Stars at Hurricanes
The Dallas Stars own the best record in the Western Conference as they continue a four-game road trip with a visit to the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night. The high-powered Stars rebounded from a surprising loss at lowly Toronto with a 5-2 victory at Boston on Tuesday night behind a hat trick from ex-Bruin Tyler Seguin.
"Even the games that we've lost, we've had a chance to win them or just made some mental mistakes that definitely could have not happened," Dallas captain Jamie Benn said. "But I like where we're sitting right now." Carolina has been off for four days since a 4-3 loss to Tampa Bay snapped its three-game winning streak. After being limited to two goals of fewer in six of their first eight games, the Hurricanes have scored three goals in each of the last four contests. Dallas and Carolina split two meetings last season, with the road team prevailing in each.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, FSN Southwest (Dallas), FSN Carolina
ABOUT THE STARS (10-3-0): Seguin has four goals and six assists during a six-game point streak to move into a tie with Benn for the league scoring lead with 20 points apiece. "I'm probably just as happy as he is," said Benn, who collected a pair of assists in the win at Boston. "But the bigger thing is that we got two points in a tough building, we responded well as a team, and now we can move on." Seguin scored two of Dallas' three power-play tallies against Boston to boost the Stars to 13-of-44 (29.5 percent) with the extra skater.
ABOUT THE HURRICANES (5-7-0): After collecting one point in a six-game span, forward Kris Versteeg came alive in the past two games for Carolina, registering a goal and four assists to take over the team lead with 10 points. The lengthy break has allowed coach Bill Peters to tinker with his line combinations and power-play units, even though the Hurricanes scored on the man advantage in each of the last two games following a 1-for-21 drought. Goaltender Cam Ward is 3-3-1 with a 3.57 goals-against average versus Dallas.
OVERTIME
1. Seguin has seven goals in 15 games versus Carolina.
2. The Hurricanes assigned F Joakim Nordstrom to Charlotte of the American Hockey League for a conditioning stint.
3. Stars G Kari Lehtonen is 8-12-1 with a 3.42 GAA versus the Hurricanes while Antti Niemi is 0-2-0 with a 4.53 GAA against them.