Considering the hockey gods have me working through tonight’s game in it’s entirety, I will post something up now.
Biggest news for tonight? Richards is out, resting a groin injury. Don’t expect him to be out more than a couple weeks after last year, he’s been playing through it this season and decided to rest it for a while. This means that the weight of being the top line has officially shifted to Ribeiro/Morrow/Benn. When you have a second line that was effectively our first line the last two seasons, then you don’t really have anything to panic about. Considering the Richards line was shored up by the arrival of Neal, they will shift down and become an above average 2nd line with Eriksson and Neal on the wings and the new kid in the center. We can talk about the injury bug and whether or not it’s coming back for the sequel this season or not in another blog.
Look for the Stars to control the tempo. The Kings got off to a solid start but are back to their struggling selves. If there’s one thing we can say about the Stars it’s that the rivalries of last season aren’t really much to worry about. The nights where somehow the Kings beat the Stars over and over again, are probably over in this new high octane system. Expect either a close one if they don’t show up to play/the Kings come with their A+ game that we saw in the first few games from them – or a blow out if they play like they have been and the Stars play like we know they can.
Coming off of the (surprising) win in Chicago this is the perfect setup to gain momentum. Take down a struggling team, send their losing streak to 4 – get our first two in a row – take the momentum and lay down death and destruction on the rest of the road trip. Then let Richards come back and continue on with some solid stats.
The Dallas Stars Assertion 