Can the Dallas Stars continue their nascent winning streak tonight against the Minnesota Wild? It may depend on whether they try to beat scoring with scoring.
Wes and Mark think the Victory Green Gang needs to expect to win. And they devoted our latest podcast to talking about how the Stars go about accruing points against the Central Division rivals who happen to be ahead of them. In this edition:
- Can we chalk up the Stars’ latest victories to systematic improvements, or to catching tired (and possibly bad) teams on the second half of a back-to-back?
- How much better is team defense with John Klingberg than without?
- How hard is a hard turtle, and how do the Stars stop doing that?
- Would you rather clear the zone or keep everything to the outside?
- How are the Stars adjusting to being a three-line team after being a one-line team since the Victory Green heyday of Aleš Hemský and Patrick Sharp ended?
- Is Riley Tufte playing enough minutes to make a trip to Big D worth it? Or is he likely to learn his best lessons off the ice while in Dallas?
- When you have a Denis Gurianov, how much do you use a Denis Gurianov?
- How is Ryan Suter doing next to Klinger?
- Where are Jake Oettinger’s skills improving?
- And how filthy will Roope Hintz get now that he’s riding the regression monster?
What’s your prediction for tonight’s game? Here’s to another W! (Full disclosure: Stargazing’s ratings go up after those, so it’s not as if we’re disinterested.)
As always, we invite burning questions from every end of the spectrum. Post them in the comments, or seek us out @WesALawrence or @KETibbetts.