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<\/a><\/p>\nDallas has an interesting advanced stat profile. Many a top team in the league has a good shot-based process where they control the puck in the offensive zone and pile up way more shots on goal and shot attempts than their opponent. The Stars, not so much. They don\u2019t dominate in control like that, but they are very effective at finishing and scoring goals in the opportunities that they do create. The Stars aren\u2019t usually out there constantly pressuring and building sequences into goals (ala a Carolina or Colorado), Dallas is going to lay in the weeds and then, bang, generate a chance (and probably score on it).<\/p>\n
That will present an interesting challenge for the Penguins, who usually concede a good bit on the rush.<\/p>\n
Kevin Hayes – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust<\/p>\n
Tommy Novak – Evgeni Malkin – Anthony Mantha<\/p>\n
Rutger McGroarty – Ben Kindel – Ville Koivunen<\/p>\n
Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte – Boko Imama<\/p>\n
Parker Wotherspoon \/ Erik Karlsson<\/p>\n
Ryan Graves \/ Connor Clifton<\/p>\n
Goalies: Tristan Jarry and Arturs Silovs<\/p>\n
Potential Scratches: Joona Koppanen, Matt Dumba, Harrison Brunicke (AHL rehab assignment)<\/p>\n
IR: Filip Hallander, Justin Brazeau, Rickard Rakell, Caleb Jones, Noel Acciari<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a big \u201cwe\u2019ll see\u201d on these projected lines after yesterday\u2019s practice<\/a> had Novak on the first line, Malkin getting a day off and injured players Brazeau and Acciari potentially one step closer to returning. Presumably Malkin should be back, and Kyle Dubas\u2019s timeline on the others would suggest they won\u2019t be quite ready yet, though Dubas could have been conservative with his public projections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (13-7-5, 31 points, 5th place Metropolitan Division) @ Dallas Stars (19-5-5, 43 points, 2nd place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,9722],"class_list":{"0":"post-79247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news","11":"tag-game-preview"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>Hintz isn\u2019t a complete unknown and has been on the radar as far back as a great playoff back in 2019 as rookie, but I confess I didn\u2019t realize he has four straight 65+ point seasons and has averaged 33 goals from 2021-25. Sneaky great player there that doesn\u2019t catch enough attention.Still can\u2019t believe that somehow Rantanen ended up on a division rival to Colorado. That would be like the Penguins somehow getting Zach Werenski or Sebastian Aho (well, the forward one). Stuff like that for an elite player in his prime getting away is so rare in the modern day NHL, and then to wind up on a quality team in the same division? Still hard to believe things played out the way they did.Benn, 36, is getting close to the end of the line but is still kickin\u2019. He\u2019s been a regular with Dallas since 2009 and accepted a one year, $1.0 million contract to come back this season. Benn\u2019 been around so long he was teammates with players that were from a different era \u2014 Mike Modano, Jere Lehtinen, Marty Turco. Benn\u2019s one of those vets where the only thing missing is a Cup. The Stars have been relatively close lately, three straight WCF losses and a SCF loss before that in 2020, can Benn get there before his time runs out?<\/p>\n