Ken Hitchcock’s return to the Dallas Stars has already been mired with some bad luck. The former Blues coach, who was relieved of his duties in February, had to watch his team lose 2-1 to the expansion Golden Knights last night. His team also lost Ben Bishop:
Update
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) October 7, 2017
-Ben Bishop leaves the game with an apparent injury.
-Kari Lehtonen now in.
Hopefully he'll Leh-ton-en for us
Kari did not disappoint.
Lehtonen is expected to start tonight for the Stars as well, who would like to bounce back from last night, which I am sure the addition of former Blue Adam Cracknell to the line-up will contribute toward.
After last night’s loss, Hitch had this to say:
"We were awful good for a long time yesterday," Hitchcock said. "I look at the first ten games. Ten games is when you finish your evaluation. We know we are going to have some blips and we are just going to have to fight through it. We did so many good things yesterday, and it was frustrating to lose that hockey game the way we played, but that's the way things go. I think we've got to carry a lot of our good play from there into this game."
That sounds awfully familiar.
Here are the Stars’ projected lines going into tonight. Scratch your head at who some of these guys are all that you want to - that top line packs some punch.
Jamie Benn - Tyler Seguin - Alexander Radulov
Mattias Janmark - Jason Spezza - Brett Ritchie
Devin Shore - Martin Hanzal - Tyler Pitlick
Antoine Roussel - Radek Faksa - Adam Cracknell
Esa Lindell - John Klingberg
Marc Methot - Jamie Oleksiak
Dan Hamhuis - Stephen Johns
Kari Lehtonen
Ben Bishop
The Blues’ lines remain entirely unchanged from Wednesday’s win over the Penguins. The team played generally well, despite allowing some flurries of activity at times that Jake Allen was able to fight off. The third period, however, was a different story. If the Blues would rather not give their fans a heart attack during the home opener, Brayden Schenn and Chris Thorburn may want to keep the brainfarts to a minimum.
Remember, don’t throw the puck, and if the opportunity presents itself, clear the damn thing.