Is Tonight’s Dallas Stars Game A Must Win?

The Stars will be taking on the NY Rangers tonight at AAC in what some (me) are calling a must win game. Yes, it’s regular season but we are on a slippery slope of no return after a dreadful 5 game losing streak in which we’re averaging a whopping 1.6 goals per game.

It may prove to be a difficult task though because New York has actually been fairly decent this year. While NY is still 5 points back of a Wildcard spot, they are however 8 games above .500 and coming off one of the bright spots of their season — when just the other night Mike Zibanejad (yes I had to look up how to spell that) scored 5 goals including the game winner. For the dozen of hockey and dubstep fans, Zibanejad has also been called the 4th member of Swedish House mafia as a part time DJ and actually has some decent songs.

On the other hand, the Stars of late have been absolutely disgusting. Their Power Play has been completely lacking and their studs have been just as bad. Team points leader Tyler Seguin has only 2 points in the last 5 games, while 3rd leading scorer Alexander Radulov has been “sick” for the past 2 games. I call bullshit on the Mad Russians sickness and think coach Rick Bowness has just been sitting him on purpose because of his lack of scoring.

Although the Stars offense has been horrific, the defense has held up their end of the bargain and is the reason why we still own the 3rd position in the Central Division. Stephen Johns has really stepped up the physicality and has become a great partner with the Finnish Fenom Miro Heiskenan. Ben Bishop also gets his 2nd start tonight after missing a few games for his usual spring injury that you can set your watch to every year. He was solid against Nashville on Saturday only giving up 1 goal while the rest of his team played tiddlywinks on offense.

Stars are -170 on the moneyline tonight but +155 on the -1.5 puckline. Take the Stars puckline and the over at 5.5 goals. Because despite my pessimism and bashing, I think we finally get some offense rolling tonight to get off the schnide.

PS: Pray for the poor Stars beat writers who are no longer allowed to ask players questions in the locker room due to CoronaVirus. Oh the humanity