PREVIEW: Blue Jackets move to Dallas to continue road trip
With two losses in a row, Columbus looks for a bounce-back game against the surging Stars
"We know that we're going to go through stretches like this," head coach Brad Larsen said. "We are a younger team, and things have gone fairly smooth up to this point. We know we've been able to score. We've been able to get through some games where even when we didn't play well, we've found a way to win. We've had excellent goaltending.
"This is a real good test for us now because we're really going to have to dig in and you're going to have to do it together. It's not going to be an individual guy. It's going to be five guys on the ice working through it, and we're going to have to do it on the road because we have a lot of road games coming up."
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It's a chance to close ranks and show what they're made of, and history to this point in the year shows Columbus has what it takes to get through it. This is just the second two-game losing skid of the year for the Jackets, and they've yet to lose three in a row heading into tonight's contest in Dallas.
What it might take for Columbus to get going again is to lean into its bread and butter. That means making some more simple, high-percentage plays a game after turnovers galore in the first period set the course for what became a 6-0 setback against Nashville on Tuesday night.
Both Jakub Voracek and Max Domi also mentioned the need to get the skating legs back. Larsen has said throughout the year that the Jackets are a young, fast team that will have to use its skating ability to beat opposition, but it's tough to keep the legs during a stretch in which Columbus is playing 10 road games in a 12-contest stretch, all in 24 days.
"You're human, so it's tough to maintain that, especially when you're a younger guy and you're not used to it," Domi said. "It just takes time, and it's a learning curve. It's something we can control and evolve and get better at and understand you're not going to have our legs every night. So OK, if you don't have your legs tonight, how can I impact the game in a positive way? That's part of adapting to the league, and the sooner we can figure out how to do that, the better off we'll be."
Know the Foe
If the Blue Jackets ae to get back on the right track, it's going to take topping one of the hottest teams in the NHL. After a tough start that had the Stars at just 4-6-2 -- including a 4-1 loss at Columbus on Oct. 25 -- Dallas has won seven of eight, including five straight with victories over strong St. Louis, Edmonton, Colorado, Arizona and Carolina teams.
The defense is what has led the Stars in recent games, as in the seven wins, Dallas has not allowed more than two goals in a game, ceding a total of 10 tallies in those victories (the outlier is the only loss in that eight-game span, a 7-2 setback at Minnesota on Nov. 18).
That run has moved Dallas into 10th place in the NHL in scoring defense, with the team allowing 2.75 goals per game total. The Stars also check in 21st in the league in scoring with 2.80 goals per game, a solid fourth in the league in power-play percentage at 26.8 percent and 20th in penalty kill at 80.0 percent.
The team's big guns have led the way of late, including the line of veteran Joe Pavelski, young standout Jason Robertson and Finnish forward Roope Hintz. Coming off a hat trick against Carolina on Tuesday, Hintz has goals in seven of the last nine games plus a 10-3-13 line in that span. In the past 13 games, Pavelski has six goals and nine assists. And in the past 13 games, Robertson has five goals and 10 assists.
Hintz also has helped lead the Stars' early charges as well. Dallas has become the 10th team in the last 40 years to score in the first 75 seconds of three straight games; Hintz has the last two of those tallies and hopes to become just the second NHL player ever to do so in three straight games against Columbus.
On the year, Pavelski leads the team in scoring with a 7-10-17 line, while standout defenseman Miro Heiskanen has three goals among his 16 points. Hintz is third on the team with a 10-5-15 line, while Robertson has five goals and 10 assists for 15 points. Veteran Ryan Suter is also in double digits in scoring with three goals and eight assists, while Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin each have 5-4-9 lines.
In net, veteran Braden Holtby is coming off playing in his 500th career game vs. Carolina and is 4-4-1 this year in a team-high 10 starts, posting a 2.30 GAA and .927 save percentage. Jake Oettinger has started four games and won them all, giving up just five goals and posting a .959 save percentage, while veteran Anton Khudobin is 3-3-1 in seven games with a 3.73 GAA and .873 save percentage.
