Stars at Predators
The Dallas Stars lost a pair of head-to-head matchups to St. Louis in a nine-day span, a pair of defeats that may have torpedoed their Central Division title chances. Still holding down third place in the division, the Stars aim to halt a three-game slide when they play the first leg of a home-and-home at the Nashville Predators on Thursday night.
Dallas has dropped three in a row for the first time in three months, coming out on the short end of its third straight one-goal decision in Tuesday's 2-1 overtime setback to visiting Edmonton. Stars coach Rick Bowness called the loss "one of our better games all year, from start to finish. ... If we play like that, we'll live with the result." Like Dallas, the Predators have also hit a rut by dropping three in a row to fall two points out of the second wild card in the Western Conference. "Every single point right now, it's such a tight race, it's huge," Nashville's Mikael Granlund said. "You lose, you win, you've just got to keep moving forward and get ready for the next one."
TIME: 8 p.m. ET. TV: FS Southwest, FS Tennessee
ABOUT THE STARS (37-21-8): A lack of offense has been a season-long struggle for Dallas, and the latest player battling a slump is Alexander Radulov, who is in the midst of a 12-game drought and has scored in only one of the past 18 games. Radulov, who scored 56 goals over the previous two seasons, also had failed to generate more than four shots on net in 25 straight games. “No one competes as hard as Rads does," Bowness said. "But if he keeps putting pucks to the net and stays with it, then those goals are going to come.”
ABOUT THE PREDATORS (32-26-8): Craig Smith had managed only one assist in seven games before potting his 18th goal Tuesday to tie for the team lead with Nick Bonino and Filip Forsberg, who is mired in a 16-game goal rut and hasn't lit the lamp since Jan. 30. Captain Roman Josi assisted on Smith's tally to establish both a career high and a franchise single-season record for a defenseman with 62 points. The team leader in points and assists (46), Josi has scored twice during a four-game point streak to set a career high with 16 goals.
OVERTIME
1. Stars D John Klingberg has goals in back-to-back contests to extend his point streak to four games.
2. Predators top-line C Ryan Johansen sat out Tuesday's game due to illness.
3. Stars rookie F Denis Gurianov has scored in three of the past four games.