but it just doesn't get through to the players (the repeated terrible turnovers do not help at all either). Hoping for full out effort from start to finish in this game might be too much to ask for but that's exactly what Dallas needs tonight. The Flames aren't a pushover team and have had a good string of games lately.

Expect another Kari Lehtonen start tonight (with hopefully Bachman in the next game, don't want to tire Lehtonen out).

Brenden Morrow will miss another week or two with his neck problems. It seems Sheldon Souray's foot injury is a little bit more serious that previously thought and he might be out another game or two.

more after the jump

The Stars enter week 20 as the 11th place team in the Western Conference with 59 points. That mark puts them in the middle of a pack of teams fighting for the last playoff spot. Dallas sits one point ahead of the Minnesota Wild, one point behind the Colorado Avalanche and Calgary Flames and four points behind the Phoenix Coyotes for the last spot in the playoffs.

The previous week, Dallas went 1-2-1, losing game against the Phoenix Coyotes, Buffalo Sabres (SO) and the LA Kings. The only team they beat was the Columbus Blue Jackets. The win was not very convincing however so there's not a look of positives to build upon.

Dallas has four games to play this week including another difficult back-to-back tilt, which has greatly troubled the Stars this season. It does provide a great chance for the Stars to leap the opposition as they play a couple of teams directly ahead of them in the standings. Travelwise, it will be difficult as the Stars alternate home and away throughout the week. On the schedule:

• Tuesday, February 14: @ Detroit Red Wings (38-17-2, 78 pts, 1st in the West) - Detroit enters this matchup on a 20 game home winning streak. This will be the most difficult matchup of the week.

• Thursday, February 16: Home game against the Calgary Flames (26-22-8, 60 pts, T-9th in the West) - This is the first of four matchups this season that Dallas has against the Flames and a sign of the chance that the Stars have to haul themselves back into playoff contention.

• Saturday, February 18: @ Phoenix Coyotes (27-21-9, 63 pts, 8th in the West) - The fifth of six matchups this season. Dallas will be trying to get revenge for a 4-1 buttkicking the last time these two met. This will be the critical game this week as it is the first of a back-to-back.

• Sunday, February 19: Home to the Nashville Predators (32-18-6, 70 pts, 5th in the West) - The second game of yet another back-to-back for the Stars. Dallas is still looking for the first win in this situation. This will be the third of four meetings between the two teams.

Dallas Stars (28-24-3, 59 pts) @ Detroit Red Wings (38-17-2, 78 pts)

6:30 PM CT, February 14, 2012

Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, Michigan

There's going to be a lot of talk about the Wings and their pursuit of history today in going for 21 straight wins at home. Didn't we all learn from Blackjack? Try to hard to hit 21 and all you'll do is end up busting. The Stars get a wonderful chance to do exactly that tonight, bust up the Wings festivities and put an end to their incessant gloating.

If Dallas hopes to win, they need to play better than what they showed on Sunday against the LA Kings. They cannot start slow and Kari Lehtonen needs to be on top of his game today. There's been way too many instances in the past month where Gulutzan talks about how the team did not have any energy throughout the game.

He knows how this team failing and yet the message never sticks with the players. The same problems keep showing up. Turnovers, missed defensive assignments and a propensity to overpass the puck on the man-advantage. Those problems keep popping up and that's why Dallas is yo-yoing through the schedule this past month. They haven't won three straight games since since a small stretch from Dec. 10 - Dec. 15. Since then, Dallas has been able to string together consecutive wins only twice.

Detroit is dealing with some major injuries so there will not be many better chances to steal a win from them. As the Wings are so hated by most of the hockey community, Dallas has a duty tonight to stop that train.

Kari Lehtonen should be the starter tonight. In his career at the Joe, he is 2-1-0 with a 2.01 GAA and a .954 save percentage.

Dallas will be without Brenden Morrow for another week it looks like due to his neck problems. Sheldon Souray will also miss this game due to a foot injury caused by blocking a shot.

more after the jump

Final

Dallas 2 - Los Angeles 4

Raise your hand if knew who Dwight King and Jordan Nolan were before yesterday's game. To be fair to Stars fans, I'm not entirely sure the Kings fanbase had any idea who these two kids were either. Dallas has a reason to know who these two guys are now that they both provided critical goals that were detrimental to the Stars season.

The fact that both of those guys were in their first NHL game and scored is shocking. That has to be the reason why these two guys scored a goal in their first NHL games ever right? Dallas just had no idea who they were and forgot to cover them (though it's not like the Stars cover a lot of people. It's mostly Kari Lehtonen anyway).

No matter who they were, the Stars came out in this game and just looked flat. They weren't getting outplayed or blown out of the water. They just looked slow and without emotion for the first 30 minutes of this game. Passes weren't crisp and were not reaching their intended targets. Dallas was throwing out turnovers again in their own zone as a result and any shot they had on Jonathan Quick was one that was not dangerous at all.

To come out in a game as important as this and look flat is inexcusable. Dallas has no other chance to get points directly from LA this season and needed to close the gap between the two (Dallas has a horrifically difficult schedule down the line). The Kings scored goals in the first and second period before Dallas was finally able to wake up and realize that this was a big game.

Loui Eriksson scored a goal that was moer fortune that skill. Alex Goligoski passed the puck from the left wing towards the goal where Loui was waiting. Jack Johnson was defending Loui and was in the perfect spot to stop the puck but he missed with his stick and the puck went right between his legs for an easy tap-in from Eriksson.

Dallas tied the game in the first five minutes of the third period as Michael Ryder sniped one past Quick and it looked like Dallas would be able to get a point out of this one. They controlled the run of play for the next five minutes or so, getting more chances to score the go-ahead goal but just couldn't do it. Jordan Nolan scored the game winner 11 minutes into the third and Justin Williams sealed it with an empty-netter at the end.

This just continues the poor, lethargic, uninspired play that Dallas has been prone to in the past couple of months. Kari Lehtonen has pretty much been the only guy night in and night out that has been showing up but even he struggled in this game, allowing three goals on just 15 shots (one of them a dribbler from Dwight King). The only guys that stood out to me as playing well throughout the game were Eriksson, Goligoski, Tomas Vincour and Mark Fistric.

Again, they were not just thoroughly outplayed by the Kings. They just allowed LA to go about their business for half of the game without much resistance. There was no fire on the offensive end, no real conviction to get the puck and go towards the net. Everything was a hopeful shot from far away. A wake-up call should have happened long ago, but it needs to be blared out every game from now on.

Dallas gets to play the Red Wings and their 20 game home winning streak on Tuesday as a challenge to get back on track.

more after the jump

LA Kings (26-19-11, 63 pts) @ Dallas Stars (28-23-3, 59 pts)

5:00 PM CT, February 12, 2012

American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas

It seems the last week of games have all been critical for the Stars and that certainly doesn't change tonight with a division rival coming into town. Dallas has dropped five points in the last five games and now sits four points out of the playoffs. Dallas played great against Buffalo on Friday, but unfortunately were burned by their own stupidity and the continuously struggling defense. 

This will be the sixth and final regular season meeting between these two teams and Dallas really needs to make this count. The Kings are four points ahead of the Stars but Dallas has two games in hand, which could be game-changers if they can take advantage of them.

After Dallas took a 2-0 lead four minutes into the third period, Radek Dvorak took a terrible holding penalty that would immediately lead the Sabres scoring a power-play goal. The game turned on its head after that and the Sabres owned the third period from that point on. They outshot Dallas 13-3 and it wasn't until the very shot with 40 seconds left that they would be able to tie the game. Dallas would lose in the shootout and saw a precious point fly away from them.

Kari Lehtonen has carried this team (he made about five saves that could be saves of the week or even the month) and he'll get the start again this evening as Dallas rides the hot hand. He's 2-1-0 against the Kings this season but hasn't had good numbers as he's allowed 10 goals in those three games (3.21 GAA and a .892 save percentage). He might not need to be that great tonight as the Kings are a terrible offensive team but it never hurts when he's on top of his game.

Brenden Morrow is out with his neck issues and Sheldon Souray is still out after getting hit in the ankle by a puck. Vernon Fiddler was also hit with a puck (from Mark Fistric) but it looks like he'll be fine for tonight.

Dallas Stars (28-23-2, 58 points) @ Buffalo Sabres (23-24-6, 52 pts)

6:30 PM CT, February 10, 2012

First Niagara Center, Buffalo, New York

Oh no! It's another back-end of a back-to-back game for the Dallas Stars. Everyone can go ahead mark that L onto their pocket schedules as Dallas surely can't win one of these right? Dallas gets try number 10 tonight, this time against those oh so wonderful Stanley Cup losing Buffalo Sabres.

Dallas needs to shore up the defense and stop (please stop) the lazy turnovers that are killing this team. Kari Lehtonen and Richard Bachman have enough to worry about. They don't need to think about whether or not their teammates understand that giving the puck away is bad. It's those two things that have led to all these losses for Dallas on the back-to-backs, especially the defense.

Nick Grossman needs to realize that you can't stop a shooter by standing behind him as he rushes the net. Since the turn of the calendar to 2012, he's become a human turnstile.

Shore up the defense, wake up Loui Eriksson (pointless in five games) and get some points from the top line against a struggling defensive team and Dallas might finally win one of these games. With the LA Kings game coming up on Sunday, this one is critical.

Brenden Morrow is out again with his neck problems. Sheldon Souray is questionable after getting a foot injury from blocking a shot yesterday. Give me some Mark Fistric in his place and not Adam Pardy please.

Richard Bachman should be getting the start tonight. He was let down by his defense last time he started the latter of a B2B so hopefully they show up tonight.

EDIT: Curveball ahead. Gulutzan decided that to change his mind from last night and start Lehtonen instead.

more after the jump

Final

Dallas 4 - Columbus 2

Nothing like a game against the worst team in the league to give a small boost to the confidence. The Stars got off to a quick start last night, getting goals from Jamie Benn and Alex Goligoski in the first five minutes, to help boost them to a win over the Columbus Blue Jackets. After that quick start, Dallas kinda bogged down and had to count to Kari Lehtonen too pull their collective bacon out of the fire multiple times.

The defend kept breaking down and turnovers reared its ugly head as Dallas just couldn't put their foot onto the Blue Jackets throat. Jeff Carter and Rick Nash got to the net at ease and despite how well the Stars played in the first, Dallas could have been down 4-2 after the first twenty minutes if not for Lehtonen.

A goal in the second period (a blast from Stephane Robidas) put Dallas up 3-0 and it looked like smooth sailing from then on. The only problem was that Dallas decided that midway through the second period, their penalty kill unit could use some extra work. The Stars started a parade to the penalty box as they took three consecutive penalties.

That extra PK work didn't prove very fruitful as the Jackets capitalized on two of them to bring the game back into doubt. It was a white knuckled ride from then on until, literally, the very last second of the game when Jamie Benn put in one of the more impressive empty-net goals you'll see.

Overall, this isn't a win that Dallas should be proud of, but it was absolutely critical for their season. The Kings and Wild lost last night while the Coyotes annoyingly went into another overtime (and won), this time against the Flames so each got at least a point there. Dallas now sits two points back of Phoenix with two games in hand.

The lack of a killer instinct last night was disturbing. They had a chance to really put that game away and try to conserve some energy for the back half of a back-to-back against Buffalo but they had to expend a lot of energy instead. They have a quick turnaround and an early game against the Sabres, so hopefully that doesn't come back to bite them (though it probably will). There's no excuse for stupid play and Dallas had a bunch of that yesterday.

more after the jump

Dallas Stars (27-23-2, 56 points) @ Columbus Blue Jackets (15-32-6, 36 pts)

6:00 PM CT, February 9, 2012

Nationwide Arena, Columbus, Ohio

If there's any team that Dallas would want to face coming off an embarrassing 4-1 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes, it would have to be the Columbus Blue Jackets. Playing the worst team in the NHL is never bad thing, especially when each and every point matters. The only problem is that Dallas has struggled against the Blue Jackets this season.

Don't let the Stars 2-1-0 record against the Columbus fool you, each game has been a grind. Twice, Dallas was tied or behind heading into the third period and the third time they were clinging to a 1-0 lead. The last matchup was horrendous for Dallas as they lost 4-1 on home ice.

Dallas needs to play with a purpose today. This is the first game of yet another back-to-back (tomorrow against the Buffalo Sabres) and they need to be able to come out today and show that they are the better team. Drag out this game and that will only mean that a tired team will travel to Buffalo and play an early game (never good news). If Dallas drops three of four points on this road trip, their playoff chances are as good as dead. The name of the game is energy tonight.

Adam Pardy should be recalled from the Texas Stars before this game. He might make his way back into the lineup, though hopefully not at the expense of Philip Larsen. Pardy was actually an assist machine in his short "conditioning" stint in the AHL so who knows, he might not completely suck anymore (doubt it).

Only Brenden Morrow is out due to his lingering neck problems. 

I expect Lehtonen to get the start tonight and Bachman to go tomorrow.

Final

Dallas 1 - Phoenix 4

There are a lot of ways to react to a loss like the one that Dallas had last night: Anger, embarrassment, indignation, pity, sadness but I felt only one thing, apathy. I just couldn't get angry over how poorly the Stars played in one of the most critical games of the season because that's what the Stars have become this year. They are a team that, at times, has shown that it just doesn't care.

This up and down season just continued last night with a bad 4-1 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes, one of the most lopsided victories either team has had in this matchup in recent years (though Phoenix has beaten the Stars by three goals twice this season now). The Yotes didn't just score four goals, they scored with their third and fourth liners.

Three of Phoenix's goals came while the third or fourth line was on the ice while the other came from the one guy that Dallas should never leave open, Radim Vrbata. Defensive coverages from the Stars are just a joke. Nick Grossman had another abysmal game as he turned into the human turnstile once again. If it wasn't for Kari Lehtonen, this game could have ended with Phoenix scoring six or seven goals.

Lehtonen kept Dallas in this game for a long time but just couldn't cover up for the defensive miscues as it got closer to the end. He had an incredible point blank diving save on Ray Whitney that would have been illegal in 49 states. Michael Ryder had just scored the game tying goal two minutes into the second period as his shot slipped under Mike Smith's armpit.

The Coyotes tried to answer immediately and Whitney had his chance just 17 seconds later. That save was supposed to provide the momentum that Dallas needed in this game but they just couldn't get into it. Phoenix would score their second goal later in that period and all the air went out of the building.

The Stars had chances to get back into it with power-plays but those never looked dangerous enough. Dallas did a lot of passing and cycling of the puck but there was no movement from the players. Everyone just stood in the same spot and the puck would go into the same area over and over again as Dallas tried to get a shot and hope for a tip instead of trying to crash towards the net and force the issue. Heck, the players didn't even rotate spots and made it very easy for Phoenix to defend.

The loss is just made worse because the Minnesota Wild has also lost that night, which meant that whichever team won this game would have found themselves in the eighth spot in the West. Turns out that would not be Dallas. To make matters worse, the Colorado Avalanche also won last night and they vaulted over the Stars as well in the standings.

Dallas makes their return to ice on Thursday when they travel to Columbus to face the lowly Blue Jackets, a team that they have already lost to once this season.

more after the jump

Phoenix Coyotes (24-21-8, 56 pts) @ Dallas Stars (27-22-2, 56 pts)

7:30 PM CT, February 7, 2012

American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas

Dallas gets another taste of division play tonight (their third in four games this month) as the invisible Phoenix Coyotes come into town. The Coyotes are, of course, the only team in the league that has a worse average attendence than the Stars (though the attendence in Dallas has been solid since the price changes. Sell-out last game!). Both Phoenix and Dallas sit two points of the last spot in the playoffs so needless to say, tonight is a huge game.

Dallas is continuing its up and down season, alternating wins and losses in its last three games. They outlasted the Minnesota Wild 2-1 in a shootout win on Saturday. Kari Lehtonen has been back in his early season form, winning his last three games and stopping 93 of 96 shots.

Traditionally the matchups have been very close between these two teams so he'll be integral again tonight. Lehtonen might have some bad memories though of the last time these two teams played back in Novermber. Lehtonen suffered a groin injury in that game that kept him out of the lineup for a month.

The only injury for Dallas is Brenden Morrow, who is dealing with neck and back problems for the second time this season. He should miss the next week of games. They also made a move yesterday by sending Adam Pardy down to the AHL for a "conditioning assignment." All that means is more time for Mark Fistric and Philip Larsen. They expect Pardy back for Thursday's game against the Blue Jackets.

Lehtonen will be the starter in net tonight.