Pete DeBoer’s Dallas Stars will look to take a two games to one lead in their Western Conference Quarterfinal series when they oppose Jared Bednar’s Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena on Wednesday evening. The Stars drew even in the series on Monday night with a 5-4 overtime home win. Colin Blackwell notched the winning tally at 17:46 of sudden death.
There is mixed news for the Stars on the injury front heading into Game 3. Top-pairing defenseman Miro Heiskanen accompanied the team on the trip to Dallas. High-scoring winger Jason Robertson, however, remains unavailable.
The Stars are typically a very good road team – 73-37-13 over the last three seasons, 3.40 goals per game average, 2.68 team goals against average — and have also specifically had head-to-head against Colorado in recent years. Last year, in the Western Conference Semifinal, the Stars won all three games played in Denver while dropping two of three (Games 1 and 5) at American Airlines Center. While last year’s outcomes are irrelevant to how the games will play out this spring, this much is certain: The Stars are not intimidated by the altitude, not having the last line change or the other built-in challenges.
If Heiskanen (who has been practicing in a non-contact jersey) is not quite ready to play, the Stars will go with the same lineup the club featured in Game 1:
64 Mikael Granlund – 24 Roope Hintz – 96 Mikko Rantanen
27 Mason Marchment – 95 Matt Duchene – 91 Tyler Seguin
14 Jamie Benn – 53 Wyatt Johnston – 63 Evgenii Dadonov
10 Oskar Back – 18 Sam Steel – 15 Colin Blackwell
23 Esa Lindell – 44 Cody Ceci
55 Thomas Harley – 46 Ilya Lyubushkin
6 Lian Bichsel – 28 Alex Petrovic
29 Jake Oettinger
[1 Casey DeSmith]
Game time is 8:30 p.m. CDT. The game will be televised on ESPN.
