Coyotes at Stars
Jim Montgomery is champing at the bit to make his NHL coaching debut as his Dallas Stars host the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday in the season opener for both teams. Montgomery spent five seasons with Denver in the NCAA before taking over for the retired Ken Hitchcock as coach of the Stars, who have missed the playoffs in eight of the last 10 years.
"Excitement (is what I expect from my NHL debut)," Montgomery said. "I'm going to have the (arm)pits going and I'm going to be nervous, and I'm going to be having fun with it." Tyler Seguin (team-high 40 goals), captain Jamie Benn (36 goals, club-best 79 points) and Alexander Radulov (27 goals) likely will make opposing defenses sweat as the dynamic top line accounted for 45 percent of Dallas' goals last season and 64 percent of its power-play tallies. Arizona is hoping to avoid a pitiful start that doomed its campaign in 2017-18, as it dropped its first 11 games and 18 of 20 (2-15-3). Facing Dallas isn't a recipe for success for the Coyotes, who have lost seven straight to the Stars and are 0-7-3 in their last 10 games in the Lone Star State.
TV: 8:30 p.m. ET, FS Arizona, FS Southwest (Dallas)
ABOUT THE COYOTES (29-41-12, 8TH IN PACIFIC): Clayton Keller finished third in the Calder Trophy voting last season after scoring a team-best 23 goals to go along with 42 assists, which tied Derek Stepan for top honors. The 20-year-old Keller will join fellow young forwards Brendan Perlini and Christian Fischer in looking to improve the 30th-ranked offense of an Arizona club that shuffled Maxi Domi to Montreal for Alex Galchenyuk. Puck-moving defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who logged a team-best 23:41 of ice time, looks to pay dividends after signing an eight-year contract extension. Niklas Hjalmarsson and Alex Goligoski will lead a promising defensive corps in front of Antti Raanta, who posted a .930 save percentage during an injury-riddled season in 2017-18.
ABOUT THE STARS (42-32-8, 6TH IN CENTRAL): John Klingberg (club-best 59 assists) is one of the league's best pure-scoring defensemen and Miro Heiskanen is a top-tier prospect, but Dallas doesn't have much for which to speak along its back end. While Esa Lindell was an impressive plus-19 last season, Dan Hamhuis departed to Nashville and Marc Methot and Roman Polak likely won't log significant minutes. Ben Bishop posted a 26-17-5 mark with a 2.49 goals-against average and .916 save percentage last season, but the towering goaltender will have Anton Khudobin looking for more playing time after signing a two-year contract in July.
OVERTIME
1. Arizona F Dylan Strome, who was the third overall pick of the 2015 NHL Draft, recorded 53 points in 50 games split between the NHL and Tucson of the American Hockey League.
2. Dallas C Jason Spezza, 35, scored just eight goals last season after erupting for 33 during the 2015-16 campaign.
3. The Coyotes finished 26th on the power play (16.9 percent) last season.