Stars at Oilers
The Dallas Stars look to cap a perfect three-game road trip through Western Canada and notch a fourth straight victory when they visit the reeling Edmonton Oilers on Sunday. Tyler Seguin had an assist in Dallas' 2-1 triumph over Calgary on Friday and scored twice in his team's 3-2 win against Edmonton on Nov. 25. Kari Lehtonen also excelled in both contests, turning aside 21 shots versus the Flames while making 35 saves to improve to 12-3-1 in his career versus the Oilers.
While Dallas is getting its act together, Edmonton fell for the sixth straight time (0-5-1) and 17th in 18 contests (1-12-5) with a 4-3 setback to San Jose on Thursday. Boyd Gordon scored in his return from a five-game absence due to a back injury and also tallied in the previous meeting against the Stars. Taylor Hall is mired in a career-worst 11-game goallless drought since recording the 100th of his career in that loss to Dallas.
TV: 6 p.m. ET, FSN Southwest (Dallas), RSN West (Edmonton)
ABOUT THE STARS (13-13-5): Coach Lindy Ruff had planned to give Anders Lindback a start in one of the first two contests of the road trip, but Lehtonen's play is the reason the latter has seen his consecutive start stretch reach five games. "After the shutout (27 saves in a 2-0 victory over Vancouver on Wednesday), it was an easy decision to come back with Lehtonen," Ruff said. "To go the other way, I could've got heavily criticized." Captain Jamie Benn scored and set up a goal against Calgary to reach the 300-point plateau of his career - with 18 (10 tallies, eight assists) coming in 17 meetings with Edmonton.
ABOUT THE OILERS (7-20-6): Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored his ninth goal of the season on Thursday to move ahead of the slumping Hall, who has heard his name bandied about in potential trade discussions. The top overall pick of the 2010 draft, Hall is well off the pace of the career high-tying 27 goals he recorded in the 2011-12 and 2013-14 seasons. Offense is sorely needed in Edmonton, which has scored 21 goals in its last 14 games and is 3-for-33 on the power play in that stretch.
OVERTIME
1. Dallas failed on all four power-play opportunities versus Edmonton in the first meeting and is 0-for-5 in its last three games overall.
2. The Oilers own an 0-6-3 mark against Central Division representatives and are 1-16-5 versus the Western Conference overall.
3. All eight of the Stars' victories versus the West have come at the expense of Pacific Division foes.