A visit to Los Angeles might provide the Dallas Stars with an ideal opportunity to rebound after their franchise-record-tying, seven-game winning streak came to an abrupt end.
Looking to get back on track, the Stars aim for a seventh straight head-to-head road win over the Kings on Thursday night.
In position to make franchise history Wednesday night, Dallas blew a 4-2 third-period lead in a disheartening 5-4 road loss to the Vegas Golden Knights.
Joe Pavelski scored twice for the Stars and Jason Robertson added a goal and an assist, giving him five goals and six assists in a seven-game point streak. Pavelski has five goals and six assists in his past six contests.
Despite the impressive attack, Dallas but could not hang on against the relentless Golden Knights, who outshot the Stars 45-23.
It was just the second defeat in 11 games for the Stars, who while playing well overall at the moment, have allowed 20 goals while losing three of their past four road contests. Dallas, though, has won eight of its past nine visits to Los Angeles and has outscored the Kings 21-12 during its six-game winning run there.
“I don’t want to focus on the end result, I want to focus on the things we’ve been doing really well,” Dallas coach Rick Bowness said. “We’ve got to get back to playing our game (Thursday) night).”
Due to an incident at the Las Vegas airport unrelated to the team, the Stars reportedly were unable to fly out Wednesday night. They were slated to leave Thursday morning for Los Angeles.
Denis Gurianov scored late in overtime to give Dallas a 3-2 home win over the Kings on Oct. 22. Stars goalie Braden Holtby, who made 40 saves Wednesday, stopped 43 shots in that contest, while teammate Mio Heiskanen had a goal and two assists and Tyler Seguin recorded one goal and one assist.
Seguin, who scored Wednesday but was also a minus-3, has recorded nine goals and 13 assists in 23 career games against the Kings.
Los Angeles won seven in a row from Oct. 30-Nov. 11, but is 2-5-3 since. Following an impressive 5-1 win at Edmonton on Sunday, the Kings lost 4-0 at Vancouver one night later. It marked the third time this season that Los Angeles was shut out.
“We have to answer the bell better than we did (against the Canucks),” Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan said.
Kings forward Adrian Kempe registered his fifth consecutive season with double-digit goals after scoring twice against the Oilers. However, he has failed to earn a point in any of the eight career games he has played vs. Dallas.
Los Angeles goalie Jonathan Quick is mired in an 0-2-2 slump at home, where he has allowed a total of 10 goals in his past two starts.
Quick, who stopped 20 shots in the loss at Dallas this season, has alternated starts with Calvin Petersen over the past six games. Petersen stopped 26 of 30 shots on Monday against the Canucks.
Jake Oettinger is expected to be in the Dallas net for on Thursday. Oettinger has posted a 1.41 goals-against average and a .951 save percentage while winning all five of his starts this season. He has never faced Los Angeles in his career.
–Field Level Media
